Weekly Roundup (Yee-haw!)

Some stories of interest from this beautiful blue planet of ours:

1. Clouds over Palestine

It's nice to see a Palestinian leader who actually cares about helping the Palestinian people instead of just building up his own factional power. Mahmoud Abbas has proposed a referendum on accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel. This is a great idea. Most Palestinians wish on some level that Israel wasn't there, but realize that it isn't going away; they'd rather have a nation of their own than no nation at all. Unfortunately, Hamas (and some parts of Fatah) don't particularly care about the Palestinian-in-the-street, and are more concerned with fighting their civil war. This is why Israel's Prime Minister Olmert is ready to unilaterally draw Israel's borders. It seems like Abbas' referendum is the only thing that can save the Palestinians from civil war and Israeli-drawn borders. Of course, even that will probably not be enough.

We in the United States should view this issue realistically. While some Americans still instinctively castigate Israel (the rationale being "Israel=strong, Palestinians=weak, therefore Israel=bad"), we should recognize that Israel is a functioning state, while the Palestinians are ruled by a loosely organized collection of armed gangs who answer to no one. We can't treat these two sides as if they can be equal partners in a peace negotiation. If Abbas' referendum doesn't work, then we have to support Israel's unilateral withdrawal and border-drawing plan, even as we try to pressure Israel to be as equitable to the Palestinians as possible. Any other approach would be ultimately harmful to Palestinians and Israelis alike.


2. Global warning

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's film about global warming, is under attack from oil-funded conservative media. As that article notes, this is just one of several instances in which the conservative movement has flouted science (others being "intelligent design" and stem-cell research). As I often note, conservatism has become such a political religion in the U.S. that its adherents are basically willing to screw over the nation in order to not be seen giving ideological ground; this is the origin of the "screw-the-environmentalists" movement, which basically involves conservatives trying to harm the environment (and the economy) just to tweak the tail of the Sierra Club.

But the tide is turning. Global warming, once a subject of real debate, is now accepted by pretty much everyone as a major threat. Conservative denialists are becoming increasingly marginalized, as they look loonier and loonier.

However, this doesn't mean I support the Kyoto treaty. That treaty had major flaws in it, including A) the fact that it didn't place any restrictions on developing countries like China and India, where most of the new greenhouse gases are going to come from, and B) the fact that there was no way to make signatory countries hit their emissions targets (which is why most haven't come close). We need global treaties to stop the menace, but Kyoto wasn't the right approach, not even as a "first step." Sadly, only conservatives seem to be willing to point this out.


3. Next up: transporter beams

Scientists are coming close to making invisibility a reality. Wow. Wow in the sense that that's amazingly cool, and in the sense that I've seemingly run out of interesting news to comment on. Stay tuned...


PS - This blog post sums up nicely my current problems with the liberal movement in America (including both the Democratic establishment and the "netroots" bloggers). Too many slogans and tactics and fundraisers and discussions about who's electable and who's not, and not enough discussion about what liberalism really wants to do to change the country. Methods over message. This must change.