I’ve written about this twice before here and here .   - It is a growing trend and it is going to get bigger in coming years.   It’s an indication (which most folks can’t see or deny) that the train is, indeed, going off the rails.   - Food, oil, water are all going to be going ...

- I wrote, with some passion, the other day about universal health care - and why it won’t be coming to the U.S. - Here’s another piece by Kevin Drum of Mother Jones that speaks succinctly to this point. = = = = = = = Karen Tumulty writes in Time this week about her brother, Pat, who was...

If you were out in boat as three storms were about to converge over you, would you not drop to your knees and pray? There are many attacks on the Catholic Church today. Groups of so-called Catholics are working in concert to generate a perfect storm for our bishops. The consciences of these so-calle...

- An excellent piece from The Automatic Earth ; a Blog I’ve just started following. = = = = = = = = = = = = = Cyclical terms like “recessionâ€� and “depressionâ€� are looking less appropriate by the day. It’s like calling the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance a “depre...

- I take a blood pressure medicine because my doctor told me that even though I only have borderline high blood pressure, I’ll probably live a bit longer if I take this stuff.   OK, makes sense to me.   I take Diovan and it is fairly expensive stuff.   Well, this article makes the point ...

The latest science suggests that preventing runaway climate change means total decarbonisation. By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 25th November 2008 George Bush is behaving like a furious defaulter whose home is about to be repossessed. Smashing the porcelain, ripping the doors off their ...

- This story, from The New Yorker , says that we were saved from the high and rising food prices recently because they were followed closely by the economic collapse which, lucky for us, drove the food prices back down.   Lovely.  - I’d say one could be forgiven if they suspect we might be ...

- My wife and I have been growing increasing skeptical of some of the food offered up to us at our local supermarkets.  Shrimp is the one that comes to mind.   A story here and a story there about shrimp being grown in China in filthy ponds badly contaminated with human waste and then fed large q...

FENGHUA, CHINA—Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of shit Americans will buy.” “Often, when we’re assigned ...

- We in the U.S. say we are the beacon of freedom in the world.   And perhaps we are the freest country but I seriously question how we go about trying to spread the wealth of freedom.   We give a large amount of money every year to Egypt ( Egypt and Israel are our two largest aid targets ). - Bu...