The world’s biggest palm oil agribusiness is destroying rainforests in Indonesia to make way for palm plantations — even though it’s against the law. Last month, one of Wilmar International’s suppliers was caught bulldozing crucial rainforest in the Leuser Ecosystem, an important. wildlife habitat and the last place on earth where you can find endangered …
Paul Bloom recently wrote a book called Against Empathy, and some of his friends say they are embarrassed to read it in public. Isn’t empathy something only a psychopath would object to? Isn’t empathy a force for good? Are not people are urged to express greater empathy in everyday life, and children are being taught to …
Germany’s Constitutional Court has refused to ban the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. A bid to get it outlawed was rejected by the court in 2003; and now a new bid – launched after a series of racist murders in recent years was found to be the work of a neo-Nazi terror cell, and backed by …
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“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest- tossed to me, I will lift my lamp beside the golden door!” And compare the above fine words with the un-poetic sentiments and actions of the new US Administration and …
President Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is recruiting from Breitbart News to staff the White House, raising Breitbart’s profile and power. One of Breitbart’s biggest stars, Julia Hahn, is expected to join the White House as an aide to Bannon. Breitbart’s national security editor, Sebastian Gorka, will also relocate to the White House, likely with …
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Women’s reproductive rights and control over their own bodies and their own lives are about to be brutally assaulted in the United States. I therefore, on this blog, wish to make the following statement, which is based upon the humanist message of care, compassion, support, love, consideration for others, and wish for all human beings …
President Trump visited the memorial wall of the CIA operatives who lost their lives in the course of duty, ignored the dead and spent his time complaining about the reports in the media about the size of attendance at the inauguration. Attendance in person, mind you, not total world- wide viewers on the media. Side by …
As if America didn’t have enough to worry about, the US Census Bureau has just released data highlighting a troubling fall in the rate of population growth. The US population grew by just 0.7% last year – the lowest figure since the Great Depression years of 1936 and 1937. Although the US is still faring better …
The flood of Trump-fearing American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week. The Republican presidential campaign is prompting an exodus among left-leaning Americans who fear they’ll soon be required to hunt, pray, pay taxes, and live according to the Constitution. Canadian border residents say it’s not uncommon to see …
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Threats from the unexpected. Now it is air conditioning and refrigeration. World-wide the demand for air conditioning is expected to rise by 33 times by the end of the century. By 2050 the world population will use more electricity for cooling than for heating. This will make the planet hotter, because cooling requires the burning …
One in five Americans is religiously unaffiliated, and the figure is growing. Yet just one of 535 members of the new Congress, Arizona Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, is a declared non-believer. “Unaffiliated,” is defined as people who are atheist, agnostic or who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” That means only 0.2 percent of …
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Amid the doom and gloom around us there is good reason to think that the lot ot mankind is actually improving. Cheer youselves with the following good news: – After about 200 years of pouring greenhouse gases into the air, resulting in the highest carbon dioxide levels since humans first walked the Earth, the rate …
I am no lawyer but I am flummoxed by the Article 50 legal hearing currently before the British Supreme Court. The issue is whether Parliament should have the final say in Brexit, if necessary over-ruling any agreement made with the EU. The reason I am puzzled is the reported preoccupation with the phrase “from time …
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“At school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least …
A massive rise in sea level is coming, and it will trigger climate chaos around the world. That was the message from a controversial recent paper by climate scientist James Hansen. It was slated by many for assuming – rather than showing – that sea level could rise by between 1 and 5 metres by …
