He Can Always Go Back to Israel
It looks as though Stephen Harper won’t find much love when he travels to Mexico for the upcoming North American leaders’ summit. American officials have already bluntly warned Harper not…
The Mound of Sound
What That Ocean Warming Business is Really All About
Here’s a helpful (i.e. simple) video that illustrates El Nino and La Nina events and the role they play in climate change. Recent studies predict the El Nino Southern Oscillation…
No, This Isn’t Anything Except Depressing
Canned news. In the era of concentrated media ownership and gutted newsrooms, a lot of what we’re getting as information is actually being fed to news organizations via press releases,…
It’s Time. Now, Put Up or Shut Up!
Once in a hundred year floods. Once in five hundred year drought. Once a century this or that. Now that we’re beginning to routinely calibrate severe weather events on dynastic…
Who Knew? Trollism Is a Disease of the Mind.
Just go to the comments section of the National Post, Sun News, FOX News or even The G&M, and you’ll find them gathered there, trolls spewing out utterly predictable hatred…
Harper Pre-Snubbed by Obama
The White House is putting Stephen Harper in his place before next week’s North American leaders’ summit. The word, delivered by senior Obama officials, is “don’t call us, we’ll call…
Water Wars a Decade Off
America’s hydrologists were rattled when their country’s Grace satellites updated data on the world’s water resources last month. On the satellite images the biggest losses were denoted by red hotspots,…
CNN Discovers Rossby Waves
It’s encouraging to see a decent journalistic treatment of how the polar jet stream is whipsawing the northern hemisphere, especially when it’s from CNN. The story links the California drought,…
At Least They’re Still Wearing Pants
A few images of competitors in men’s and women’s cross country at Sochi this week. Remember, it’s the “winter” Olympics. Yeah, okay.
When America’s Banks Own Everything
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley were once known as banks. Dodgy banks, to be sure, but still, banks. Now, with the benefit of virtually interest-free money from the U.S.…
Press Freedom 2014
We’re still okay, for now, but the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, 2014, shows how little of the world still has a nominally free press. Canada is ranked 18th…
Bill Maher’s Warning
The subject of the Comcast/Time Warner merger/takeover came up for a brief discussion last night. It might have been the seminal issue of the show but Maher and his panel…
UAW Defeated in Tennessee
Workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga turned down the chance at joining the United Auto Workers union by a margin of 712 to 626. Volkswagen management stayed neutral, saying…
The Dignity of Servitude
Master-servant relations seem to be steadily regressing toward the 19th century with the restoration of the precariat, the suppression of the middle class and the ascendancy of plotocracy. That ugly…
Crude Oil Is a Heartbreaker
Scientists from Standford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, have discovered that crude oil spills release a toxin that sends fish into cardiac arrest. …crude oil interferes…
We’ve Got It All Wrong
Seven years of this blogging business has been genuinely transformative. It began as a means of communicating with like-minds, to exchange ideas and vent frustrations. From there it morphed into…
An Executioner Denounces the Death Penalty as the Most Pre-Meditated Form of Murder
Allen Ault was the director of corrections for the state of Georgia, an office in which he presided over the execution of condemned prisoners. The experience caused Ault to resign…
World Water Wrapup – The Crisis is Real and It’s Here Now
Pick any corner of the globe today and you’re bound to find drought conditions bordering on cataclysmic. Policymic.com has provided a useful wrap-up of some of the worst hit. Brazil…
And Then There’s This Puppy
This is the Ivanpah solar plant that went online today. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is now operational and delivering solar electricity to California customers. At full capacity, the…
The Toll of Coal
Coal is dirt cheap, or so we’re told. It sells for dirt cheap prices because it is so abundant, or so we’re told. Yet, like every other fossil fuel, the…