Trump is operating his transition from New York. I understand he has suggested that, once he becomes President, he will spend future weekends at Trump Tower, New York. This may be unusual, some say unprecedented, but the good news is that as long as he is in New York he won’t be doing as …
My wife and I decided not to talk incessently about the results of the election, but to calmly wait and see what the new President actually does. Our resolve didn’t last long. Of all the many issues one could worry about, global climate change has to be by far the most important . Other changes …
Continue reading ‘The cruel fraud of climate change denial’ »
From Greg de Paco, New Westminster, British Columbia “George Monbiot is correct that if a transportation system were designed today with the objective of moving people around efficiently it would not focus on the private automobile. In North America our transportation systems were not designed for efficient movement but for auto industry profit. “The car …
Continue reading ‘The motor car (follow-on from yesterday)’ »
The Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy- focused think tank, says, in effect, that we are on the verge of an energy and technology transformation to rival the sudden decline of the coal industry. They point to the real technological transformation that could arrive from the merger of two vehicle trends — automation and electrification — and …
Issue one coarse crude or vulgar word while I was growing up and I was sent to my room without the next meal. Among a host of other concerns raised by the election campaign, the coarseness of the language, the vulgarity, rudeness and lack of respect for others – these stand out as truly troubling. …
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act. An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. …
Continue reading ‘Trump’s proposed legislation (follow-on from yesterday)’ »
The US is now fighting in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Somalia. Yet “no vital American interest is at stake” in any of these places. In 1980, president Jimmy Carter declared that any challenge to American positions in the Persian Gulf would be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the US, but …
A “quiet catastrophe” has befallen America, says George F. Will. Almost unnoticed, millions of American men have left the job market. A study has revealed the percentage of males of prime working age (25 to 54) in jobs today (84.4%) is smaller than it was as the Great Depression neared its end in 1940, …
“Foresight – most people only get to three”. This seems to apply particularly to politicians at the present moment.
The Space Telescope Science Institute suggests that there are currently 1020, or 100 billion billion, Earth-like planets in the universe, with an equivalent number of gas giants. “Earth-like” doesn’t mean an exact replica of our planet, but rather a rocky world that, if blanketed by a suitable atmosphere, would hold liquid water on its surface. …
Bees are dying in record numbers – and now the US government admits that an extremely common class of pesticide, called neonicotinoids (or neonics) are at least partially to blame. Neonics, of which there are five types, are marketed by European chemical giants Bayer, BASF and Sygenta. Millions of acres of farmland are treated with …
Montaigne “All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate”. (Michel de Montaigne)
(with apologies for the length; it isn’t possible to summarise this in a paragraph) The U.N. Economic and Social Council presented its first report on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals towards ending extreme poverty, fighting inequality and tackling climate change by 2030. These are some of the main findings: The good news: – The proportion of the …
Continue reading ‘In perspective: the world’s biggest social and economic problems’ »
Trump (tweets):”This very expensive global warming bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temperatures, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice”.”Snowing in Texas and Louisiana, record-setting freezing temperatures throughout the country and beyond. Global warming is an expensive hoax!” (Quoted by Elior Weinberger in the London Review of Books)
