Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Bits and Pieces - December 16, 2014

This article pretty well represents my feelings about Greenpeace's dumb stunt at Nacza, Peru. They need to pay for the damage they've done.

It looks like the South Polar ozone hole is doing a lot more than letting ultraviolet rays in.

Beautiful sea creatures.

It has always seemed to me that the ethos of blogging and the needs of magazines are contradictory. Scientific American has been having some problems with that, and they're trying to do something about it. A magazine can never grant the freedom I've got here.

The strategic cost of torture, racism, and bigotry.

Norm Ornstein talks candidly about racism in American politics.

Belarus - the Soviet-style dictatorship that has been Russia's bff - is worried about the big neighbor to the east.

Russia's lack of soft power.

1 comment:

The Blog Fodder said...

The strategic cost of torture, racism and bigotry is a superb article. If America had used the soft power it had at the end of the war in 1945 for good - to actually promote democracy around the world instead of suppressing it all over the world in the name of profitability for the 1%, think what a great world we would be living in. Today America as a country relies on payment and coercion.
Russia with its repressive Communist regime squandered any hope of soft power, as can be witnessed by how far former colonies are trying to distance themselves from RF. Putin has to rely on payment or coercion and as the article points out, is now down to simply coercion. Except for financing the far right, over which he also exerts some soft power.