Category Archives: Politics

Brexit 2

I was in the process of collecting some more links, but as usual, a member of MetaFilter has done it faster and better than I could have.

MetaFilter: The Full English Brexit.

Ein paar deutschsprachige Links als Ergänzung:

Die Zeit: Brexit: Der größte anzunehmende Unfall. “Das Brexit-Referendum ist ein Desaster für das Vertrauen in menschliche Vernunft. Jede Bewegung, die von unten kommt, wird uns von nun an als Mob erscheinen.” Von Marion Detjen.

Die Zeit: Brexit ohne Plan. “Die Konservativen suchen einen neuen Premier. Labour rebelliert gegen Jeremy Corbyn. Und die Brexit-Unterstützer sind abgetaucht. Wer steuert jetzt Großbritannien?” Von Imke Henkel.

Brexit

Deutsche Welle: World adjusts to Brexit vote after initial shock. “EU officials have called for the UK to start the exit process ‘as soon as possible’ after voters decided to leave the bloc. But the US president said their decision speaks to the ‘challenges raised by globalization.'”

Merkel calls Brexit ‘a watershed for Europe’. “German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called the UK’s decision to leave the European Union a watershed for Europe and European unity. It’s now up to her and EU leaders to ensure other countries don’t follow suit.”

The Guardian: Is the EU referendum legally binding? “Parliament is sovereign and, if Brexit wins, Cameron will not be legally obliged to invoke the Lisbon treaty to start an EU exit.”

Die Zeit: Wenn Politik am Stammtisch entschieden wird. “Mit Parolen, Drohungen und Lügen haben Populisten die Entscheidung über den Brexit beeinflusst. Bei einem so komplexen Thema hätte es kein Referendum geben dürfen.” Von Tanja Dückers.

Damn! Berlin im Brexit-Schock. “Die deutsche Politik muss sich nach dem britischen Referendum neu sortieren. Mit diesem Ausgang hatte ernsthaft niemand gerechnet. Umso größer ist die Ratlosigkeit.” Von Ludwig Greven, Katharina Schuler und Lenz Jacobsen.

Nuclear Power and Clean Energy

NPR News: California’s Last Nuclear Power Plant To Be Shut Down.

NPR All Things Considered: California To Close State’s Last Nuclear Power Plant.

I remember both the Chernobyl and the Fukushima nuclear disasters and have become much more wary about nuclear power since the latter happened. Japan uses the same kind of reactors that are used in German nuclear power plants, and the disaster there has shown that even if the core doesn’t melt down like it did in Chernobyl‘s graphite-moderated reactor, there’s still a lot that can go wrong even in a water-moderated reactor like the ones used in Japan and Germany (boiling water reactors, pressurized water reactors).

The German government ordered eight of the seventeen reactors to be shut down immediately after Fukushima, and the others will be shut down by the end of the year 2022 at the latest. A few kilometers from where I live is a nuclear power plant that I’ve visited with groups of students several times (in fact I just went two days ago), and while this is of course an interesting excursion, I won’t be sad to see it shut down by the end of 2018 at the latest.

I’m surprised that environmentalists count nuclear power as “clean” like solar and wind because no carbon dioxide is emitted, but what about the tons of radioactive waste? This is an unsolved probleme here in Germany, and I wonder about the situation in other industrial nations like the US, but also Japan or the rest of Europe. Has any country solved this problem for real?

Mass Shooting in Orlando

As usual, the MetaFilter community does a better job a finding links to relevant information and good background articles, so I’ll just link to their thread:

MetaFilter: Police: 50 killed in Florida nightclub terror attack.

Also, on Vox: Why “thoughts and prayers” aren’t enough after a mass shooting.

Read it and spend the seven minutes to watch “America’s gun problem, explained in 18 charts”. I will never understand why “the right to bear arms” trumps huge numbers of gun deaths – most of them suicides, but crime-related deaths and mass shootings as well.

As President Obama said in his statement on June 12, 2016:

“Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.“

(My emphasis.)