More Slaves Now than at Any Time in History

This is very frightening, and deserves to be read and acted upon (in whatever small way) by everyone. 

Pictures from California

US Action on Climate Change... No, really!

This, assuming it turns out to be possible given the financial crisis, is potentially very exciting news for the future of the human race:

“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change,” Mr. Obama said. “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”

He commended by name governors who had been particularly active on global warming — including those of Kansas, Florida, Illinois, California and Wisconsin — and said that many businesses were also “doing their part by investing in clean energy technologies.”

“But too often,” Mr. Obama said, “Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership.”

“That will change when I take office,” he continued. “My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs.”

What a refreshing contrast to the last eight years!

Some Recent Photo Vignettes

Laura's glass ornaments, which adorn our window sill (they're originally from the middle east I believe).


Our geranium (a kind present from Laura's dad, Mike) which is flowering cheerfully despite the recent cold and gloomy weather.


Autumn is abundantly obvious from our living room window!

Thank You Colin Powell

At last, a prominent politician, and a Republican to boot, has said what I've been waiting weeks for someone to say about the repeated accusation that Obama is a Muslim - namely, 'Even if he were a Muslim, so what?'. Thank you Colin Powell for finally recognising and responding to these repeated displays of appalling racism.

The Big Picture on World Animal Day

These are some of the finest photographs I've ever seen, especially 19 and 37. Stunning.

Now Non-US Residents can vote in the US election!

This is a brilliant idea, and the results so far (though on reflection unsurprising) are fairly amazing...

http://www.economist.com/vote2008/

Late addition: a timely piece on just this topic from Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/10/uselections2008.barackobama

"The world's verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for. An America that disdains Obama for his global support risks turning current anti-Bush feeling into something far worse."

Sheer paranoia vs. the end of democracy

I share the sentiments of the author of this piece in the Independent. I really hope we're being paranoid, and that this is all just rumour, hearsay or propaganda (or all three). Nevertheless, one can't help but feel frightened by this sort of thing:

[Republicans'] first vote-stripping tactic is to require elaborate voter identification that black people disproportionately lack. For example, in Indiana – a crucial swing state – Republicans have passed a law requiring voters to bring an official government document bearing their photograph to the polling station. But a study by the University of Wisconsin found that 53 per cent of black adults didn't have a passport or driving licence, compared to 15 per cent of white people. So they can't vote unless they travel for hours (often without a car) to a sparse government registry and queue for half a day to get the correct documentation. The former political director of the Texas Republican Party, Royal Masset, explains: "Requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a drop-off in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 per cent to the Republican vote." Their second tactic is to strip the electoral rolls of black names. In almost all US states, criminals lose their vote for life. This is shocking in itself – it disenfranchises a quarter of all black men in Kentucky, for one. But many states have a sloppy process where they simply scrub anyone with the same name as a criminal off the list. So if there is a criminal called "Chris Wayne" in a county, every black man called "Chris Wayne" loses their vote. That's a lot of Democrats. In Florida in 2000, black voters made up 13 per cent of the electorate yet they were 26 per cent of the people wrongly disenfranchised.

[Via Richard]

The Republicans Mutilate the English Language

I've just discovered these two excellent pieces in the New York Times about the extraordinary ways in which McCain and Palin are disfiguring the English language. A highlight from the Palin piece:

She dangles gerunds, mangles prepositions, randomly exiles nouns and verbs and also — “also” is her favorite vamping word — uses verbs better left as nouns, as in, “If Americans so bless us and privilege us with the opportunity of serving them,” or how she tried to “progress the agenda.”

GM Foods: The Debate Returns

There was an interesting piece in the Observer this weekend about how the GM foods debate seems to have been re-ignited by signs that the UK Government is beginning to push a pro-GM agenda. I consider myself very lucky to live in the UK where we have good information about the content and origins of most of our foods, and good organic food is readily available and (mostly) affordable. In the US you could be (and probably are) eating GM soya or corn much of the time and not realise it. Whilst I'm not against GM on principle, I do think that for all the complex ins and outs of Jay Rayner's Observer piece, the situation is quite simple. There is little or no agreement about the science, so surely it's far too early for us to be introducing GM foods en masse into the world's food supply?

Imagine an alternative scenario: say scientists couldn't agree on whether or not a particular chemical is harmful or beneficial to human health. Would anyone seriously suggest we add it to the water supply? Surely the only reasonable reaction to such a proposal would be this: let's do some more tests and experiments first, until we've secured at least a broad consensus on the matter, and then have the debate...

Perhaps I'm missing something?

A Movie Review... of TV (and politics)

I wonder if this is unprecedented...A prominent movie critic reviews a presidential debate (broadcast, naturally, on television). Either way, I agree with Rogert Ebert whole-heartedly:

I do not like you, John McCain. My feeling has nothing to do with issues. It has to do with common courtesy. During the debate, you refused to look Barack Obama in the eye. Indeed, you refused to look at him at all. Even when the two of you shook hands at the start, you used your eyes only to locate his hand, and then gazed past him as you shook it... If you came to dinner at my house and refused to look at or speak with one of my guests, that would be bad manners and I would be offended. Same thing if I went to your house. During the debate, you were America's guest.


What was your problem?

America's Crippling Partisan Culture?

Glory be! I've just read a story by a Republican journalist that I not only agreed with, but which struck me as measured, sensible and containing several platitudes. Amidst all the often disingenuous-sounding talk of 'bi-partisanship' we hear in the election debates, I'm delighted to have detected the real thing in such a high profile place. Writing about the hysterical reactions of many Republicans to her recent denouncement of Sarah Palin, Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post writes:

The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn't sound American to me, but Stalin would approve.

Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one's own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)

I'm sure it is coincidence that, upon the Palin column's publication, a conservative organization canceled a speech I was scheduled to deliver in a few days. If I were as paranoid as the conspiracy theorists are, I might wonder whether I was being punished for speaking incorrectly.

You can read the rest of the article here.

The New Yorker endorses Obama

The editors of the New Yorker have written an extremely compelling statement endorsing Obama. Initially I worried the piece would be overburdened with statistics, but even if you share that concern, keep reading. By the end even I felt patriotic, and it isn't even my country (though I hope one day soon it will be). I've posted an excerpt below, but you can find the whole thing here.

The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceiving, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace.
By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.

I think one reason this appealed to me so much is that I've been thinking a lot about the influence of temperament on philosophers and philosophy while working on my pragmatism lectures on William James.

(Via Richard)

US Election 08: Link of the Day