Over the weekend several newspapers ran articles on U.S. efforts to accelerate deployment of missile defenses in the Persian Gulf region. According to the New York Times, the U.S. is providing 2 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) batteries each to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman. The U.S. is also maintaining a constant presence […]
Today is National Freedom Day, marking the anniversary of the ratification the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution under Lincoln, promising freedom from slavery and involuntary servitude. The day was enacted by President Harry Truman on June 30, 1948, as he signed the bill proclaiming February 1 as National Freedom Day. I spent the evening […]
In Davos this year, mant global movers & shakers are expressing angst about the inability of Washington to effectively govern the nation. The images of ‘Tea Party’ activists, and the gratuitous levels of political hostility aimed at President Obama provide ample support for their concerns of political instability in America, and what it means to U.S. power around the globe.
Days after saying in his State of the Union speech that he does not quit, President Obama has proposed a budget that will end the U.S. manned space exploration program. The ambitious vision for space exploration proposed by President Bush (commonly called the “Moon, Mars & Beyond” program and officially called the Constellation Program), would […]
The Obama administration on Monday unveiled its plans for a fresh assault on international tax cheats that officials say will help reduce the Federal budget deficit from a record $1.5 Trillion this year. President Obama also announced the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget will make critical investments in job creation and continued economic recovery, while bringing a new level of responsibility to how tax dollars are spent.
One of the more surprising elements of Obama’s first State of the Union address was the way in which he addressed clean energy initiatives: “To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. […]
The challenge of delivering food to Haitians recovering from the January 12th earthquake has taken a new dimension. More food aid and locally grown food is available, but devising an effective system to distribute food remains a challenge. Currently, over 20 aid agencies, as well as the Haitian government are competing to mobilize distribution efforts […]
The world capital of libel is London. Not that there is a list or anything. And people are still finding imaginative ways of making money, despite the crisis. Take the English libel law. Under UK libel law, a defendant is guilty until proven innocent. Doesn’t matter if you are British or not. “English libel law […]
In follow-up to my Haiti post, Transparency International has just released a handbook on humanitarian aid. Very interesting and worth checking out.
This morning NPR’s Steve Inskeep profiled the music of Afghanistan’s Ammad Zahir as part of the program’s 50 Great Voices series, which highlights the most influential of singers from around the world. Zahir, called “Afghanistan’s Elvis” by many of his followers, was the king of the music scene in the go-go days of Kabul, when […]
By a politically divided 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday rolled back restrictions on corporate, including foreign interests, spending in U.S. Federal campaigns. The decision could unleash a torrent of corporate-funded attack ads in upcoming elections, and equates the rights of corporations with the rights of individual citizens.
News of irregular immigration into the United States often focuses on those trying to cross the border via land. Huge fences and security cameras monitor the divide between the US and Mexico (less so the northern border with Canada – that is material for another blog post), while scanning machines and dogs search cars and […]
The Christian Science Monitor carried an interesting feature yesterday about the prospects and potential for land reform in Africa. In it correspondent Jina Moore argues that land and access to resources is at the heart of most of the continent’s conflicts; thus, fixing land issues could offer a preventative fix for a region prone to […]
We’re up in Cambridge, Mass., and were over at the MIT Museum yesterday. One exhibit looked at the work of Daniel Nocera and his colleagues on developing a new catalytic process to convert water to oxygen and hydrogen. There is wonderful potential in this to create a zero carbon, closed loop distributed energy system. The […]
Wrap-up of Davos World Economic Forum 2010, from FT’s Money Supply blog.