The conference on Global Catastrophic Risks is meeting in the U.K. this week, and Reason Magazine provides a rundown of the major threats we face from outisde the planet, and more to the point, what industrialized nations like ours are doing about it.
In 1998, Congress charged NASA with surveying the skies to detect 90 percent of near earth asteroids (NEAs) greater than 1 kilometer in size in 10 years. An impact by a kilometer-sized asteroid could end civilization. Besides the blast, such an asteroid would inject so much dust into the atmosphere that it would cause global winter that would cause massive crop failure.
Proposals to have the Spaceguard Survey expand to detect NEAs as small a 100-meters are now being considered. Morrison groused that NASA has spent only $ 4 million on Spaceguard and argued that the magnitude of the risk merits a budget of half a billion dolars.
The study is dealing with three specific types of threats. The first is is the meteor problem. We haven’t found any dinosaur killers coming our way any time soon. Of course, while a one kilometer or greater diameter meteor strike would end civilization, if not drive us to extinction, considerably smaller objects could wreak major havoc. We’re still a long way from identifying all of the potentially dangerous objects down to the 100 meter range, which would impact with a force greater than the largest nuclear bomb in our posession.
The second threat they study is that of a massive Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) which could be generated by a star in this part of the galaxy going supernova. It could effectively put the planet inside a microwave oven for a while and would be catastrophic. Sadly, there’s not much we can do about that if WR-104 decides to blow up on us.
The last threat is from comets. We tend to have a pretty good grip on the icey comets from the Kuiper Belt (out near where Pluto orbits) such as Halleys. What this team is more worried about are rocky, “dark comets” in long period orbits coming from the Ort Cloud. They only show up rarely, but do so with little warning and they don’t have the flashy tails that their Kuiper cousins display. They remind us that the IRAS Araki-Alcock dark comet came zooming by in 1983, missing us by an astronomical hair’s breadth, and we didn’t even see it until it was two weeks out.
Congress is once again talking about trimming NASA’s budget for next year as everyone rushes to “fix government spending” during and election year. If cut funding for near earth orbiter studies and protective programs like Spaceguard, the good news is that you may only have a month or so to regret the decision. Keep that in mind while voting.
In this Guest Voice post, columnist Bill Steigerwald interviews Carnegie Mellon University economics professor and veteran economics consultant Allan Meltzer on the economy.
Our Sorry Economy — Interview with Allan Meltzer
by Bill Steigerwald
Carnegie Mellon University economics professor Allan Meltzer has served as a consultant on economic policy for Congress, the U.S. Treasury and the World Bank and has written “A History of the Federal Reserve,” part-one of his definitive history of the Fed that ranges from its founding in 1913 to 1951. On Thursday, July17, I called Meltzer, 80, at his home not far from the CMU campus to find out his thoughts on the sorry state of the economy — and what Washington is or is not doing right to make things better:
Q: Oil prices have taken a nice dip and stock prices are jumping. Is the worst over for the economy?
A: Who knows? The decline in oil prices is probably a sign that the oil market recognizes that the world economy is slowing. Despite all the talk about speculators, the facts about the oil market are very simple: The demand has been about 1 million barrels a day more than the supply. Demand has been increasing and the supply has been falling. So you don’t need to blame speculators to get a story about why the prices have been rising.
Looking ahead, the market sees — whatever the moment-to-moment problems are — that there’s going to be less demand for oil unless something changes. Now, what might change? Well, one thing is world demand, and world demand is, I think, seriously slowly.
Q: And stocks moving up is not the start of a big trend?
A: A lower oil price does help. Despite all the talk about the housing market — and the housing market is in many locations a serious problem — it is not the major problem, as far as I can see. The major problem for the economy is that people are really pushed against their budgets to pay for gasoline and food, which have risen. Oil prices get into every product we buy; every product moves by truck or airplane, and those industries are seeing serious cost increases. So prices are going to rise for transportation, and that affects everything we buy.
Wait until we see what is going to happen to the home heating-oil prices of people who use oil to heat next winter. It’s summertime now and, of course, they are running air-conditioners. But there’s going to be a real problem in the winter in New England and the Midwest with oil prices for home heating.
