Thomas Friedman contrasts US energy policy and US behavior to the way Danes live and have structured their lives to be energy-efficient, and almost energy-independent.
Russia’s authoritarian dictator-in-building Vladimir Putin has been getting high on the fumes of oil revenues that Russia is reaping from the West (US consumers are propping him and others like Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez up). The oil boom has helped Russia’s economy thrive for the last few years. This, plus weak leadership from the US and Western Europe, has combined with Putin’s ruthless KGB past to make him into a formidably arrogant threat to democracy and freedom.
His so-far unchecked invasion of Georgia is a threat to the world, with consequences potentially as grave as any development our globe has witnessed since the walls of the Soviet empire crumbled down.
Is the West going to rise to the challenge? Are leadership and principle going to stand? Is civil society going to mobilize? Is media going to do a better job at awakening the world to these dangerous developments?
At a minimum if Russia does not reverse its aggression, it needs to be ousted from the Group of 8. No nation that behaves the way Russia has over the last few years – like a bully – deserves such newly anointed role.
Georgia’s President Saakashvili is not blameless. But nothing Georgia has done merits Russia’s aggression. And if the world does not react forcefully, Russia’s imperialist instincts will only grow stronger and eventually catch up with those who stand by today.
A new site just launched that analyzes food product labels for ingredients that may or may not be good for you. Too many items pose as "healthy" while containing ingredients like high fructose corn syrup which labelwatch exposes here as not healthful.
The site is not perfect yet; it’s search engine is clunky; and it still is missing KIND Fruit & Nut bars, which are the #1 Healthy Snack bar line (in terms of market share growth of entire space over each of the last 3 years, and #3 in overall size already in natural industry, according to SPINS, IRI and Nielsen). But it is a good start.
And the corollary to the earlier post is that obesity in children has reached epidemic proportions, causing Type 2 diabetes and many other health complications that stay with them beyond childhood for the rest of their lives.
There are other key health challenges to children, that the food industry needs to tackle…
A report last week from the Federal Trade Commission found that the makers of soda, fast food, cereals and other products spent $1.6 billion in 2006 on marketing aimed at children and teenagers.
…While almost $500 million a year is spent on soda advertising, only $11 million is spent on ads for fruit and vegetables.
Here is an amusingly observative piece from Verlyn Klinkenborg in the NYT editorial page about how smart-phones are taking over the human race and turning us into weirdly asocial beings…
I’ve always admired Coke’s marketing. And, like most big companies, it has been careful to be genuine when making specific claims. Yes, it is lifestyle-centered and romantic, so it gets carried away – but that is what has made it such a majestic brand. And you don’t normally have big companies make ridiculous claims they can’t stand by. They are too smart for that. Alas, Coke has now come out with the preposterous claim that its formula has "no artificial ingredients."
Say that again? The drink is a definition of artificial. Tasty. But artificial. Without getting into whatever secret ingredients that are over-processed by definition, and without getting into carbonation, you need to go no further than one of its core ingredients: High fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is a definition of a man-made chemically-created compound – no matter what lobbyist may try to dupe is into confusing us and harming our health – to the point that HFCS doesn’t even get absorbed by the liver and bypasses it, forming fat directly, and contributing to obesity.
It is embarrassing that an institution like Coca-Cola would be part of an effort to destroy the meaning of "all natural." And to contribute to America’s obesity and diabetes epidemics through misinformation.
The NYTimes Week In Review had two excellent articles on the situation in Russia today and its conflict with Georgia.
The Daily Star wrote a compellingly sad editorial on how Hamas and Fatah are killing the Palestinian dream. Both have cared more about their power than the Palestinian cause, but it is not a balanced blame.
Fatah is indeed embroiled in corruption and ineptitude because it lacks a system to give young emerging locally respected leaders representative power, but Hamas is the party that staged a coup and killed hundreds of Palestinians. Hamas is the party whose "Foreign Minister", Mahmoud Al Zahar, recently said it alone was the representative of God on Earth.
Under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, the West Bank is experiencing some level of development, growth, order, and an admirable push for transparency. Under Hamas, Gaza has become a Taliban-like enclave of terror against ordinary citizens, suppressing all freedoms according to Palestinians living there.
