What I'm reading: What Kuwait says about Arab world
By Fareed Zakaria
“Kuwait highlights the new reality that Arab citizens are now demanding rights from their governments simply on the basis of being entitled to those rights, and not necessarily because they are poor, suffer uneven access to social services, or have been politically abused and oppressed, as was the case with uprisings in countries such as Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Syria,” writes Rami Khouri in the Daily Star.
“Kuwait also speaks of deeper discontents among other citizens in oil-rich Gulf states who can only express their grievances through websites and social media. This is evident in several Arab countries, which, like Kuwait, try to suppress public political accusations and grievances, even by jailing individuals who Tweet sentiments that are critical of state policies.
“The demonstrators in Kuwait are not calling for the overthrow of the regime, but rather for constitutional political reforms.”
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“Saving our skins might be surprisingly cheap. To avoid dangerous climate change, the world needs to boost spending on green energy by $1 trillion a year,” writes Fred Pearce for The New Scientist.
“…That sounds like a lot to make up. But global investment in energy is already $1 trillion a year and rising, says David McCollum of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg. The problem is that much of that investment goes to fossil fuels. According to the International Energy Agency, government subsidies for fossil fuels are around $500 billion a year – six times more than subsidies for renewables.”
@fareedzakaria on Twitter
If we examine the decisions made by government, the inefficiencies, the graft, the electorial debacle, the monies spent to detail tax returns, the contract overruns, the time spent correcting programs which do nothing, you could finance a cleaner tomorrow. We could add how unconconscious the oil and gas industries industry are and how dirty the technologies. We could add up all the lies by the corporate mind and the government mind and find a trillion dollars standing on our collective heads. And pay less for it.
Green iis the Godot of our present Era of Naivety. Green brings bedbugs to New York City's most luxurious hotels and makes wealthy exterminators of the unemployable by issuing licenses to dispense drugstore bug spray. Green creates makework jobs. Green is the entertainment of mindless young persons who, during the 1960s, would have been holding up their fingers in peace signs and sticking flowers into gun barrels while wearing boys' and girls' necklaces of strung but unknotted poisonous jungle nuts.
Green is the Salvation of Americans with Little To Do.
As I remember back in 1990 and '91, the right-wing news media howled over the alleged "atrocities" committed by the Iraqi invaders, especially about how the Iraqis destroyed the infant incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and the phony outrage that followed. To this day, I wonder if there was any truth to any of these allegations. They were never proven to be a fact!
A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it’s two tired.
And if I'm tired again, does that make me retired?
Absolutely. But after a while, I'm sure we'll get "tired" of this conversation as well. What we need is another fracking story. That one was fun.
Lol retired isnt so bad guys. Generally you work harder when you retire because youve got all the stuff to do that you put off til retirement. And you never imagined how much "stuff" you acc u mulate! Lol call it task hoarding i guess.
Amen to that chrissy. I never knew retirement could be so tiring. ( and pretty boring sometimes too )
Oil revenues in Kuwait and the Gulf states provide for social security. But this doesn't always make citizens happy and content.
You can please some of the people, some of the time...but you cant please all of the people, all of the time.