Cognitive dissonance occurs when an entity embraces two or more contradictory beliefs or values at the same time. As social psychologist Leon Festinger showed, cognitive dissonance in an individual leads…
Justin Trudeau is onside with TransCanada, the Keystone XL pipeline and the massively enlarged Kinder-Morgan bitumen pipelines to cross British Columbia. What he’s asking us to do is to trust…
We all get there – unless we don’t. By “there” I mean that particular age where friends, loved ones and acquaintances begin to drop off so much faster than they…
I was lucky enough to live in London in the 60s before the tsunami of Arab money hit the place and transformed it forever. The London I got to know…
Two pictures that pretty much tell the tale of the California drought, courtesy of The Guardian.The first is a sign on the front fence of a California almond farm. The…
We’re just two months into 2014 and already the world is being tossed by severe weather events of almost every description in almost every corner of the planet. According to…
The hard Right have transitioned seamlessly from the fight to thwart action on climate change to their even more desperate rear guard effort to defend inequality from nasty, money-grubbing reformers.…
Troy Thomas, who occasionally leaves comments on this blog, is a brilliant observer and a fine writer. He’s of a British Columbia First Nations’ band up near Salmon Arm. Yesterday…
If the United States cannot come up with one scenario in which it would return American troops to Afghanistan in large numbers, it should fold its tent and leave by…
It’s just the thing that pro-Western Ukrainians have been fearing – but also anticipating. Russian president Vlad Putin has ordered combat units to mobilize, supposedly for a snap exercise. It…
The Canadian people have finally forged a clear mindset of Stephen Harper and, sadly for the prime minister, he’s living up to our expectations. Harper’s former campaign manager and BFF,…
There’s a growing body of opinion supporting geoengineering as humanity’s last-resort salvation from catastrophic climate change. To many it’s not a matter of it but when we go the geoengineering…
Smog in China has become so severe that it’s interfering with photosynthesis. Chinese scientists report that China’s smog-clogged atmosphere has taken on aspects of “nuclear winter” and could wreak havoc…
America hasn’t really declined. America simply went global and, in the process, turned its back on working-class Americans, blue and white collar. A globalized America is an America of the…
Ralph Nader warns there’s a critical message we all need to take from the UAW’s failure to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee last week. Like ravenous beasts of prey…
Whether it’s from sea level rise, storm surge or heavy rainstorm inundation, Americans are getting a crash course in the reality of severe flooding. That’s a problem because the well…
Rex Tillerson has joined the fight against fracking in Denton, Texas. That’s a little upscale spot where Tillerson happens to live. The story broke on February 20 in the Wall…
What do Arizona governor Jan Brewer and Uganda prez Yowari Musevini have in common? They both preside over homophobic governments oppressive to gays. Brewer is widely expected to sign into…
If you’re like most, you’ve probably wondered what to make of America’s dysfunctional, gridlocked government. Mike Lofgren offers a disturbing explanation of the apparent madness in a terrific essay entitled,…
Justin Trudeau doesn’t even try to hide that he’s just another greasy Ottawa petrol-head. He says he opposes the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline for obscure reasons that perhaps only he…
