This fellow thinks it’s folly to expect world leaders to do anything substantial about climate change. I’m not as pessimistic, though I admit that this is an extremely complicated situation. To begin with, solving the climate problem in such a way that leaves India and China free to burn all the coal they can get their hands on is not a solution at all. We either lower emissions on a planetary basis, or we’re cooked–literally. (more…)
Some of us really do seem to have a terrible time understanding that the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment starts with the words, “Congress shall make no law….”
One can argue, quite persuasively IMO, that corporations have too much power over our lives, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with the U.S. Constitution. And yes, don’t vote for people who can’t understand this.
Here’s a conversation on the meme here:Me: I believe what Steve is saying is that calls for help in nonviolent cases (naked lunatics in the street, school disciplinary actions, etc.) are routed to people best equipped to deal with them. These people are specially trained, and, importantly, unarmed. In the cases where the situation escalates and force is required, the police are called.
This has been tested in many places around the country and has proven extremely effective; fewer than 5% of cases require police intervention. This means that, in the 95% of cases that are de-escalated, no one gets shot.
The word “defund” is unfortunate, I’ll be the first to admit. If they had chosen “narrow the responsibilities of,” there would have been near-uniform agreement.
From CBS News: Just a quick glance at the new U.S. Climate Normals maps published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday is enough for most climate scientists to say, “I told you so.” And it’s not just because the maps show a warmer and wetter nation, as one would expect with global warming; it’s also the specific geographic pattern of those changes.
As senior energy analyst Glenn Doty points out, perhaps the most problematic aspect of climate change is that the nastiest effects, e.g., sea-level rise, will change continuously for centuries.
Thus we have questions like: Where should we rebuild New York City when Manhattan Island goes under water? There really is no good answer to that question, unless you want to put it next to Denver at 5000 feet above what is now sea level.
Call me a radical lefty, but, IMO, certain pieces of IP should reside in the public sector, i.e., not for profit. Among them, I include anything that pertains to human health and safety.
As we see here, Volvo made a humanitarian decision back in 1959. Of course, if such a call had to be made in the corporate arena in 2021, who knows what would happen.
As suggested in the photo here, Americans have a bad habit of underestimating the enormity of their problems.
A good example is the revolution that’s taking place within the Republican Party. In particular, the GOP has become the party of Trump. That’s right: he’s out of office and about to be flatten by an avalanche of criminal indictments the size of the largest boulder shown above, but anyone who says that he actually lost the 2020 election is committing political suicide.
As a result, Republicans are going to find themselves in a totally untenable position when it comes to the next national election. Fine by me.
Much to the chagrin of American conservatives, i.e., those who stand for Ronald Reagan’s values of small government and limited spending, Trump has successfully marginalized any congressional Republican who doesn’t maintain absolute loyalty to him. God help him or her who’s bold enough to tell the truth about the “Big Lie,” aka the ridiculous “stolen election” narrative.
What’s happening to Liz Chaney is comical to watch, though it may work for the Republicans in the short term. The GOP has unified around Trump, and that may be enough for success in the 2020 mid-terms. But eviscerating anyone of any integrity and sanity will fail miserably at the national level.
Chaney is a true conservative, and she’s fiercely intelligent. If the Republicans are going to win a national election, she and her policies are far more likely to carry the day than those of the Trump cultists.
Keep in mind that Bush 43 had decent support from women, young people, college-educated people, even people of color, and he still lost the popular vote (twice). Trump has virtually none of that following, especially now, after the insurrection and the onset of other legal woes from hell. To at least 80% of these people, he’s regarded as the criminal sociopath that he truly is.
Mitch McConnell has inflicted a great deal of damage on the American people over the years, but, though he doesn’t seem to realize it, it seems those days are over. With 200+ million vaccinations, 160 million stimulus checks, a great deal of environmental devastation reversed, a huge jobs/clean infrastructure bill in the works, and respect for the U.S. from foreign countries dramatically improved, let’s be honest: things aren’t going McConnell’s way.
OK, maybe you saw this one coming.
Regardless, the point is clear: much of human activity is incredibly destructive. We kill one another, we pollute our home planet, we destroy other creatures’ habitat without a thought, and we inflict horrible cruelties on our fellows.
On the other hand (from Hamlet): What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!
I happen to believe that the balance of good and helpful character of humankind and our capacity for evil is constantly changing. It would be nice to know which side is winning at this point. But right now, it’s unclear.
The rejection of science is a phenomenon that lies at the core of many of the most challenging issues in our world today.
Anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are impeding our efforts to control the pandemic.
Congressional climate deniers are hampering our attempts to prevent the planet from heating to the point that the human race experiences unprecedented levels of suffering.
A full 70% of Republicans believe, without any evidence, that the election was stolen from a great president, Donald Trump.
All this would be terrifically amusing if the damage these people cause weren’t so extreme, and if there were a mechanism for turning this around. Unfortunately, ignorance begets ignorance.