Why has the United States decided to resurrect the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet, which has been in mothballs since the 1950s? And why has it chosen to do so now?
People in South America have been debating these questions for months now. Here WORLDMEETS.US presents an analysis that has been quoted widely by Latin American newspapers and politicians like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro since it was published June 30th by Argentine newspaper Clarin.
“What reason could the United States have to send such a powerful naval force to a region at peace, without nuclear weapons, without conflict or any real military threats? “They’re never going to admit that it’s because of our natural resources, but it’s no coincidence that this decision comes just as a structural change is underway in the global economy, in which reserves of fresh water, food and energy resources (which our region has in abundance) have assumed such vital strategic value,” said Clarín Khatchik Der Ghougassian, specialist on security issues at the University of San Andrés [Argentina].”
“The commander of the Navy of Brazil, Julio Moura Neto, made it clear that his country will not under any circumstances accept any American naval intervention in Brazilian waters. There is a leader, Hugo Chávez, who is making life complicated for them. And there is a country - Brazil - with plans for leadership that isn’t necessarily opposed to the U.S., but rather takes power away from it.”
“The first was economic: with neo-liberalism, the U.S. rearranged the use of natural resources to benefit large multinationals and other political and economic groups. Due to the failure of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, it was not entirely successful. The second was legislative. It had Latin American constitutions - which were very nationalist - changed to allow the entry of foreign private capital and the shrinking of state interference. The third was military: the U.S. pushed for the approval of security laws that in some cases allow the free movement of the FBI or the CIA on our territory.”
Dan Ariely thinks we’re paying paying too much attention to the price of gasoline. He says we can’t help it because the price is plastered on every street corner, reported in every newscast, and we stand there day in and day out filling up our cars while staring at the meter:
For the several minutes that I stand at the pump, all I do is stare at the growing total on the meter — there is nothing else to do. And I have time to remember how much it cost a year ago, two years ago and even six years ago. […]
While we concentrate our anger on gas prices, we are ignoring increases in electricity, food and health insurance — expenses that might actually have a greater effect on our budgets.
I’ve read news reports about people who drive 20 miles from California to Mexico just to buy cheaper gas, and about people who trade in the gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s that they bought only a year ago for more fuel-efficient cars… I wonder if the person driving to Mexico considers the cost of the entire trip, including his time and wear and tear on the car. And I wonder if the person who takes a $20,000 loss on his S.U.V. ends up paying more for the trade than he can possibly save at the pump.
Perhaps it would be better if gas station attendants filled the tank for us, as they used to, so we did not stand at the pump watching the rising price of our gasoline. Maybe it would help if gas pumps came with bigger hoses so that filling up would go faster and we’d spend less time watching the meter. Or maybe we should just learn to examine all our purchases and expenses more holistically so that we see where rising costs make the biggest difference.
Meanwhile, the NYTimes reports a rise in online shopping in response to gas prices:
The Web sites of Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Bon-Ton Stores, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Target and Kmart were all offering a deal on shipping this week.
“With gas being such an issue, we know that mall traffic is down more than off-mall traffic,” said Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer for J. C. Penney, which had an 8.7 percent increase in Internet sales in the first quarter of this year.
That is in contrast to a 7.4 percent decrease in sales at stores open at least a year, known as same-store sales and a measure of retail health.
Hm. If they’re offering incentives, is it really gas prices that are driving those online sales?
You have to seriously wonder about Republican presumptive Presidential candidate Senator John McCain’s grasp of political imagery and desire to win over not just swing voters but Americans who are losing their homes, lost their jobs, and who can barely afford to fill up their gas tanks: according to columnist Robert Novak, McCain plans to keep former Senator Phil aka “mental recession” Gramm on as not just a campaign adviser but a campaign surrogate.
Unless you’ve been on Mars, Gramm is the former Senator who sparked not just a firestorm of denunciations but a hailstone storm of derision — and comedian and other joke punchlines — by saying the United States was merely suffering from a “mental recession” and that financially beset Americans were “a nation of whiners.” Once the firestorm broke, Gramm tried to clarify the statement as many politicos do, by saying he didn’t mean it meant what it sounded like he meant — which all but a recently removed gallbladder in a jar in at Mercy Hospital in San Diego know he meant.
