danalwyn

So I haven't been paying much attention to the election. My concentration is mostly on foreign policy and foreign affairs, so I pay very little attention to the domestic mess that is the current US political campaign. I really don't like McCain, but I'm not entirely ecstatic about Obama either (although I'm currently supporting him). Neither seems to me to have much of a plan for America that I can get behind.

But this may be a misconception on my part of what their plan for America is. After all, it doesn't take a great genius to figure out that political platforms are now twisted into pretzels and donuts. So I'm going to make a pledge. I'm going to outline what I think are the five most important questions that the next President has to answer, one per post. I'm also going to outline what I think are the right answers. Any major candidate (not a write-in), who answers these questions in this way will get my vote. That's right Republicans! I hereby promise to vote for John McCain, if (and only if), you can get him to offer these answers to these questions.

So, time for question number one:

What are the most important strategic threats to America?

( My Answer )

A study I've been waiting for came out from LBNL this week.

The essence of the study deals with the environmental effects of replacing all roofs and pavements in the world's major city areas with cooler substances, simply by making them whiter and more capable of reflecting, instead of absorbing, sunlight and heat. Several estimates are made throughout the course of the slides I have, which may or may not accurate, but their conclusion is that every 1000 square feet of roof that you paint white will offset the temperature increase caused by the production of 10 tons of Carbon Dioxide. If we upgrade all urban areas to have cooler roofs and cooler pavements, the estimate is that we will counteract 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide production - more then the world produces in a year.

I'm not sure how accurate those figures are, but given the billions of dollars we'll save alone from reduced air conditioning prices, I think it may be definitely worth it.

The presentation was made by Hashem Akbari, of the Heat Island Group, at this week's California Climate Change Conference.

Noah Shachtman, over at Danger Room, reports on a suggestion by anonymous defense analyst to rebuild Georgia's forces based on a very interesting model, that of Hezbollah.

This is something I've thought about for a long time, and I have to confess that I probably should have written it down first. Then I could accuse others of plagiarism. That would be much more amusing.

But it's a really good idea, which, unfortunately, I doubt we'll go through with.

( Can We Build Our Own Hezbollah? )

Bush is supposed to comment on the situation in Georgia in a few minutes.

Unfortunately, out choices are limited. If all goes well, Russia will walk away with a massive strategic victory, well on its way to reasserting the New Russian Empire, and having weakened American influence around the world. Otherwise, we'll be at war with Russia by tomorrow morning.

I may not like the Russians, but I have to admit that we have been backed into a hell of a corner over this one.

A thought occurred to me the other day, which is such an unusual occurrence I thought I should set it down:

Imagine you are at a social gathering of some sort, and you find yourself, by chance, sitting next to a physicist. And suppose that for some odd, inexplicable reason, you do not immediately call the police, or animal control, but instead attempt to engage said physicist in conversation. Now, given the number of subjects that most people associate with physics, and the things that are most on people's minds, it might be entirely foreseeable that the conversation would turn to the Energy Crisis.

What will probably happen is a very confusing twenty minutes in which the physicist will expound on topics near and dear to his heart (almost inevitably, the social ineptitude required for this particular scenario requires a male), possibly including switchgrass, inertial-confinement fusion, and tidal energy platforms. At the end of this, by which time you may very well have given up all hope on a useful and concise answer, the physicist may finish his remarks with:

"But the real answer is going to be solar power."

"Solar power?" you ask.

"Of course," he says, "everyone knows that.", using a tone of voice which indicates that everyone includes all people with IQs higher than their shoe size and the literacy level of a first grader.


( Solar Power )

Edited to save some more of people's FLists.

So here's an interesting conundrum.

The EU apparently, due to rising prices in food, has some money to spare in its agricultural subsidy budget. About a billion euros out of the budget. Which will be donated, out of the goodness of their hearts, to aid farmers in Africa, because import food prices have become too high for most countries to import what they need. That seems a worthy endeavor.

The remaining 119 billion euros in the agriculture budget will go into subsidizing European farmers in order to prevent food prices from dropping.

Of course, as far as starving people in Africa are concerned, they might be able to get the same effect out of, say, dropping about a billion euros out of the subsidy budget, and devoting it to something worthwhile, like writing a constitution that can be read by someone without an advanced degree in European Union legalese. Or maybe, if they're on a free trade kick, they could even axe the entire 120 billion, and allow third world farmers to compete in the market.

But subsidizing the crops of your farmers, because they need to be able to afford to grow food, and the crops of your customers, because they can't afford to buy your food, at the same time, does not seem a reasonable long-term solution.

Ingrid Betancourt is free!

Man, between this, Marulanda's death, and Reyes's elimination, FARC is having a really bad year. I hope it continues.

I'm probably going to need a Zimbabwe tag at some point.

Here are some more random musings about Zimbabwe which I've decided to write down. I don't know what to make of them, nor do I know what others will make of them, but you're free to point and laugh.


( The Man Down A1 )

I was gone for a week, sick, and in the meantime Robert Gates got to kick the Air Force where it counts, as part of a long awaited, and long deserved crackdown on the Fighter Mafia. I should get sick more often.

I never thought I would say this about a member of the Bush Administration, but I'm really starting to like that man.

Then again, I'm prejudiced against the USAF, so that may be my problem.

So, if you've been paying attention to speculation around recently, you'll have seen an interesting question being bandied about. Which is, should we, we being the UN, the west, or any convenient bunch of allies you care to name, invade Burma and replace her government?

( Invade Burma? )