Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Albert Einstein. "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 5:57:24 PM    comment []  trackback []

One major thing Bush could do to get the economy rolling again is to stop all this nonsense talk about invading Iraq.  War means risk.  Risk depletes expectations of future economic growth.  It also radically reduces the willingness of people to make long-term investments necassary for productivity improvements, innovation, and wealth creation.  Talk of war, particularly one with a slippery time line, is pure poison for an economy.  Iraq isn't worth spending the next three years in the economic toilet. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 5:56:00 PM    comment []  trackback []

"Next week's earth summit will not only fail to tackle the ecological crisis. It will make it worse," says George Monbiot in The Guardian (UK). "The environment is a long-term issue which has always suffered from the short-term imperatives of the political cycle. It has been treated, by governments all over the world, as a problem which can be endlessly deferred to the next administration. Now the problem is catching up with the politicians, but most of them have yet to notice. The fourth earth summit, which begins at the end of this week, looks certain to be a disaster. "It's not just that the summit will fail to resolve the earth's problems. Its decisions are likely to become a major cause of environmental destruction in their own right. The solution to the slow collapse of the earth's capacity to support human life, both the UN and most of the governments of the rich world have decided, is more of the problem." 5:52:42 PM    comment []  trackback []