With apologies for so many Brexit postings, but, especially after Theresa May’s pathetic encounter with the EU ministers yesterday, I suspect that any thinking, patriotic and informed person who saw her or his country make such a mindless, incompetent hash of an unnecessary political red herring would also want to express her or his deep anguish. …
Continue reading ‘The EU and an intelligent person’s despair’ »
“Some wounds never heal of their own accord. One such wound is America’s legacy of slavery and racial injustice. It is the “original sin” that lies behind many of the continuing divisions in US society – and it’s time the country properly atoned for it. I used to be against the idea of slavery reparations …
Continue reading ‘Making reparations to the descendants of slaves’ »
“A smear campaign”: that’s how US ambassador Woody Johnson dismissed the furore in the British media over suggestions that the UK should allow chlorinated American chickens to be imported into Britain after Brexit, as a result of a new trade deal. He’s right that the unpleasant practice of disinfecting the birds in chlorine isn’t dangerous: …
Continue reading ‘One thing Brits agree about: American chlorinated chicken imports!’ »
Interserve is a giant UK outsourcing company, which employs over 65,000 people worldwide including 45,000 in the UK. It has thousands of government contracts, including for hospital cleaning, probation services, school meals and the maintenance of military bases, benefitting from the Tory off-loading of the duties of a civilised modern government. Interserve now has ended up …
Continue reading ‘Neoliberalism should be consigned to the same deep pit as communism’ »
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders kicked up dust recently when she told the Christian television network CBN that she believed that God wanted Donald Trump to be president. “I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times,” she said, “and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become …
The sordid scandal that broke this week concerning the bribery of college employees to get the children of rich kids entry into prestigious colleges when , by themselves, they hadn’t a hope, points to a growing crisis in the higher education that isn’t going away (given the general atmosphere of corruption in government nothing is …
So what exactly does the House of Representatives H.R.1 bill do that Republicans find so horrifying? It creates a national system for automatic voter registration and expands early voting and same-day registration. It makes Election Day a holiday for federal employees and encourages private businesses to also take the day off to encourage voting. It …
The most vexing problem with Brexit is Northern Ireland and its open border with the Republic of Ireland to its south. Northern Ireland was always an anomaly. It has been a pain the neck since Cromwell imported a bunch of extreme Protestant settlers from Scotland into Ireland centuries ago. If it were not for these …
Continue reading ‘A radical (explosive?) answer to Brexit and the future of Great Britain’ »
Continued from yesterday: The Trump administration is, in fact, experiencing increasing difficulty finding allies ready to join a new Coalition of the Willing to confront Iran. The only two charter members so far, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are, however, enthusiastic indeed. Last month there was a rally in Warsaw to promote war, featuring Netanyahu as …
(The following 3 paragraphs are by Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tom Dispatch, the inside, go-to publication for military affairs, edited for length. Go to tomdispatch@nationinstitute.org It is possible that the next U.S. military disaster of the twenty-first century might be Iran. That country has, of course, had a significant spot on Washington’s war-making to-do list since …
The posting below about Big Soda trying to persuade the government that consuming excessive sugar is fine as long as you take plenty of exercise raises the issue of Liberty. The Obama Administration was taken to task for what some regarded as too many regulations protecting consumers, the environment etc. The current Administration is scrapping swathes …
Continue reading ‘Liberty and licence: a moral and ethical question.’ »
Consumer groups in the US have accused Coca Cola of trying to alter the policy of the Centers for Disease Control in relation to sugar consumption by donating $1 million to the CDC Foundation and pressing the CDC to downplay sugar consumption as a cause of obesity and bad health (diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and …
Continue reading ‘Big soda altering government policies in their own commercial interest’ »
“Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who … organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day… Nothing can be taken from this life, and you can only add to it, …
To The Times A visibly noticeable benefit of Brexit is that we will be able to have whiter teeth. The problem lies with EU bureaucracy. The EU allows less than 0.1% of hydrogen peroxide in over-the-counter products, which means that their effectiveness is low. In America, up to 10% is considered safe, and Americans have …
“The U.S. Department of Education is sending emails to about 15,000 people across the country telling them: You’ve got money. “These are former students — and some parents of students — who took out loans for colleges that shut down between Nov. 1, 2013, and Dec. 4, 2018. About half attended campuses run by Corinthian …
In February more than 76,000 migrants crossed the Southern border without authorization, an 11 year high. 76,000 illegal immigrants in one month! This blog is liberal in outlook, and is even run by an immigrant! However, such a big number is shocking. Apparently, while the majority of Latino migrants used to be men, now they …
There has been much debate over the profiteering and mismanagement at British privatised enterprises, such as Carillion, a “stark, rotting symbol of everything that has gone wrong with the privatisation of local public services”. What has had little attention is the sell-off of public lands in the UK that started with Margaret Thatcher about 39 …
Continue reading ‘Privatising publicly owned land in Britain’ »
Job interviews are rarely a pleasant experience but the one Olivia Bland recently endured appears to have been particularly hideous. The 22-year-old graduate says she was left in tears at the bus stop after a two-hour grilling by Craig Dean, the boss of a tech company in Oldham where she had hoped to become a …
Continue reading ‘“Stress” interviews: hiring by humiliation’ »
The current, hugely expensive American health system absorbs 18% of U.S. GDP and leaves nearly 30 million people uninsured and another 40 million underinsured with large deductibles and copays. A surprising study by the Koch brothers- funded Mercatus Center shows how, under Medicare for All, every single resident of the U.S. can be guaranteed good-quality …
The top 1% of Medicare patients account for 20% of the total cost of Medicare. The top 5% account for 50% . This is the greatest threat to the US government finances, scarcely discussed, after the profligate funding of futile foreign wars. And now the huge Baby Boomer population is starting to have a threatening effect on the cost …
