Politics: May 2006 Archive Page

Ahmadinejad: Why must the German people be humiliated today because a group of people committed crimes in the name of the Germans during the course of history?

SPIEGEL: The German people today can't do anything about it. But there is a sort of collective shame for those deeds done in the German name by our fathers or grandfathers.

Ahmadinejad: How can a person who wasn't even alive at the time be held legally responsible?

SPIEGEL: Not legally but morally.

Ahmadinejad: Why is such a burden heaped on the German people? The German people of today bear no guilt. Why are the German people not permitted the right to defend themselves? Why are the crimes of one group emphasized so greatly, instead of highlighting the great German cultural heritage? Why should the Germans not have the right to express their opinion freely?

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, we are well aware that German history is not made up of only the 12 years of the Third Reich. Nevertheless, we have to accept that horrible crimes have been committed in the German name. We also own up to this, and it is a great achievement of the Germans in post-war history that they have grappled critically with their past.

Ahmadinejad: Are you also prepared to tell that to the German people?

SPIEGEL: Oh yes, we do that. --''We Are Determined'' (Spiegel)

A chilling interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, conducted by the German publication Der Spiegal.

Note how the interview started with some gentle questions about socce, but moves quickly into German reaction to Ahmadinejad's questions about the Holocaust.

The disasters that have occurred so far have been on the local or regional level. They have been horribly damaging to lives and properties in the regions in which they occurred, but they have not been the paradigm-shifting harbingers of doom that the pessimists, like Kunstler, continually warn about. In fact, so far the pessimists have been 100 percent wrong 100 percent of the time.

The fact is that since the close of World War II the world has been experiencing an age of progress that is nearly unequaled in human history. More people have more food, more shelter, more access to medical care, more access to transportation, to education, and to technology than ever before. Of course, problems remain to be solved and progress is yet to be made in a number of areas. But advances since World War II - leading to such marvels as the Internet, personal computing, and synthetic materials, to name but a few - have allowed millions to live in greater comfort and dignity than ever before. The lesson of the last 50 years is that the future is brighter than the naysayers will have people believe as technology allows people the chance to enjoy and pursue other endeavors, including what is truly important. Looking forward, then, here are eight major areas in which rapid technological advance will improve the way people live. --Dennis Behreandt --Future Tech (Red Orbit)

The city's 23-year-old mayor took down his profile on MySpace.com after his occupation ended up reading: "malebigalow."

Ryan Bingham said he didn't post that information -- an apparent reference to the 1999 movie "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo" -- and he doesn't know who did. --Mayor pulls MySpace.com page after job shows up as 'malebigalow' (Boston.com | AP)

Unlike the villagers in the fable about the boy who cried wolf, educated American consumers always seem to have the time, the money, and the credulity to pay to hear one more time that we are just about to run out of everything, thanks to population growth.

[...]

Troubled as the world may be today, it is incontestably less poor, less unhealthy, and less hungry than it was 30 years ago. And this positive association between world population growth and material advance goes back at least as far as the beginning of the 20th century.

Let us consider -- or rather, reconsider -- what took place in the 20th century's "population explosion." The basic story is well known. A precise count is impossible, but between 1900 and 2000 human numbers almost quadrupled, from around 1.6 billion to more than six billion; in pace or magnitude, nothing like that surge had ever occurred. But why exactly did we experience a world population explosion in the 20th century?

It was not because people suddenly started breeding like rabbits -- rather, it was because they finally stopped dying like flies --Nicholas Eberstadt --Doom and Demography (Wilson Quarterly)