So, who wants to drill more?

Seriously, how can anyone still want to keep on with off-shore drilling. The US Gulf wetlands are facing the prospect of being irreparably damaged for a generation, if not more. The machinery to get the oil out is ridiculously complicated and difficult to install.... It's a wonder that disasters like BP's haven't occurred more often, or been equally catastrophic.

An oil rig, the helicopters to service it, and the ships to drill and transport petroleum to the coast all together cost 100's of millions of dollars - and that's just the initial fixed cost to get the thing up... Never mind the net present value of wages, maintenance, and operational costs for the lifetime of the investment... If just a fraction of that were deferred, to say, a venture fund that focused on clean energy start-ups, we might even find a couple of real solutions. Hopefully Better Place and the Nissan Leaf will catch on in a big way, soon.

What kind of politician brings eggs and smoke bombs to Parliament?

Fist fights break out in Ukraine between lawmakers: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/04/27/ukraine.punchup/index.html?hpt=C2

TF Hits it Again

Great article by Thomas Friedman summing up the current forces in American politics (basically Dems trying to do something, and Republicans not only doing nothing, but trying to shoot down all legislation). Came out yesterday, but seems all the more current given Joe Wilson's (R-SC) lack of decorum and any political common sense in heckling the President in the chambers of Congress while on national TV.

British Politics Are Way More Entertaining

If US Politics were this rowdy, I'd watch C-Span every day. Having to defend yourself so much would also be a good test of which politicians actually know what they're talking about.

Rise of the multinational as an inter-state actor

A perhaps, little-known fact, is that I (technically) got a degree in Foreign Affairs. UVA forced me to choose between a B.S. (my biz degree) and the B.A., and wouldn't give me both. I'm still pissed (and my foreign affairs work is classified as a minor).

Anyways, one of the theories I studied stated that in the future, states would begin to decrease in their power as the multinational company would begin to exert its force over the laws, cultures, and politics of the many countries it operated in... With Twitter and Google working to better enable communication within Iran, and from Iran to the outside world, perhaps this paradigm is beginning to take hold.

What a meeting of the minds

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for this meeting. Getting all of the living U.S. Presidents together... apparently it hadn't happened since 1981.

I think it's going to take a lot of strong creative and analytic thinking to solve the issues we face. I think it's a sign of strength for the new administration to be open to other ideas, but still have the grit to go ahead and do what it thinks is best.