Via the Copenhagen Consensus 08:

Over two years, more than 50 economists have worked to find the best solutions to ten of the world’s biggest challenges. During the last week of May, an expert panel of 8 top-economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, sat down to assess the research.

 

The result: A prioritized list highlighting the potential of 30 specific solutions to combat some of the biggest challenges facing the world.

The Top 10 list:

1.  Micronutrient supplements for children (vitamin A and zinc)
2.  The Doha development agenda
3.  Micronutrient fortification (iron and salt iodization)
4.  Expand immunization coverage for children
5.  Biofortification (nutrition)
6.  Deworming and other nutrition programs at school
7.  Lowering the price of schooling
8.  Increase and improve girls' schooling
9.  Community-based nutrition promotion
10.  Provide support for women's reproductive role

Curiously enough, this group of Nobel-Prize-winning economists listed global warming mitigation efforts #29 and #30 on the 30-action list of things to consider to improve life on Earth.  Increasing R&D for non-carbon-based energy resources was, however, listed at #14 on the list

Their full PDF report is here.

Courtesy Ralph Peters, of the New York Post:

So, let's bring those quit-Iraq time-travelers back to mid-2008 and fill them in on what's happened since they were ideologically stranded five years ago:

* After our troops reached Baghdad, al Qaeda's leaders made a colossal strategic miscalculation and publicly declared that Iraq was now the central front in their jihad against us. Matter of record, in the enemy's own words.

* Some Iraqi Sunni Arabs, lamenting the national pre-eminence they'd lost, rallied to the terrorists.

* Al Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliates then embarked on a campaign of widespread atrocities: videotaped beheadings, mass bombings of civilians, assassinations, widespread rape (of boys and girls, as well as of women), kidnappings and brutal efforts to dictate the intimate details of Iraqi lives.

* Al Qaeda's savagery alienated the Sunni Arab masses in record time. Suddenly, those American "occupiers" looked like saviors.

* By the millions, Sunni Muslims turned against al Qaeda and turned to the US military, inflicting a catastrophic propaganda defeat on the terrorists.

* Supported by the population, US and Iraqi forces inflicted a massive military defeat on al Qaeda. At present, the terror organization's own Web masters admit that al Qaeda is nearing final collapse in Iraq.

Those are facts.

Facts.  Gee, what a concept.

Victor Davis Hanson, that is:

Those who came of age in the 1960s now hold the reins of power and influence — and we are starting to see why their values have worried almost everyone for nearly a half-century.

History has seen something like them before in the “blame them” years of Demosthenes’ Athens, the self-indulgence of Julio-Claudian Rome, the “after me, the deluge” generation of late 18th-century France, the Gilded Age, and the Roaring Twenties.

What are the baby boomers’ collective traits? Like all perpetual adolescents who suffer arrested development, we always want things both ways: Don’t drill or explore for more energy, but nevertheless demand ever more fuel from other suppliers.

There are never bad and worse choices, but only a Never Never Land of good and even-better alternatives. Housing not only has to stay affordable for buyers, but also must appreciate in value to give instant equity to those who have just become owners.

When things don’t go well, we always blame someone else. Why drill off Santa Barbara or Alaska when we can sue those terrible Saudis for not putting more oil platforms in their Persian Gulf?

I'm technically a "Boomer" but have always identified more with the younger, Generation X.

Just days after being challenged by McCain to go with him on a joint visit to Iraq, according to this NY Times blog (it's about a Democrat, so it's probably reasonable accurate coming from the NY Times):

In a brief interview here, Mr. Obama said his campaign was considering taking a foreign trip after he secures the Democratic presidential nomination. No details have been set, he said, but added: "Iraq would obviously be at the top of the list of stops."

Oh.  OK. 

Mr. Yes We Can thinks that it's a stupid idea for the two front-runners for the office of President of the United States to go together to Iraq to find out first-hand how things are going, but that a solo trip is worthy of consideration.  Sounds to me like Change we can Believe In, I Hope.  Yepper.

In the days before CNN, countries used to send delegations to foreign countries, to keep the lines of communication open between the two peoples, to send messages back and forth, and, of course, to gather intelligence.  Contrary to what some may believe, it's a good thing to know more about foreign countries, their people, how they think, what they consider to be important.

So, I suppose in that vein, Obama thinks it's a good idea to talk with Iran.  You know, maybe it is.  But first, I wonder if any Obama supporter can answer a simple question:

Why we don't have a U.S. Embassy in Iran?  Traditionally, exchanging embassies is the way that two nations begin talking to one another, in a process called diplomacy.  Because diplomacy is thought by most civilized nations to be important, there is a thing called diplomatic immunity.  Civilized countries don't attack foreign ambassadors--at worst, they simply tell them to leave (i.e. designating them persona non grata).

To attack (or to allow to be attacked) a foreign embassy on your soil has historically been considered to be an act of war.

So, again, why is there no U.S. Embassy operating in Tehran? 

A national civics quiz from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

I got 95% right.  How will you do?

(Via Ace of Spades HQ)

UPDATE:  Due to my blog software's naughty-word filter, the quiz link doesn't work.

When you click on the link, it will try to go to www.americancivi*censored*eracy.org.  This, of course, doesn't exist.

Replace the *censored* with . . . um . . . how to put this so the software will like it . . .

OK, replace the americancivi*censored*eracy part of the address with:
american civic literacy  (but remove the spaces).

Discerning the offending naughty word causing this difficulty is left as an exercise for the reader.

Not this blatantly, anyway.  Dow Chemical blasts Washington over the do-nothingism for thirty or more years over energy prices (Yahoo/AP):

"For years, Washington has failed to address the issue of rising energy costs and, as a result, the country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing serious harm to America's manufacturing sector and all consumers of energy," Chairman and Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said in a statement.

"The government's failure to develop a comprehensive energy policy is causing U.S. industry to lose ground when it comes to global competitiveness, and our own domestic markets are now starting to see demand destruction throughout the U.S."

Lines are beginning to be drawn . . . with Congress' approval rating bubbling along at around 18%, this is an issue that every single challenger in a Congressional race will be able to use.

This quote of a famous South Park line courtesy of a syrup-spilling accident in suburban St. Louis:

About 350 gallons of corn syrup leaked onto the roadway and into a drainage ditch. Another tractor-trailer involved in the wreck leaked about 100 gallons of diesel fuel. A car and a pickup were also involved.

St. Louis.  They get all the fun.

NASA, The Space Plumbers, in their Big White (with black spots) Sanitation Shuttle!

Astronauts living aboard the International Space Station (ISS) need help from an orbital plumber to fix their troublesome space commode.

The solitary Russian-built toilet inside the station's Zvezda service module began acting up last week, forcing U.S. astronaut Garrett Reisman and his two Russian crewmates to use facilities aboard their docked Soyuz spacecraft before restoring the commode to partial service. Spare parts for the balky space toilet are set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Discovery on Saturday.

Flush, dammit, FLUSH!

Via Powerline:

Barack Obama must be the most gaffe-prone politician in memory. Today, he delivered a Memorial Day speech in New Mexico. After greeting the local Democratic Party dignitaries, he began:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

(emphasis added)

You know, for a guy who's got a reputation as such a flawless orator, Obama says some really, really, really stupid things.