But he insisted he stood by the statements…giving America the most vivid example yet of the formal end of the pretext of “compassionate conservatism.”
He claimed it was only talking about American’s political leadership. Which still didn’t explain what he meant by a mental recession. This was followed by some conservative talk show hosts saying, by golly, Gramm IS misunderstood and IS right — the economy really IS sound. (You can’t say “sound as a dollar” anymore because the dollar isn’t sound.) These hosts know the American economy is sound because they’ve seen this as they ride in their chauffeured limos and fly their private jets to speaking gigs.
McCain’s action as reported by Novak shows that he prizes political and personal loyalty, since Gramm is a longtime friend and close adviser That’s laudable enough.
But keeping Gramm on as a high-profile adviser will allow the Demmies to run quotes of Gramm’s comments in ads between now and the election as an example of someone who’ll be close to a President John McCain in a policy-making capacity.
Needless to say, the Obama campaign jumped on the news:
Senator McCain’s economic plan gives nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to the oil companies but doesn’t provide any tax relief to more than 100 million middle-class families. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise since today we learned that Phil Gramm will continue to advise Senator McCain on economic policy despite calling Americans struggling in this economy ‘whiners,’”.
Novak’s column frames this as a case of two people patching up a relationship.
The problem for the McCain campaign: most voters won’t perceive this election as an extended episode of The View, with recriminations, gaffes, ending in tearful apologies and people making up.
At a time when many Americans need to take out a loan to fill their gas tanks but can’t because they can’t get a loan on their house because their house is being foreclosed-on and their bank that would give them the loan is on a list of endangered banks, a surrogate and adviser who made a statement calling them “whiners” won’t be a stellar asset. As an adviser or a CREDIBLE on-camera surrogate.
It certainly sounds as if Christmas has come early this year for the Democrats.
Even though Santa can’t say “ho, ho, ho” anymore without being accused of slurring women, he can and has given Democrats the gift that most assuredly will keep on giving.
Is the Bush plan to meet with Iran’s nuclear negotiator a significant change in policy? And if so, why - and why now?
Say what one will about the French - they are no strangers to political intrigue and bureaucratic gamesmanship.
According to this Le Figaro editorial by Pierre Rousselin, this was a major change in policy - not the minor adjustment claimed by the White House. And the reason it’s coming now is to boost John McCain’s fortunes.
“The fact remains that the American administration has made an about-face: it has agreed to participate in discussions, even if those are presented as preliminary to Iran even accepting its conditions.”
“It comes particularly in the context of the U.S. election campaign. Negotiating with Iran is a demand put forward by Democratic candidate Barack Obama. In making this decision, the Republican Administration means to cut the grass out from under his feet and promote John McCain.”
“The Islamic Republic wants to be recognized by the United-States as an indispensable interlocutor. It can seize its chance now or wait for the next American president. But if it waits, escalating tensions could resume quickly.”
Al Gore’s work to protect and preserve not only this country’s but the world’s natural environment has found a great many useful expressions. He is, in fact, the best-known spokesman in this realm.
Yet, for reasons that seem incomprehensible to me, he still seems to be missing the key point that could advance this end far more effectively—the fact that environmentally sound behavior is almost always now also economically sound behavior. That making “the hard choices between the environment and the economy” is a basically a 19th century view that should no longer has a place in the thinking of 21st century planners.
This strange failing was again heard in Gore’s recent comments about freeing the U.S. from dependence on petroleum by 2020. He said this “would cost trillions of dollars,” the kind of statement that makes it sound as if this money would take away from something else, lower living standards, be a kind of pot-latching to Mother Gaia.
No, Al. That kind of statement is just plain misleading. The trillions of dollars going toward this hoped for objective isn’t destroyed. It is invested in new infrastructure. It will not “cost the economy” anything, any more than money that went toward converting from a horse-drawn economy to a car-based economy “cost” our economy anything when it occurred in the early part of the last century.
Words are important in winning arguments. “Costs” is a bad word in the energy context. “Investment,” “new jobs in new industries with great export potential,” “savings on fossil fuel achieved through the use of renewable resources,” those are the good words and phrases that should always be employed.
We have been using the wrong words about the environment-economic interface far, far too long. Use the right wording and desirable policy shifts will occur much, much sooner.
