I laughed out loud when I came across the ad here. You’d have to pay me plenty to shop at Walmart.
Decent people don’t patronize organizations whose chief owners are worth $280 billion, but pay their employees $11 – $13 per hour, forcing many of them to work two or three jobs, and/or live off food stamps that you and I pay for with our tax dollars.
It’s such a different experience having Trump out of office.
Obviously, there are people who resent Biden’s policies re: infrastructure, environmental responsibility, taxation, immigration reform, foreign policy, and perhaps even pandemic response. But I would imagine that even most of them are breathing a little easier now that a selfish lying criminal has been replaced by an essentially sane and decent person. (more…)
From this:
In a recent incident, a high school hockey coach died after being punched outside of a bar in St. Paul, Minnesota, on April 17 following an argument about social distancing, the Star Tribune reported. (more…)
From this piece on the coal industry:
Coal country is in free fall and is pleading for help from Washington. That’s why the largest union in one of the dirtiest industries is broadly backing President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion green infrastructure package — an ambitious plan that has also won support from climate activists.
Life in the United States changed radically over the past few years. In particular, many Americans’ respect for science has been replaced with the conviction that scientists are corrupt, and have been cajoled into conspiring with the government to eliminate our personal rights and liberties. 
Of course, this would be amusing if it didn’t have lethal consequences. Almost half of all Republicans are refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccination, thus prolonging the course of the disease, keeping parts of the economy closed for longer than necessary, and causing millions of extra cases and thousands of deaths that could have been avoided.
ESG, i.e., funds that consider environmental, social, and governance issues are growing in popularity. The term is used interchangeably with “socially responsible investing (SRI)” and “sustainable investing.”
As anyone would have anticipated, greenwashing is a consequence of this demand; fund managers tend to claim their products meet ESG standards when in reality, they come nowhere close.
It’s good to know that the Biden appointee to the SEC has pledged oversight in this arena. As mentioned in the article linked above, the previous administration had very little interest in this subject. Imagine that.
All this is true, but sadly, these people occupy important positions in our government, and their decisions have disastrous effects on many millions of people, and, at a certain level, everyone on Earth.
Their actions make the planet a more dangerous, unhealthy, unsustainable, dirty, cruel, hateful and ignorant place to live.
Who wouldn’t love to ignore their presence? Yet doing so only perpetuates the damage they do.
A new feature of Google Earth enables the user to compare Earth’s surface in 1984 to what it looks like today.
If you’re up for it, check out melting glaciers, disappearing forests, and land mass loss due to sea-level rise.
As recently as 60 years ago, it was largely assumed that humankind was incapable, except perhaps via nuclear holocaust, of doing any serious damage to our home planet. Today it’s right in our face.
I learned during a Zoom meeting yesterday that the acceptance rate at Ivy League schools is now 3 – 5% (i.e., the rejection rate is as high as 97%). When you subtract out those who are admitted merely because their daddy, e.g., Jared Kushner’s father, just donated a new gymnasium, the access to this level of quality education based on merit is close to zero. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist; it’s just extremely rare. (more…)
Televangelist Pat Robertson makes a somewhat controversial statement here, doesn’t he?
This is the level of thinking going on here in the good ol’ USA.
