Author: craigshields

Because my wife has been involved in the thoroughbred horse breeding industry for the past 30 years, I have to admit that I’ve been out to the track more than a few times.  I recall, essentially out of boredom, betting …

Something Strange Is About To Happen in the United States Read More »

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A great number of prominent ex-Republicans have assembled something called the Lincoln Project, an ad hoc group whose purpose is to remove Donald Trump from office before he can inflict any further damage.  Their core tool to bring this about …

The Lincoln Project’s Most Recent Release Read More »

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One of the core tenets of business management is “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”  That’s why data collection and usage is among the key trends when it comes to corporations’ efforts to reduce their emissions footprints. Something struck …

How the Gathering of Data Is Driving Our Understanding of Climate Change and How It Can Be Mitigated Read More »

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In Western philosophy we have something called “truth theory,” of which there are essentially three: Correspondence: For everything in the universe that is true, there is a corresponding statement to that effect.  Since Santa Barbara is in California, the statement, …

Extreme Right-Wing Views Are Surprisingly Coherent Read More »

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The graphic below brilliantly illustrates something we have been discussing on and off for years, i.e., that rich people will be almost completely immune to the horrific consequences of climate change–at least for the better part of a century. This, …

Social and Environmental justice Read More »

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Karl Popper (pictured here) was a 20th Century philosopher of science, perhaps best known for his belief that if we are to call any idea a “scientific theory,” it needs to be falsifiable, i.e., that there needs to be a …

Karl Popper, the Philosophy of Science, and the Paradox of Tolerance Read More »

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While the United States continues its dive into mayhem, with its armed insurrections, traffickers in voter fraud theories, QAnoners, anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, and children in cages policies, most of the rest of the world continues to make some level of …

Most of the World Progressing Towards Civility Read More »

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A few years ago, famed Watergate figure John Dean warned Trump staffers that their resumes are going to be badly stained via their participation in this criminally insane presidency.  He used words like, “Everyone who had anything to do with …

Trump Staffers Face Shame, Future Employment Woes: People Will Assume Everything You Say Is a Lie Read More »

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I’m not normally pessimistic, at least in what I write here, but the Republicans’ call for national unity is a big part of the reason that this whole deal with the “fraudulent election,” armed insurrections, etc. is so hard to …

GOP Calls for Unity–Why This Is Problematic Read More »

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In today’s highly polarized world, it seems that literally any development that has the remotest relation to politics is going to auto-generate both a left- and a right-wing contingent around it. Here we have the fact that the social networking …

Private Enterprises’ Reining In the Promotion of Hateful Lies, Treason and Murder Is Somehow Controversial Read More »

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