[P.S. I was an environmental adviser to the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, and was saying this back then. And frankly, I feel it’s really about time that folks in Washington finally got this stuff right!]
Speaking [in Las Vegas] at a political conference on Friday, Barr focused almost exclusively on privacy and eavesdropping–and argued that both major parties are far too surveillance-happy. “Both of them will continue down the same track,” Barr said, noting that both McCain and Obama supported last week’s bill to immunize telecommunications companies that illegally opened their networks to government snoops.
Congress’ legislative rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is “not about surveilling Al Qaeda,” Barr said. “It’s about surveilling U.S. citizens in America.” He added, for good measure: “This administration is the most anti-privacy, the most anti-individual freedom, in our nation’s history, certainly in my lifetime.”
This is hardly a Bush-McCain species of Republican speaking. It underlines Barr’s appeal: If you’re a traditional conservative who disagrees with the big-government policies, the surveillance, the inflation, the deficit spending, and the unnecessary wars of the Bush administration, vote for me. I was one of you, once.
It might work. More precisely, it might work well enough–think a Republican equivalent of Ralph Nader–to make a difference in states that would have tilted toward McCain otherwise. It’s certainly a more attractive message than the Libertarians’ 2004 candidate, a telemarketer-turned-programmer, had to offer.
Barr has an arch-conservative voting record, but claims he’s an honest-to-goodness convert to the cause:
He said a long time ago that he regrets voting for the Patriot Act; he wants an Iraq withdrawal “without undue delay”; the head of the Marijuana Policy Project formally nominated Barr at the Libertarian convention; Barr even endorsed a Libertarian presidential candidate in 2004. He founded a group called the American Freedom Agenda that opposes the White House’s policies in the so-called war on terror, and his supporters note he embraced a wealth of privacy measures while in Congress (see our coverage from 2002). […]
Barr also likes to swipe at the Real ID Act, a law creating a federalized identity card that’s effectively on hold until December 31. “It was passed by the Congress not as a national ID, which it is in every way except a name,” he said. “It is a national ID for the first time in our nation’s history…If certain people were elected president it would not go into effect.”
During the Libertarian Party’s presidential debate in Denver, the candidates were asked what they’d do about Real ID and the Patriot Act. Barr’s reply was captured on video by C-SPAN: “Fear has become the driving force behind all public policy in our country…(For the Patriot Act), I’d drive a stake through its heart, shoot it, burn it, cut off its head, burn it again, and scatter its ashes to the four corners of the world.”
Geeks and enthusiasts wearing Wordpress t-shirts, using laptops covered in Data Portability, Microformats and RSS stickers lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed source applications wrapped in DRM.
I am referring to the new iPhone - and the new Apple iPhone SDK that allows developers to build ‘native’ applications. The announcement was greeted with a web-wide standing ovation, especially from the developer community. The same community who demand all from Microsoft, feel gifted and special when Apple give them an inch of rope. When Microsoft introduced DRM into Media Player it was badbadbad - and it wasn’t even mandatory, it simply allowed content owners a way to distribute and sell content from anywhere.
Apple has wrapped the iPhone SDK in enough licensing, security controls and right management that it would make the Microsoft Active Desktop team blush. The phone and platform that is certain to soon take second spot behind Symbian in the smart phone market is also the most restricted and closed. Applications can only be installed from a single source, iTunes, and open source applications and distribution is near impossible. How do you install an iPhone application without iTunes? Where are the community advocates arguing for a standard interface, openess and free code? [READ ON]
It’s become quite fashionable in some quarters to blame the oil companies for all ills — a position verging on hypocritical. Either they’re greedy for the big bucks, or they’re sitting on oil they could produce but won’t. (Can’t really make that argument work both ways.)
Along those lines… last night, while flipping through the TV channels, I stumbled across C-Span, and a Democratic congress-critter droning on about offshore drilling, and current oil leases, and how the oil companies aren’t doing anything with them.
This argument has always struck me as specious, but never more so than lately. With the current price of oil, how can anybody seriously think oil companies would deliberately ignore any possible source of income?
And now, there’s another debate kicking up now around leases, and production… only this time, some Democrats see the oil companies as the good guys.
