It seems that a lot of my time on the computer involves reading the news since I am very wary of watching the news on TV (with the exception of Bloomberg news, as I have a certain partiality to it).

Anyhow, the latest bit of reading included an article about increased security in Iraq in advance of the verdict in the Hussein trial. This got me thinking about the whole notion of the public tribunal and whether it actually served to deliver justice. It can certainly give the appearance of going through the process, but I think this particular case was designed to find Suddam Hussein guilty.

There is no doubt in my mind that this man has done some very, very bad things. And with the precedents that have been set in the past, he is probably due for a very serious sentence. But why has the trial been made public? Does it need to be televised? Here are some things about the trial that irk me:

1. There have been multiple judges. I think that it goes without saying that this can definitely undermine the integrity and flow of the trial.
2. The judges have been appointed. Further, they have been influenced (or perhaps coerced is the better word) by governments. How objective can they be when there is so much pressure on them?
3. People involved with the trial have been murdered. More specifically, people on the defense have been killed. Who would want to be on the defense now?
I suppose that justice will be done in one way or another; he needs to be accountable for what he did while leading Iraq. I just can’t help but feel that it is not being done in an unbiased and objective manner. It’s like the trial is a performance for all to see and, when a member of the cast starts to suck, he or she is shooed away (with papers or with an explosion).

(An apology is offered to those who are getting tired of my thoughts on recent news articles that I have been reading. But it is a little nice to take a break from the “I did this, then this, and then that” kind of posts, ya know? 🙂 )

I was browsing my Google homepage and I came across this article, which made me really, really sad. And really, really worried. This report comes right on the heels of another report about global warming and how it will cost us on the order of $7 trillion unless things turn around in the next ten to fifteen years. (And it’s brutal to think that people have to associate a price tag to it before it becomes an important issue…)

It’s so stupid. I mean, it’s not like this comes as a surprise to any of us; we all know that global warming is a reality and we all know that was are pushing species to extinction at an unprecedented rate. Yet we, as a global society, cannot focus on a sufficiently long enough horizon to really address these issues. Sure, there is emphasis on planning for our retirement, but when was the last time we considered what the world would look like when we retire?

I, for one, always thought retirement would be similar to what it’s like for people today. But after some thought, it’s going to be a completely different world. A lot can happen in forty years and, at this rate, it looks like the majority of what will happen in the natural world will be bad. Our oxygen supply will be depleting, further accelerating the rate of global warming. Sea levels will rise so that cities will begin to drown. Oil will be so expensive that the cost of living will be significantly higher. The human population will probably exceed ten billion people, which can only mean the faster consumption of our limited resources. And who knows what animals will be regulated to history books and museums.

The world can be a very scary place forty years from now. And we know it’s coming. And I’m pissed off at me and I’m pissed off at everyone else for being a slave to capitalism.

I feel so helpless.