Category — Current Events

As of November 2008, the total estimated population of the planet Earth is 6.72 billion people. These people need food, and in vast quantities. Given that there is only a finite amount of resources available for food production, there is enormous pressure on producers to create food faster and more efficiently, but still safely. Thus, the agricultural industry has turned to science in search of ways to meet the ever-growing demand. Recently, industrial farmers have been able to produce and market larger amounts of beef faster than before due to hormonal implants. Some critics however, claim that this type of beef is not safe to eat, and that by using these hormones we have opened a version of Pandora’s Box.

These opposing forces have led to a large trade dispute between the US and the EU concerning hormone-treated beef. The EU insists that beef produced with these hormones is unsafe, and refuses to license it for sale in member nations. On the other hand, the US maintains that such beef is perfectly harmless and demands that the EU lower its existing trade barriers. Worse still, the debate seems unlikely to be solved in the foreseeable future, due in large part to a culturally-driven European distrust in scientific institutions. Combined with other factors, such as the fragmented nature of European food safety laws and the lack of a WTO mechanism for handling consumer-based protectionism, this phenomenon has perhaps immutably steeled Europe against US beef.

Interestingly enough, the US has not been without its own hormone scare, which actually preceded the current trade dispute by several decades. This particular hormone, diethylstilbestrol (DES), was discovered to be a carcinogen in the 1950’s. Its use in any part of the food supply was banned in the 1958 Food Additives Amendment. Three years later, however, the DES Proviso was passed, which essentially stated that DES use could continue if no hormonal residue was found in the cattle. Since the technology available at the time could not reliably detect this residue though, use of DES to make beef production more efficient continued unchecked. At one point, as many as 95% of US cattle producers used the hormone.

However, the increasing evidence that DES was a cancer-causing agent fueled further attempts to ban it until the hormone was finally pulled from the market in 1979. Although DES had been outlawed, other growth-promoting hormones eventually took its place. These newer hormones had been approved as safe for use by the FDA, with the backing of multiple scientific studies. Thus, by the time the current beef hormone dispute emerged, the large industrial farms prevalent in the US were already using hormones to make most of their beef. And Americans, trusting in the FDA to regulate their agricultural production methods, were well accustomed to eating it.

Putting the DES scare aside, the roots of the current hormone debate lie in the differences in agricultural policy between the European Union and the United States. Although the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) focused strongly on growing the world economy, agriculture was an exception to this rule for various reasons. First, developed countries often tend to romanticize the idea of farming because it was formerly a crucial part of that nation’s history. Hence, large subsidies are paid to “family farms” that have now been driven almost into extinction by larger, industrial farms. Second, the cost of subsidizing the agricultural sector goes up in correlation with increased agricultural trade and the accompanying competition. Lastly, many nations see preserving their own farming industry as vital to their national security; they would not like to be at the mercy of world agricultural markets when a war breaks out, for example.

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If you’re at all like me, you’ve been paying close attention to U.S. politics over the course of the past year or so. And if you’re even more like me, you’ve been quickly overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information out there. The number of stories, pictures, and videos coming in from news sources all over the world is simply too much to keep track of, even for someone who enjoys doing so. With that in mind, I decided to draw up a list of the very best campaign news sources and list them here.

Almost No Bias

BBC News
Large U.S. news networks, and I say this in all honesty, are sensationalist, distort facts, and in the words of a famous man, are hurting America. The BBC, on the other hand, is legally required to present neutral, balanced coverage, and gets into trouble with the U.K. government if it doesn’t.

C-SPAN
This is probably one of the better sources out there, as there is little time devoted to news analysis, and as such little opportunity for political slanting to sneak in. Their TV channel always has live coverage of important events and speeches, which they also upload to their YouTube account.

NPR
With a multitude of radio shows focused on currents events and issues, NPR is the perfect source for campaign coverage, even after you go blind from eyestrain! All of their programs are available in podcast form as well. You can find your closest NPR member station here.

Slightly Biased

The New York Times
Although some people see a slight liberal bias in the Times, it still makes for an amazing news source, simply because the amount of talent it has on staff is unparalleled. And since they stopped charging for online access last year, you can now read anything you want all the way back to 1987.

The Wall Street Journal
Primarily covering business and financial news, the Journal is traditionally seen as conservative, and states it is in favor of “free markets and free people.” Having been acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp last year, some anticipate it slanting more toward the right in the future.

Others

FactCheck.org
A nonprofit, nonpartisan website that monitors political ads, debates, speeches, etc. for false or misleading information, and then rebuts it with the truth. Their stated goal is to “reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics,” and they’re doing an awesome job.

Memeorandum
A political blog aggregation website that auto-generates a news summary every 5 minutes. It draws on a wide variety of sources, from media professionals to amateur bloggers, so be on the lookout for spin once you click off the site. Also features a “news river” for up-to-the-minute information.

Eat your hearts out, news junkies!

Since the United States invaded Iraq in March of 2003, there has been no shortage of political debate on the subject, with Democrats largely favoring troop withdrawals of some sort, and most Republicans remaining fiercely loyal to the President. Any U.S. citizen with even the slightest interest in current affairs is bombarded with anecdotes, images, and reminders of the war on a daily basis. On the road, “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers are simply unavoidable, and American flag lapel pins are proudly attached to the suits of almost every government official. Behind all the political debating, speech-making, and lobbying though, lies an often-overlooked truth, which is that nobody actually wants to be at war. The ultimate goal, for people on both sides of the aisle, is peace in Iraq. However, a common end has many means through which it may be achieved, and in the case of the Iraq War, the means are as numerous as they are controversial.

During the first few years of the war, U.S. strategy in Iraq was based on then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s idea of light, nimble warfare facilitated by advanced weaponry and precise airstrikes. The soldiers lived in large, heavily fortified bases, and occasionally ventured out on mounted patrols into the city. But as months became years and U.S. troops kept dying, this strategy came under increasingly heavy criticism from its increasingly numerous opponents. The Bush administration desperately needed a fresh look at the military and political situation in Iraq; they needed a strategy that worked. Such a strategy would emerge in Tal Afar, a city of about 250,000 in northern Iraq, under the leadership of Colonel H.R. McMaster of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. His game plan was fundamentally different from anything that Washington was practicing at the time, but it would eventually become the dominant U.S. blueprint for success in Iraq. It was called “clear, hold, and build”.

After the Gulf War, during which McMaster earned a Silver Star, he wrote his dissertation on the failures of top military leaders in the Vietnam era. He criticized them for simply conceding to the strategic plans of President Johnson and the Pentagon, rather than speaking up when Washington’s plans were failing. Even after the 2003 “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq appeared to be a resounding victory, he continued to critique the idea that advanced technology would enable the United States to be more precise and skillful during wartime in a monograph entitled “Crack in the Foundation: Defense Transformation and the Underlying Assumption of Dominant Knowledge in Future War”. Later that Spring, McMaster joined Central Command as a member of General John Abizaid’s staff. From there, he lobbied for a more thought-out and deliberate approach to fighting the insurgency. The trouble was that nobody in the Bush administration would admit they had an insurgency on their hands, most notably Donald Rumsfeld. The dominant plan at the time was simply to kill or capture all resisting Iraqis, something that, in his dissertation, McMaster had called “the absence of a strategy”. In November of 2004, McMaster arrived in Colorado and took over the 3rd A.C.R. In a few months they would be deployed to Tal Afar.

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