I’m getting dizzy. Are Democrats pointlessly obstructing offshore drilling, and simultaneously being pragmatic about oil shale?
You may have missed it, but over the 4th of July YouTube received a court order to hand over user viewing data from its database — including usernames and IP addresses — to Viacom in the ongoing $1 billion lawsuit against the video sharing service.
YouTube refused. Randy Picker at the University of Chicago Law Faculty Blog, and David Robinson at Freedom to Tinker considered the implications. Yesterday Google and Viacom reached an agreement.
The Google-Viacom showdown over the handover of YouTube user data appears to be over. The two sides agreed to changes in a previous ruling that would have required Google to hand over user id’s, IP addresses and a list of all viewed YouTube videos to Viacom in connection with their ongoing copyright infringement litigation.
After an online uprising against the order, Viacom tried to assert that they never requested personally identifiable information (they did), and later promised not to use the information to sue individuals. The value of that promise was questioned by us and many others.
She notes that order includes a paragraph about employee viewer data. CNet has more on that:
Last weekend, two sources with knowledge of the negotiations between the companies told CNET News that Google was refusing to hand over to Viacom information about what videos YouTube employees have watched or uploaded to the site.
The sources said that the information could help Viacom prove that YouTube has turned a blind eye to the piracy on its site. Google is also likely to ask to see similar records about Viacom’s employees. That might show that while Viacom’s lawyers were demanding YouTube to remove it’s videos, Viacom’s marketing managers may have been among those that posted them.
The case is not scheduled to go to court until next year at the earliest.
Trot out the clichés about closing the barn door for news today that the Federal Reserve is cracking down on shady lending practices to home buyers and President Bush is fighting high gas prices by lifting a ban on offshore drilling for oil.
As Americans drown in bad economic news, these daring rescue moves are the equivalent of throwing them concrete life preservers.
The Fed’s new rules to protect the public against predatory lenders of subprime mortgages are too little for future home buyers and too late for the millions who are losing their homes at the highest rate in history.
It’s good news, isn’t it, he pointedly notes, that our troops’ sacrifices have got the Iraqis to a point when their government might actually be about ready to take off the training wheels and ride off without us holding the handlebars? (NYT)
And whether they are ready are not — see this BBC article clarifying the quote on which Obama relied — isn’t it about as clear as it could possibly be that we can’t go on babysitting them indefinitely, or even very much longer, without severe strain to major muscle groups?
But while McCain temporizes about when, and maybe even whether, we should leave Iraq, Obama is being called out for ‘flip-flopping’ because he has said that his 16 month withdrawal date was only ever aspirational. At least he is committed to leaving.
July 14th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Everything, it is said, is fair in love and war. Let’s admit it, we all are in love with “oil”. In the present long-drawn “war” we have allowed anything and everything to happen. In fact our “love” has turned into a naked “lust” for oil. And when “lust” takes hold of leaders and the public, they lose their sense of proportion and become virtually myopic (or blind) to the consequences of their actions.
So what can a Mc Cain or an Obama do under the circumstances? (Have a look here…) These thoughts occured to me when I recently went through a must-read book “Half Gone” by Jeremy Leggett. A powerful book that provides fascinating insight into the geology and politics of oil…and hope(?).
He writes: “Despite the defectors from the Empire of Oil, the growing dissent within it, little (has) changed. The Great Addiction remained…Barons of the Empire of Oil rode the planet in executive jets, more powerful than any president except perhaps the president of the Number One Nation State. But then he was one of them anyway.
“The most basic foundations of our assumptions of future economic wellbeing are rotten. Our society is in a state of collective denial that has no precendent in history, in terms of its scale and implications.
“Most US presidents since the Second World War have ordered military action of some sort in the Middle East. American leaders may dress their military entanglements east of Suez in the rhetroic of democracy building, but the long-running strategic theme is obvious. It was stated most clearly, paradoxically, by the most liberal of them.
“In 1980 Jimmy Carter declared access to the Persian Gulf a vital national interest to be proteced by ‘any means necessary, including military force.’ This the US has been doing ever since, clocking up a bill measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and counting. With such a strategy comes an increasingly disquieting descent into moral ambiguity, at least in the minds of something approaching half the country.
