Redefining Progress

I ran into Shauna last night, and apparently she is also organizing a conference on sustainability at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands!

Also, her sister works at Redefining Progress, another Oakland, CA thinktank on sustainability economics and progressive policy.

Foreign Policy stuff

I'm currently reading Blowback by Chalmers Johnson. "Blowback" is a jargon term used to describe unintended consequences of policies (and CIA missions). The book analyzes the consequences of a US foreign policy that tends to favor military force over diplomacy, and imperialistic misconceptions over factual investigation, especially with respect to Asia. The two chapters on China--the current state of affairs and issues like human rights and Tibet--are really good. Johnson's grasp of the big picture is refreshing, especially in a time when it's easy to jump on the bandwagon heckling China, albeit sometimes hypocritically. Once I finish the book I'm going to blog about the book in more detail.

Also on a related note, this NY Times article lists some of the individuals who make up the 300 people foreign policy advisors to Obama, including Susie E. Rice, Anthony Lake, Gregory B. Craig (all three served under Clinton), Dennis Ross (Middle East envoy for Presidents Clinton and Bush I), Ivo H. Daalder (Brookings Institution), and Richard Holbrooke (UN ambassador).

Which lead me to find a list of US think tanks on Wikipedia. How many do you recognize?