I’m not one to make fun of the impotence of the United Nations; I wish it weren’t so. But this one does seem to be a bit outside their realm.
What does the UN’s declaring something to be a human right actually do? Let’s say it’s clean water, adequate shelter, or, more recently in the news: healthcare. How much closer does it put people who are deprived of these life-giving commodities from actualizing them?
Obviously.
But as if there aren’t work-arounds? Dishonest wealthy people have always, and will always, find ways to beat laws like the one contemplated here.
How much imagination does it take? Trade stocks through one of your 15 cousins. Whatever.
Unless you’re doing something as brazen as Trump’s trying to overturn the election, a random congressperson who gets caught for insider trading had horrible luck.
Now, that line about the Dunning-Kruger effect is funny.
When I entered the world of environmental sustainability in 2009, several people suggested that I should do my own research on climate change, and I had the same reaction as this guy did. People have spent decades and spent fortunes, compiling ridiculous amounts of data on temperature, ice melt, methane and CO2 levels, etc. Can a business consultant, working independently, add significant value here?
Here’s an article on Austria’s carbon tax that begins:
“….In slightly more dramatic terms: “Habemus CO₂ tax.”
But the reception in Austria and beyond was quite a bit more muted than the joyous announcement of a new pope. Environmental group Greenpeace called it “too weak, too late and ineffective.” They have a point.
Putting a price on carbon is essential if we are to stunt the growing effects of climate change. But it comes as no surprise that environmental organizations, especially the more aggressive ones like Greenpeace, are unhappy with the pace and dimension of this and the rest of the world’s carbon taxes.
I was one of those people who actually enjoyed taking the SATs. I was much better at math than verbal, but I remember the analogies fondly. These are tests of vocabulary, an example of which might be:
Loud is to soft as big is to:
a) soda crackers, b) small, c) hiking, d) frustrated.
The guy who sent me the meme here clearly doesn’t get how this works.
From Salon:
In a recent interview with MSNBC, former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt (pictured) issued a stern warning to Americans who have not yet grasped the nature of our present crisis of democracy. “We have an autocratic movement teeming with violence and the intimations of violence in this country,” he said, inviting viewers of the liberal news channel to imagine “that domestic terrorist, that criminal who desecrated the American flag by wrapping it around his head, who committed violence in the name of right-wing extremism.” (more…)
This is precisely what I told my son when Trump was elected:
Regardless of how bad this is for the country and the world as a whole, it will affect us directly very little, We’re not female, gay, Muslim, black, brown, poor, ill, or uneducated.
The only reason that this will be hard on us is that we both have a deep and abiding sense of caring about the well-being of those around us. We’re about to learn to our shock that, while many people share our values, a great number don’t.
There was a time, not too long ago, when stupidity was stigmatized, and academic excellence was celebrated.
As shown here, this is no longer the case. In our Congress, the two are on equal footing.
This article presents a chilling position for a doctor to find himself in, forced to make the decision to save one life at the expense of another.
Alaska is known for its rugged individualism and anti-government, anti-science sentiment. Thus, anyone could have predicted that it would suffer one of the highest rates of COVID-19 cases in the country. However, unlike other states in the contiguous U.S., people in its rural parts often learn to their horror that they are both a) quite distant from the nearest hospital, and b) unable to be transported to another hospital that may have some open ICU space, since it may be thousands of miles away.
A tragedy that could have been avoided.
The chart below is just one more indicator of the fact that we really have very little regard for both our country’s small children and for their working moms.
In particular, it illustrates the raw hypocrisy of those who refer to themselves as “pro-life.” They protect the fetus at all cost, but once that baby is born they couldn’t care less what happens to it.
