Humpday recommendations 9/19/2023

Watch: In the spirit of the United Nations General Assembly, check out Netflix’s 2016 “The Siege of Jadotville.” Based on a true story, an Irish unit sent on a UN peacekeeping mission in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo finds itself surrounded and outgunned. A riveting story, even if it doesn’t portray the UN in the best light. — Matt Kendrick

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Read: The Fight to Vote by Micheal Wadman– to learn that there has never actually been a constitutional right to vote in the US. The book traces the history of voting rights from the Founders’ earliest debates up to the present day, and has a lot to say about the future of voting and American democracy. – Riley

Understand: How the World Really Works. Czech-Canadian energy expert Václav Smil isn’t a skeptic about climate change. But he has a problem with a lot of climate policy. The modern world, he argues in his best-seller How the World Really Works, depends on vast quantities of steel (for manufacturing), ammonia (for food production), cement (for building), and plastics (for just about everything you use or touch) — and without fossil fuels it is (so far) completely impossible to produce these four things at scale. Promises of complete “decarbonization” are, in his view, not only unrealistic, but unfair to developing countries. Curmudgeonly clapback or constructive reality check? You decide. -Alex