“Spending billions to force the terrorists to alter their plans in one particular way does not make us safer. It is far more cost-effective to concentrate our defences in ways that work regardless of tactic and target: intelligence, investigation and emergency response.” Bruce Schneier debates the former head of the Transportation Security Administration, Kip Hawley, on airport security. This is from the first of Schneier’s three statements on the topic.
www.economist.com 20 March, 23 March, 28 March
Tag Archives: politics
The eurozone, the ant and the grasshopper
“When the ants and the grasshoppers are distributed across the division separating surplus from deficit nations within a badly designed monetary union, the stage is set for a depression that sets all against all in a vicious spiral from which only losers can emerge.” Yanis Varoufakis explains why he thinks that countries in the euro zone can neither bail out nor be bailed out of the current crisis.
www.channel4.com
Der Anruf des Bundespräsidenten
In German
“Für alle, die keine Fans der ‘Bild’ sind, ist es schon schwer erträglich zu lernen, daß der Bundespräsident das Blatt als eine Art Verfassungsorgan behandelt. Besonders deprimierend aber ist der Umstand, daß er auch in dieser einseitigen und insgesamt übersichtlichen Kommunikation zu keinem klaren Wort fähig ist.” Nils Minkmar explores Christian Wulff‘s attitudes towards the editorial independence of the press.
www.faz.net
“German President Wulff reportedly sought to prevent tabloid Bild from publishing a damaging article about his private loan arrangements.”
The curse of TINA
“Think Tanks surround politics today and are the very things that are supposed to generate new ideas. But if you go back and look at how they rose up—at who invented them and why—you discover they are not quite what they seem.” Adam Curtis looks at the history of the Think Tank in the UK and asks why modern politics, for all its Think Tanks, seems so paradoxically short of new ideas.
www.bbc.co.uk
For 10 years, we’ve lied to ourselves to avoid asking the one real question
“When the Israeli Prime Minister gets even the US Congress to grovel to him, the American people are not going to be told the answer to the most important and ‘sensitive’ question”. For Robert Fisk, large gaps remain in our knowledge surrounding events since 9/11.
www.independent.co.uk
Don’t be fooled by the lull—the NHS is still at great risk
“New research in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine this week shows the UK is among the most efficient health services in the world, in lives saved per pound spent.” Polly Toynbee further questions imminent public service reforms targeting the NHS.
www.guardian.co.uk
Why isn’t Wall Street in jail?
“Evidence indicates that when it comes to Wall Street, the justice system not only sucks at punishing financial criminals, it has actually evolved into a highly effective mechanism for protecting financial criminals.” Financial crisis ongoing, Matt Taibbi’s article should be of interest to anyone.
www.rollingstone.com
NHS turmoil is just the start of Tory ideology run wild
“Cameron’s government can be voted out but it will be virtually impossible to return services to a public realm that no longer exists. Ownership of the contracts and companies moves on, and the public sector loses any capacity to take them back.” Polly Toynbee casts doubt on public service reforms in the UK.
www.guardian.co.uk
Small change
“Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.” Malcolm Gladwell looks back at the beginnings of the civil-rights movement and tells why the next revolution will not be tweeted.
www.newyorker.com
Is aviation security mostly for show?
“Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage.” In the wake of last week’s failed bombing of an airplane over Detroit, Bruce Schneier asks us to leverage the inherent strengths of our democracies.
edition.cnn.com
How constant beatings have caught up with campaigner Peter Tatchell
“Only Peter Tatchell could be so enraged by something that is meant to calm him down. But as he grapples with the complicated security locks on his front door to let me out, it strikes me that perhaps the rest of us are lucky that he cares enough to carry on fighting, whatever the cause.” Elizabeth Day talks to Peter Tatchell, a man deserving of some respect.
www.guardian.co.uk
After Iraq, it’s not just North Korea that wants a bomb
“The idea that there is something irrational in North Korea’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons is clearly absurd. This is, after all, a state that has been targeted for regime change by the US ever since the end of the cold war, included as one of the select group of three in George Bush’s axis of evil in 2002, and whose Clinton administration guarantee of ‘no hostile intent’ was explicitly withdrawn by his successor.” Seumas Milne identifies the single greatest driver of nuclear proliferation.
www.guardian.co.uk
How to stop the drug wars
“The war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.”
www.economist.com
Why they might miss Dubya when he’s gone
“Like it or not, I fear it will not only be the cartoonists and impressionists who will miss the easy target in the White House when he has gone”, writes Mick Hume on the day George W Bush leaves office.
spiked-online.com
The 44th President
I was just following the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the 44th President and listening to his Inaugural Address. It appears to me that, at long last, the United States of America have got a class act to lead them.
A new dawn for us all?
“To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world—our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”
President-Elect Barack Obama
The roots of the crisis
“It is the intersection of several underlying trends that have brought us to this point, not a breakdown in any specific part of the financial sector.” Michael Flynn looks at the underlying reasons for the current Wall Street crisis.
www.reason.com
The Legacy
“It would have been nice to let Bush’s two terms marinate a while before invoking Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan from the cellar of worst presidents. But then—over the last two weeks—he completed the trilogy of national disasters that will be with us for a generation or more.” Timothy Egan assesses the Bush Presidency.
egan.blogs.nytimes.com
We had the very best of intentions
“We did not go into Iraq to impose representative government on the Iraqis. We went there to manage a threat to our own safety.” Richard Perle explains why, in his view, the United States of America had to invade Iraq and topple Sadam Hussein.
commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
Diary of a collapsing superpower
“Gorbachev has been a persona non grata in his own country ever since. In the West he remains a hero, a respected historical figure, a man who peacefully cut a superpower down to its true size.” Newly published minutes from meetings of the Politburo reveal what really happened behind closed doors.
www.spiegel.de