Joshua Marshall makes clear the thoroughgoing incompetence of Dick Cheney.
“Not since the Whiz Kids of the Kennedy-Johnson years has Washington been led by men of such insular self-assurance. Their hierarchical, old economy style of management couldn’t be more different from the loose, non-hierarchical style of, say, high-tech corpor-ations or the Clinton White House, with all their open debate, concern with the interests of ‘stake-holders’, manic focus on pleasing customers (or voters), and constant reassessment of plans and principles. The latter style, while often sloppy and seemingly juvenile, tends to produce pretty smart policy. The former style, while appearing so adult and competent, often produces stupid policy.”
I’m pretty sure I can claim Davos Newbies as one of the very first weblogs to file regularly from a conference (Davos 2000). But the art has moved on considerably in the intervening three years. I enjoyed Pony’s evocative account of the South Asia Social Forum in Hyderabad. Davos, not.
Each year, John Brockman poses an intriguing question for an interesting group of scientists, thinkers and writers. This year, his question was to write a memo to president Bush answering, “What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them?”
You can find my reply as well as ones from Freeman Dyson, Steven Pinker, Marvin Minsky, Howard Gardner, Lee Smolin, Alan Alda and many others. It’s fascinating stuff, as always. John asked me what I thought the chance of getting Bush to actually read the thing. Call me twisted and cynical, but I haven’t seen any evidence that Bush or anyone in the White House has the slightest interest in the kinds of ideas that John and his crowd care about.
Thanks to GeoURL, here’s an initial list of URLs that are geographically close to me.
I haven’t encountered anyone who thinks the Bush administration “policy” on North Korea is a good thing. Nicholas Kristof in today’s New York Times is particularly worth reading (he is “one of the few Americans who have traveled around both North Korea and Iraq”).
He reckons the only way out is a negotiated settlement, possibly through the good offices of Vladimir Putin. “This would be a deeply unsatisfying solution, but it is less unsatisfying than the options we’re now speeding toward: a nuclear factory peddling bombs on the North Korean Ebay, or Korean War II.”