Sunday, September 14, 2008

Making America Stupid
by Thomas Friedman

NY TIMES 9/13/2008 opinion by Friedman

If we don't get Math education on track our chance for innovation will be infinitesimal and our national decline will continue at increasing speed.

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Friedman ends with:

Sorry, but there is no sustainable political/military power without economic power, and talking about one without the other is nonsense. Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode. Those are the issues this election needs to be about, because that is what the next four years need to be about.

There is no strong leader without a strong country. And posing as one, to use the current vernacular, is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.

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Mr. Friedman is unhappy that much of campaigns focus on personality rather than issues. Unfortunately it seems as if personality is what determines winners. Most media certainly promotes this with their focus on ratings and viewers rather than truth. Issues and real discussion play a weak second fiddle to the public and media obsession with personality.

Look at our current legislation that promotes increasing use of corn based ethanol over the next decade. This is hardly a solution to anything.

I have little faith in either political party to serve the nation rather than their own interests.

I find myself increasingly imprisoned in Alvin Toeffler's "Future Shock".

It is not just the speed of changes but the underlying idiocy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That is true of corn-based ethanol - first you need new seals for your autos - the heat of vaporization is lower than gasoline. Most cars don't come equipped. By using improperly sealed fuel systems you are putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with ethanol.

I read too that those little plastic grocery bags we're using are a huge problem for the environment since they don't biograde. The number of plastic bags floating in the Pacific covers two continents the size of North America. It is reducing the amount of light entering the ocean. Secondly, the plastic is being eaten by small fish, entering the food chain, and increasing our intake of a known estrogen pollutant. The annual useage of "bagfish" by Americans is around 180,000,000 tons (yummy).