The BRICS on Crimea

In covering Ukraine and Crimea, much of the western press has given the indication that Russia has been isolated internationally on this issue. But that is not quite the case. Much of the analysis has focused on the G8 grouping of nations that is dominated by US allies such as the NATO countries. But there are other economic groupings such as the BRICS alliance consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and it turns out that that alliance has unanimously backed Russia’s position.
[Read more…]

Another legal challenge to Obamacare

One of the key features of the highly complicated Affordable Care Act is the subsidy that is given to lower income people to enable them to afford to purchase health insurance. These subsidies are provided through both the state exchanges for those states that set them up and through the federal exchanges in those states that decided that they wanted to have no part of the ACA or decided to let the federal government set them up. So far, 16 states have set up their own exchanges and 34 exchanges are run by the Department of Health and Human Services. The subsidies come in the form of tax credits provided by the IRS.
[Read more…]

Clickbait

One thing that I have learned by blogging is that I am absolutely hopeless at predicting what posts will garner attention. In fact, I seem to have a reverse sense, in that posts that I think are interesting sink without a trace while those that I think are uncontroversial generate quite a bit of buzz.
[Read more…]

Health benefits of a vegetarian diet questioned

Three years ago I wrote an apology for not being a vegetarian or a vegan. There are three reasons given for favoring such a diet. One is moral. To eat meat is to use another sentient being for one’s own ends and to be part of the cruel factory farming system that exists in the US. The second is ecological, since using plants to feed animals results in roughly 90% of the energy used to produce plants being lost in the conversion to animal protein, which is a waste of resources. The third is for health since vegetables and fruits reportedly led to better health outcomes.
[Read more…]