The Internet is Killing Polar Bears
Is the internet the new enemy of the environment? There is increasing concern in environmental circle over the energy demands of the internet. Mohamed Cheriet of Montreal's Ecole de Technologie Superieure was quoted in the June 3 Vancouver Sun saying that "the Internet pollutes, but people don't understand why it pollutes. It's very, very power-hungry, and we have to reduce its carbon footprint."
Green activists point to the growing number of massive and secretive "server farms" that store and transmit data across the system. Each one can have energy demands equal to a small city. But before we start shutting down the internet to save the planet, check out a May 16 report from the United Nations Human Rights Council that declares internet access a fundamental human right. "Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress," writes Special Rapporteur Frank LaRue, "ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all States."
Meanwhile the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change recommends a target average global carbon footprint that is one-quarter the burden placed on Mother Earth by a homeless American, according to a 2008 MIT study. It will take a long time for the environmentalists to sort all this out, just don't Google it too much or polar bears will start dying and it will be your fault.
Mr. Obama Tries to Hide the Decline
Last November during his trip to India, President Obama admitted that on his watch the United States was a declining economic power. "For most of my lifetime," he said, "the U.S. was such an enormously dominant economic power … that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms." But those days were over because of the rise of new international competitors such as China and India. But it was a positive development, he said, because "this will keep America on its toes. America is going to have to compete."
Then, during his recent trip to Britain, Mr. Obama abruptly denied the decline. "It's become fashionable in some quarters to question whether the rise of these nations will accompany the decline of American and European influence," he said. "That argument is wrong." Maybe so, but he was the one who made it.
Nothing dramatic has happened on the economic front since last fall that would justify this 180 degree shift in the president's thinking; in fact there have been several developments that argue to the contrary, such as rising energy prices, expanding U.S. debt and declining rates of U.S. GDP growth. But with the 2012 election pending the White House probably figured out that saying "America's decline is good for you" won't resonate with the electorate.
The new line is good but it would be even better if it was true.
A Half-Hearted Salute to the Commander in Chief
A new Gallup survey shows that former and active duty members of the military give much lower marks to President Obama than the non-military population. The May 30 report says that "Thirty-seven percent of all active-duty military personnel and veterans surveyed approved of the job Obama is doing during the January 2010 to April 2011 time frame. That compares with 48% of nonveterans interviewed during the same period."
These data bring to mind the "civil-military gap" thesis of the 1990s, in which academics fretted that divergent ideological and social views between the military and civilians could ultimately translate into serious political divisions, and potentially a military coup. To no-one's surprise that nutty talk died down when Bill Clinton left office. Yet the perceived "gap" was never between the military and the American people, but rather between Middle America (from which most members of the military come) and liberal academicians and politicians who have few connections to and little understanding of military culture.
But the poll does shed light on why Democrats are less eager to make sure that troops overseas get their absentee ballots in on time. A 37% Obama approval rating is not going to translate into a second term as Commander in Chief.
Questions for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient
If U.S. involvement in the civil war in Libya does not constitute a war as defined by the War Powers Act, why are the troops conducting operations there receiving imminent danger pay? And now that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has gunned down more of his own people than Moammar Gadhafi had when intervening in Libya was declared a moral imperative, has the United States abandoned the fashionable "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) principle? And are you just making all this up as you go along?James S. Robbins senior editorial writer for foreign affairs at the Washington Times
