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Fox in the Hen House: Why Interest Rates Are Rising
Fox in the Hen House: Why Interest Rates Are Rising On March 31stthe Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate for the sixth time in 3 years and signaled its intention to raise rates twice more in 2018, aiming for a fed funds target of 3.5% by 2020. LIBOR (the London Interbank Offered Rate) has […]
Bad Drones
Bad Drones Ban drones. Why not? We have succumbed, in recent years, to technological passivity, the assumption that there’s nothing we can (or should) do about what an older generation used to call “progress.” But that’s not true. War goes on, yet most of the world’s nations came together to ban landmines. Mines, humanity decided, […]
Conflict Over the Future of the Planet
Conflict Over the Future of the Planet On this Earth Day, it is difficult to look at the state of the planet and the current political leadership and see much hope. In “Junk Planet”, Robert Burrowes writes a comprehensive description of the degradation of the atmosphere, oceans, waterways, groundwater, and soil as well as the […]
Is It Time for A Nice, “Little” Nuclear War?
Is It Time for A Nice, “Little” Nuclear War? I have been accused by many of being cynical. My accusers make this claim in the context of my being “pessimistic, sardonic, or negative.” Having been a middle-school student crouching under his desk with a piece of notebook paper over his head during the “Cuban Missile […]
Behind Theresa May’s ‘Humanitarian Hysterics’: The Ideology of Empire and Conquest
Behind Theresa May’s ‘Humanitarian Hysterics’: The Ideology of Empire and Conquest Photo by EU2017EE Estonian Presidency | CC BY 2.0 Until the 17th century, India was the richest country in the world and had controlled a third of global wealth. Political unity and military security helped evolve a uniform economic system, increased trade and enhanced agricultural […]
Nuclear Keeps on Polluting, Long After Shutdown
Nuclear Keeps on Polluting, Long After Shutdown Photo by Nuclear Regulatory Commission | CC BY 2.0 Last month, the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor, on the banks of the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, was found to be leaking radioactive tritium (the radioactive form of hydrogen) into the groundwater. Again, clean, safe, cheap nuclear power comes […]
The Search for the Truth in Douma
The Search for the Truth in Douma This is the story of a town called Douma, a ravaged, stinking place of smashed apartment blocks – and of an underground clinic whose images of suffering allowed three of the Western world’s most powerful nations to bomb Syria last week. There’s even a friendly doctor in a green […]
An Oceanic Problem: the Atlantic Overturning Current is Slowing
An Oceanic Problem: the Atlantic Overturning Current is Slowing Photo by Michael Mayer | CC BY 2.0 The Atlantic Overturning Current is part of a worldwide twisted loop of ocean water, called the thermohaline cycle (thermo = heat, haline = salt), which emerges very salty and warm out of the Gulf of Mexico, travels north […]
Chemical Weapons Hypocrisy
Chemical Weapons Hypocrisy Oh, the hypocrisy of it. The ignoble aims. The distraction. The outrageous lies and excuses. I’m not talking about America’s tweet-from-the-hip president and his desire to escape from the cops’ raid on his lawyer’s office – there’s a Russian connection, all right. And I’m not talking about his latest sleaze. Life with […]
Hanford’s Toxic Avengers: Department of Energy Suppresses Deadly Nuclear-Cleanup Flaws
Hanford’s Toxic Avengers: Department of Energy Suppresses Deadly Nuclear-Cleanup Flaws Your tax dollars are on the line. The DOE is set to extend a contract to Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) for another year at the Hanford Nuclear Site, despite numerous allegations of misconduct since the company won the initial contract for $7.1 billion in 2008. […]
Big Noise: Apocalyptic Tweets, Limited Strikes
Big Noise: Apocalyptic Tweets, Limited Strikes “Big noise on the stairs, but nobody comes into the room,” runs an old Chinese saying. This is an apt description of the very limited airstrikes on Syria launched by the US, Britain and France overnight, which came after apocalyptic tweets from President Trump and threats of military retaliation […]
The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance
The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance At this writing, President Trump is considering “the possibility of retaliation in Syria in response to a suspected chemical attack on young children and families in the Syrian city of Douma,” reported CBS News. “If it’s the Russians, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all […]
Trump’s Dangerous Game of Chicken
Trump’s Dangerous Game of Chicken As the “tit-for-tat” trade fight between the US and China escalates, Donald Trump is likely to find that he doesn’t “know China” the way he once thought. When he said that during the presidential campaign, he based his understanding of China on one thing: the high rent in Trump Tower […]
Degrading Newspapers’ Business Sections
Degrading Newspapers’ Business Sections It’s alarming that there are far fewer media outlets for consumer protection news and features than there were thirty years ago. Recall the huge Phil Donahue Show, the regional radio show and TV news shows, the television networks and syndicated radio shows that would report and interview consumer advocates about the […]
Nuclear Companies are Just Happy to be in There Somewhere and They’ll Gouge the Ratepayers to Get There
Nuclear Companies are Just Happy to be in There Somewhere and They’ll Gouge the Ratepayers to Get There Photo by Lennart Tange | CC BY 2.0 That teeth-jangling noise you can hear are the fingernails of nuclear power corporations scraping across window ledges in a last, desperate attempt to cling on. It’s a lost cause. […]
