The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz: Amazing
Borowitz wields an amazing level of talent. We all have access to the same current events, but only one guy was able to weave these two together. So brilliant.
News Flash: Trump Doesn’t Like Oversight
Here’s a conversation about Trump’s firing the Inspector General overseeing the new Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. Jeff is a friend from my school days.
Jeff: President Trump fired another Inspector General today. (more…)
Tagged with: people assigned to oversee Trump's activities
Bernie Pulls Out of Presidential Race
We love you, Bernie, but this is the right thing to do. We will have another chance to pull the U.S. into the modern world politically, but we won’t escape massive damage to our democracy, our environment, and everything else we care about, if we don’t get Trump out of office.
Mississippi Governor Declares ‘Confederate Heritage Month’ During Coronavirus Pandemic
When the good people of Mississippi elected Republican Tate Reeves to govern their state in 2019, they did it, at least in part, based on his long history of ties to pro-Confederate groups. These are voters who look back with fondness of the days when the United States came close to splitting in two because the south was willing to fight to the death to defend its right to own slaves. (more…)
New Zealand Isn’t Just Flattening the COVID-19 Curve. It’s Squashing It.
That’s the headline from an article in today’s Washington Post. It appears that, since New Zealand’s coronavirus lockdown on all nonessential activities, it took only 10 days for signs that the approach here is working. They’re targeting “elimination” rather than the “containment” goal of the United States and other Western countries, and it’s having stunning results.
“The number of new cases has fallen for two consecutive days, despite a huge increase in testing, with 54 confirmed or probable cases reported Tuesday. That means the number of people who have recovered, 65, exceeds the number of daily infections.”
Big Oil Capitalizes on COVID-19
Here’s a deeply moving article by legendary environmentalist Bill McKibben, covering the greed and criminality of the oil companies and the banks that support them, explaining how they’re capitalizing on the pandemonium caused by the coronavirus to push through their planet-killing tar sands pipelines. By way of reference, it is these very pipelines that are designed to carry away the material, which when consumed, will represent “game over for the planet,” according to climate scientist James Hansen. (more…)
Tagged with: Big Oil
Our Times Are Marked By Extremes
In an earlier post today, I asserted that we live in times of extreme emotion. Who hasn’t had extraordinary appreciation of kindness, sadness at apathy to people’s suffering, and anger at the profiteering and gross criminality we see in our time of greatest need?
The purpose of this particular post is simply to point out that extreme conditions are not limited to humankind. I’d call the photo here “extreme bears in a tree.”
Tagged with: Extremes
In Terms of Information, Some People Live in a Different Universe
I wanted to publish the meme here, from “Media Right” and “MAGA Media,” to remind us of the news environment in which a significant part of the United States lives.
There is a large, well-established, Fox News-oriented media universe that communicates things like “Trump stands between us and destruction.”
There is a reason that 40+% of American voters think Trump is an honest man doing a great job as our nation’s leader, and it’s this: that’s what they’re told.
They don’t want to look outside their media bubble, and, as a consequence, they simply don’t know any better.
Tagged with: MAGA
Toyota Green Energy
Here’s an announcement from Toyota. It’s in Spanish, so my translation may not be perfect, but roughly: A new company will be formed under the Toyota umbrella, Toyota Green Energy, whose goal is to fashion a society in which people, automobiles, and nature live in harmony. (more…)
Tagged with: Toyota Green Energy
Pursuing a Coronavirus Vaccine and Renewable Energy Solutions: Walking and Chewing Gum
The ubiquity of news coverage on the cornavirus has offered the fossil fuel industry an opening no one could have anticipated: the opportunity to claim that our civilization is too busy to worry about anything else. They’re using this to try to convince lawmakers to delay consideration of things like the “Green New Deal,” or even less aggressive plans in energy efficiency, rooftop solar, electric transportation, and the like.
Of course, environmentalists are pushing back on this, with phrases like, “I’m pretty sure we can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
