The Huffington Post has an absolutely fantastic interview with the Minister of Education in Finland, Ms. Henna Virkunnen.

Many studies and experts point to Finland as one of the best school systems in the world.

I have often used it as an example that Teacher Unions don’t have to be “the enemy” and that the main problem we face in the United States is that the teacher profession is seen as a “Plan B” or definitely lesser option than a job in the private sector as opposed to one of the highest ranking and highly competitive professions that it should be.

Please read this article, it really gives a lot of impulses for discussion.

What do you think? Can/should we copy some of Finland’s practices? What obstacles are we facing? How could we overcome them? Every comment will be answered.

Das ist ein Himmelfahrtskommando

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is now reporting that volunteers are signing up for the fight against the nuclear disaster in Japan.
The headline (“A Mission Straight to Heaven” or “A Suicide Mission”) is a direct quote by Professor Keiichi Nakagawa from the Department of Radiology at the University Clinic of Tokyo.

World Wide Alerts

Another commenter on HP just posted this web site.

It basically shows alerts for all the Earthquakes, Landslides, Volcano Eruptions, Explosions, Biological Hazards, Fires, Epidemic Hazards, etc. around the world in real time.

Fascinating and very scary.

Also, google has set up this page where you can donate to the Japanese Red Cross Society.

Great, sad comment on HP thread

Seen on HuffingtonPost.com “Japanese Government Warns Those Nearby Nuclear Plant To Stay Indoors In Order To Avoid Radiation” by Adam Goldberg

Commenter Patrick_MVWA:

The sad thing is that these things happen not because we need the energy, but because we want the freedom to waste energy. We want it so cheap that we can let the dryer spin for half an hour after the buzzer goes off. We want it so cheap that we can put three decorative gas fireplaces in every tract house, with 12 light bulbs over every bathroom mirror. We want it so cheap so that one person can drive to pick up a few groceries in an Escalade. For this, cancers will spike in Japan. For this, we send people to kill and be killed in the Middle East. For this, we fill up the Gulf of Mexico with crude oil. Time to change. Time to conserve. Turn off that light in the other room and put on your sweater on winter nights.

Truer words have rarely been spoken.

McCarthyism in 2011

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim-American elected to Congress, broke into tears Thursday during a hearing investigating possible radicalization of Muslim-Americans.
The hearings, led by committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) have already caused quite a storm of controversy.

The Huffington Post has the whole story, including video of Ellison’s testimony memorializing Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old Muslim-American firefighter who died while saving others during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

I am in complete agreement with Ellison’s statement that the inquiry is “the very heart of scapegoating.”

What do you think?

“Europe is divided”

Today’s New York Times has a fantastic article about the economic divide between the North and South of Europe and how being bound by a common currency is making getting out of the recession almost impossible for the southern economies.

The basic premise of the article is that grouping the northern economies such as Germany and France together with the southern economies of Portugal and Spain is hurting the countries in the South, because having the same currency also brought the same high wages and employment protections, but without the international competitiveness.

This is especially true for those businesses trying to compete with products made in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and China — which are all able to produce plastics, fabrics and other items southern economies used to be major exporters of, for a much lower price.

The online article also adds a graphic about a measure of competitiveness comprised by the World Economic Forum. Not surprisingly, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain are always at the very bottom of the different measures of competitiveness, while countries such as Germany, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands are generally at the top.

The midterm elections signed a book deal!

Via the Wonkette: “Christine O’Donnell to Bless America with Insightful (Hilarious) Book”

O’Donnell announced this via this tweet:

“You heard the spin about the 2010 elections. It’s time to set the record straight & move forward – signed a book deal w St. Martins Press!”

If read correctly, that of course means that the Midterms just signed a book deal. Good for you midterms!

Wikileaks blocked from former website

A story in Der Spiegel (and Reuters (english)) today says that WikiLeaks had to move its web site (www.wikileaks.org) to Switzerland after several U.S. internet providers stopped providing services to the site.
The new swiss address (www.wikileaks.ch) is owned by the Pirate Party.

 

Diplomats’ commentary on world leaders [WikiLeaks]

Der Spiegel (english) has released several great articles and slideshows concerning the now infamous WikiLeaks of American diplomat cables.

Here is a slideshow entitled “How the U.S. sees select World Leaders” with U.S. diplomats’ commentary on Merkel, Ahmadinejad, Putin & Berlusconi and others.

The magazine also posted a slideshow focused on German leaders and a story on how Berlin is going into “damage-control mode” after the release of the cables.

As always, Der Spiegel is offering some excellent reporting mixed in with some amusing parts including the commentary on Azerbaijan’s ‘First Lady’:

She has had so much plastic surgery that it is possible to confuse her for one of her daughters from a distance, but that she can barely still move her face.

Of course sending stuff like that over the secure wires was unprofessional and quite unnecessary, but who doesn’t love good gossip like that?

In other news [FDA to have more oversight]

Finally something we can all agree on. I mean, really: The Senate has passed new legislation giving the Food & Drug Administration more power to oversee the food we consume. After a year of stalling (what were they waiting for!?) the bill finally passed the Senate and is expected to pass with bipartisan (gasp!) support in the house. I still think that the FDA is much too lax in many ways, but at least this is a step in the right direction.