The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
The resource crisis is bigger issue than global warming. Water-energy-food nexus is critical.
Review: Other Inconvenient Truths Beyond Global Warming
Continue reading “Al Rozich: Beyond Global Warming — Other Inconvenient Truths with Focus on Water”
American military bases encircle the globe. More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. still stations its troops at nearly a thousand locations in foreign lands. These bases are usually taken for granted or overlooked entirely, a little-noticed part of the Pentagon's vast operations. But in an eye-opening account, Base Nation shows that the worldwide network of bases brings with it a panoply of ills–and actually makes the nation less safe in the long run.
As David Vine demonstrates, the overseas bases raise geopolitical tensions and provoke widespread antipathy towards the United States. They also undermine American democratic ideals, pushing the U.S. into partnerships with dictators and perpetuating a system of second-class citizenship in territories like Guam. They breed sexual violence, destroy the environment, and damage local economies. And their financial cost is staggering: though the Pentagon underplays the numbers, Vine's accounting proves that the bill approaches $100 billion per year.
The book is available for pre-order now; all book proceeds will go to non-profit organizations assisting military veterans and their families and other victims of war and violence.
Links to Article, Chapters, & Media Coverage Below the Fold
I find it fascinating that the Republican Party puts Paul Ryan forward as their leading economist in the Congress. I find his budget and policies naive, incompetent, and heartless. Partly as a result of thinking such as his American children by the millions are in poverty. Here are the facts.
U.S. is second-worst of 35 developed nations when it comes to child poverty
Why the TPP Agenda Is Straight out of Alice in Wonderland
The arguments for fast-track are completely ridiculous.
The terms of the TPP and the TiSA are so secret that drafts of the negotiations are to remain classified for four years or five years, respectively, after the deals have been passed into law. How can laws be enforced against people and governments who are not allowed to know what was negotiated?
The TPP, TiSA and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (or TTIP, which covers Europe) will collectively encompass three-fourths of the world’s GDP; and they ultimately seek to encompass nearly 90 percent of GDP. Despite this enormous global impact, fast-track authority would allow the President to sign the deals before their terms have been made public, and send implementing legislation to Congress that cannot be amended or filibustered and is not subject to the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds treaty vote. Read full article.
Yet another new breakthrough on solar. This one has huge implications.
UCLA discovers how solar cells' charges can last for weeks
A team of UCLA chemists, for instance, have developed a way that will allow solar cells to keep their charge for weeks instead of just a few seconds like current products are capable of. According to Sarah Tolbert, UCLA chem professor and one of the study's authors, they looked into plants' nanoscale structures that can keep negatively charged molecules separated from positively charged ones. “That separation is the key to making the process so efficient,” she said. The team has discovered that in order to mimic those nanoscale structures in plastic solar cells (which are potentially cheaper to make than silicon-based ones), they need to use two components: a polymer donor and a nano-scale fullerene acceptor.
The bankers want their pound of flesh, but the Greek people, even their parliamentarians, resist…
Hellenic Parliament’s Debt Truth Committee Preliminary Findings – Executive Summary of the report
EXTRACT
The research of the Committee presented in this preliminary report sheds light on the fact that the entire adjustment programme, to which Greece has been subjugated, was and remains a politically orientated programme. The technical exercise surrounding macroeconomic variables and debt projections, figures directly relating to people’s lives and livelihoods, has enabled discussions around the debt to remain at a technical level mainly revolving around the argument that the policies imposed on Greece will improve its capacity to pay the debt back. The facts presented in this report challenge this argument. All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika’s arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and odious.
