Charting the travails of the skeptic movement

Amanda Marcotte uses the current discussion swirling around allegations of predatory sexual behavior by noted physicist and skeptic Lawrence Krauss to chart the recent history of the skeptic movement. She describes and how it initially gave hope to unbelievers of all stripes, especially women, that they had found a welcoming home but that the less than unequivocal backing of some of the organizations (the Center for Inquiry emerges as a major problem though it seems like it is belatedly trying to make amends) for the right of women to be free from a hostile environment has led to a great deal of disillusionment. The angry reception that Rebecca Watson received for her gentle hint about how women would like to be treated at secular events marked the nadir.
[Read more…]

The statewide teacher’s strike in West Virginia

There is important political news in West Virginia where the entire public school system has been shut down for over a week by a statewide teacher’s strike protesting poor pay, soaring health insurance costs, plus poor working conditions. But the media has been paying scant attention to this major story. While part of the blame can be placed on the White House soap opera/circus that has soaked up much of the attention, that is not the only reason. The major media in the US are corporate capitalist enterprises and thus instinctively anti-union. They thus do not want to give oxygen to the trade union movement by highlighting that kind of collective action. If the strike receives major favorable coverage, then that might pressure the state legislators into doing something and the strikers might win their demands. The newspapers and their corporate allies fear strengthening the union movement.
[Read more…]

Only the stock market matters for the oligarchy

I was listening to a news report this morning on a special election for congress in southwest Pennsylvania to be held on March 13 to replace a Republican congressman Tim Murphy who had been forced to resign in disgrace due to (what else?) a sex scandal. The district is heavily Republican but the party is nervous that that the current turmoil in the White House might put that seat in danger and they are pulling out all the stops. The Republican candidate was giving a speech and his main pitch was how well the stock market was doing since Trump was elected. That, for him, meant that everything was just peachy in the country, whatever else might be going on.
[Read more…]

The abomination of the death penalty

Liliana Segura writes about the botched attempt last week by the state of Alabama at executing Doyle Lee Hamm, who had been on death row since 1987. What resulted was nothing less than torture as the state rushed to execute him before the midnight deadline for the execution warrant expired, all the while trying to hide what happened from his lawyer, his brother, and an outside anesthetist.
[Read more…]

The brutal suppression of the Indian uprising

British imperialism is usually portrayed in the English media by English-speakers who are broadly sympathetic to Britain and thus see its colonial practices through rose-tinted glasses. It is portrayed as a somewhat benevolent empire, at least when compared to how the Belgians treated their colonies. The British built roads, railways, schools, and created administrative structures. All these were to enable more efficient looting of the colonies’ resources but they did constitute a legacy of sorts that they left behind. While they did commit acts of brutality, these tend to be downplayed.
[Read more…]

The utterly corrupt Trump administration

There was a brief flurry of excitement when it looked like Donald Trump was going against the NRA and the gun lobby and proposing restrictions limiting the easy availability of guns. I did not share that excitement because I felt it was only a matter of time before Trump reversed himself and went back into the arms of the lobby and his gun nut supporters. And sure enough, that reversal happened the very next day, after a meeting with a top NRA official.
[Read more…]

Factory farmers fight push for humanely produced eggs

Perhaps the easiest step we can take to encourage more humane agricultural practices is to buy eggs that are produced by farms where the hens are ‘free-range’, i.e., not confined to tiny spaces but free to roam on pastures. And indeed more and more people seem to be buying such eggs. In my local supermarket, the brands that sold them used to have a small space in the egg section but now it has expanded considerably as people become more aware of what exactly goes on in egg farms.
[Read more…]

That’s just what we don’t need

It is bad enough to have Donald Trump wallowing in military grandiosity, talking about his ‘big button’ and military parades, now Russian president Vladimir Putin is making grandiose claims about having an ‘invincible nuclear weapon’.

Mr Putin made the claims as he laid out his key policies for a fourth presidential term, ahead of an election he is expected to win in 17 days’ time.

The weapons he boasted of included a cruise missile that he said could “reach anywhere in the world”.

He said of the West: “They need to take account of a new reality and understand … [this]… is not a bluff.”
[Read more…]

France’s move to reduce food waste

One of the things that always bugs me is the waste of food. This is especially the case with grocery stores that throw out tons of food because they have reached or are approaching the ‘sell by’ or vague ‘best used by’ dates stamped on them, even though the items may be perfectly usable. So I was interested to hear on last Saturday’s episode of All Things Considered a story about how France has passed a law that requires grocery stores to donate such items to food banks or face fines.
[Read more…]