admin

Imagine looking at earth from space. For the last few million years nothing happens, then in 1969, a small blip as a tiny spec leaves earth, touches the moon and then, blip, back again. This happens a few more times and then nothing. People complain about costly things such as space exploration and high energy physics experiments. Why spend money on these things when we have issues like poverty? This argument is nihilistic. Why do we build monuments, paint, make films, write music, when there is still poverty all around? There is enough food in the world; poverty is the result of politics, exploitation and war above all. Human space exploration is one of our greatest achievements. To try and rationalize unmanned space flight on the grounds of practicality misses the point, it is like saying that the Sistine Chapel would be brighter if it were whitewashed. As a byproduct,…

Meg Hourihan: “I tried to watch the State of the Union last night. I even thought about blogging as it happened, but I realized the post would be a reactionary, emotional tirade short on insight and reflection.” Nah Meg, I’d be listening, and isn’t the ‘a reactionary, emotional tirade short on insight and reflection’ what we normally get from the other side of the fence. megnut.com – a weblog by meg hourihan

Jonathan Freedland reports on the Israeli election and how attempts to reign in Sharon’s corruption actually helped him. “A fortnight or so ago, the PM [Sharon] was haemorrhaging in the polls amid allegations of undeclared, million-dollar foreign donations. He was under police investigation. To stop the slide, he gave a televised address. By common consent, it was a disaster, with Sharon rambling and aggressive. Halfway through, he was pulled off the air by order of a high court judge, for violating the election law which bars on-air politicking outside the official campaign broadcasts. Instantly, and curiously, the slide was halted. It turns out that the judge’s decision had helped Sharon, by confirming what many Likud voters have long believed: that the country’s institutions, including the judiciary, are still run by the same condescending, leftwing Ashkenazi elite of old.” Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Jonathan Freedland reports on the war…

“where the cold war against communism in Middle Europe brought America and Europe together, the “war against terrorism” in the Middle East is pulling them apart. The Soviet Union united the West, the Middle East divides it.” The New York Review of Books: Anti-Europeanism in America