The Thom-Thom Club

A couple months back I featured a lecture by Thomas Barnett on the deployment US military might in a post-Cold War world. Below is a talk he gave in Maine where he moves from a diagnostic to a prescriptive point of view on the the topic. It's a fascinating point of view, proffered by a guy who seems to have genuine fun giving his presentation.

Then, another sequel talk of sorts. I'm sure most followers of this blog know Thomas Friedman, who penned The Lexus and the Olive Tree and, more famously, The World is Flat. He takes a different look at some of the issues Barnett touches on, but from an economic (specifically petro-political) perspective.

Sostenibilidad

Gonna return to environmental themes this week with a couple of videos about how the Spanish are tackling sustainability. The first looks at the Canary Island of El Hierro, which is supposedly on track to be fully sustainable by the end of 2009.

Canary's Eco Island



Next is a video from GreenEnergyTV (so note the potential bias) looking at Barcelona's efforts to achieve sustainability.

Barcelona: Sustainable Energy City



The final video is a talk by Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Recorded in early 2005, he discusses why we must ween ourselves off foreign oil. I don't agree with everything he says (his reference to biofuels ignores the intensive water needs of that 'solution') and the age of the talk shows in his statistics on fuel costs. But what is interesting is what he has to say about the mechanics of conservation for automobiles.

Amory Lovins: We Must Win the Oil Endgame

War with Iran

Extending our poly-sci coverage from last week, I've found a couple of interesting pieces about Iran. Our foreign policy approach to that country is an issue that will almost certainly need to be addressed by whoever wins the election on November 4, and I've selected these pieces to try and give a little context. These pieces offer very different perspectives on the country. The first is a citizen journalist piece that briefly looks at life inside Iran and the fear that the US may launch a war against the county.

A View from Iran


The second piece is more formal telejournalism and investigates whether or not the US has already started a proxy war with Iran through resistance groups on the Iraq-Iran border.


America's Secret War

A Couple of Looks at 'Fortress America'

With the American elections just three weeks away I went out looking for some different points of view on Election 2008, and I ran across this surprisingly good piece of citizen journalism from Current.com that explored attitudes toward Americans by citizens of other countries. Check it out...

The View from Over There



Of course, most of the folks featured in those videos can't vote in American elections so for a slightly more domestic point-of-view check out this videographic presentation from The Economist magazine on Anglo-Saxon attitudes to many common issues. It's an interesting comparison of American and British cultures.


Divided We Stand