“The deeper the dependency on oil and oil money becomes, the worse the effects of the unforseen energy crisis will be when it hits, so the more America’s security is undermined, even as its government advances enhanced security as the rationale for the latest actions of the Pentagon’s global oil potection service.
What is it like to have your proverbial arm twisted by Washington when it really wants something from your country? This by By Pawel Wronski of Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza gives one a pretty good sense.
“In the negotiations over hosting the U.S. anti-missile base, the Americans are using all the same tricks they used when they were selling their F-16 aircraft to Poland in the late 1990s. I’m surprised that the politicians are falling for them again.”
“1. It’s a great honor for Poland; 2. New prospects for Polish industry and the opportunity to modernize the country; 3. Negotiations are running out of time; 5. Inviting influential politicians to the United States; 6. The argument that Poland is unprepared, unprofessional and doesn’t know what it wants.”
“The Americans are among the most effective negotiators. There’s a saying that the U.S. administration could sell igloos to Eskimos. Several years ago, Poland purchased F-16 aircraft. …U.S. lobbying was exceedingly effective. But the deal proved very favorable to Poland; the F-16 is a great aircraft and the value of the dollar is less than half it was since we signed the agreement. But the issue of the anti-missile shield is far too important from the point of view of Polish politics to leave purely to luck.”
“Out of everything that was said during the summit, which ended yesterday in Hokkaido, Japan, there was only one clear message - and it was not encouraging: the great powers have no joint approach with which to tackle the global economy’s momentous difficulties. Every country will have to take care of itself, if it can - which is possible in Brazil’s case - and the poorest and most affected by the food crisis and high oil prices can expect only modest assistance to avoid sinking into misery and social and political chaos.”
His dramatic return this week to cast the deciding vote for a crucial Medicare bill brought tears and cheers in the US Senate, even as some medical ethicists question Ted Kennedy’s decision to undergo life-prolonging (and expensive) surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
On the New York Times Freakonomics blog, an internist involved in public health issues suggests Sen. Kennedy might have issued this statement instead:
“Because I am not a young man, the cancer in my brain will progress rapidly and is likely to incapacitate me in the near future. I trust that my doctors will do everything they can to prevent further seizures and to keep me in comfort. I will not endure extraordinary excess pain and suffering, while hundreds of thousand of dollars will not be spent on surgical debulking, radiation, and chemotherapeutic regimens which do not work.
“Modern medicine cannot cure my cancer, but it can keep me comfortable and free of pain. I have already contacted the Massachusetts General Hospital Hospice program.”
If such a suggestion seems heartless, it nonetheless reflects a crucial debate that has started about end-of-life care, which accounts for a significant percentage of Medicare expenditures.
“Confronted with skyrocketing oil prices, the rising cost of food, the financial crisis, chaos in the money markets and finally, global warming, the powerful have no convincing response to provide the world.
On all of these issues - and without forgetting the Iranian nuclear threat, the G-8 Summit in Japan has illustrated the impotence of the major industrialized nations which, until recently, were able to impose their views to the rest of the planet.”
“The absence of vision is largely the result of the now-concluding American administration, which only recently recognized the existence of the problem.”
Did you know that George W. Bush is still president? It’s true. And he’s still got plenty of ways to worsen things before his term is over, leaving us a country discredited in the eyes of our own allies, a more toxic and unstable environment, a military stretched to the breaking point, and an enormous deficit.
He merrily signed off at the G8 by saying his ‘"Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter,’ knowing full well he was going to stave off any progress on climate change to the end of his term. Today’s Washington Post reports:
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare — a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.
The Bush Administration discovered a great truth: a bare-faced lie, however it may be discredited, is as good as the truth if you pretend you believe it and act on it anyway. And if you don’t mind being called out as a liar, you can lie with complete impunity so long as there is no person with the authority (or the spine to wield it) to stop you.
The conference on Global Catastrophic Risks is meeting in the U.K. this week, and Reason Magazine provides a rundown of the major threats we face from outisde the planet, and more to the point, what industrialized nations like ours are doing about it.
He says we can’t help it because the price is plastered on every street corner, reported in every newscast, and we stand there day in and day out 
Nik Cubrilovic tells it like it is:
