It is commonly acknowledged that China is the nation that presents the greatest challenge to the US as a geostrategic power. But while the US has chosen to go the route of displaying military muscle to preserve its dominance, China has quietly set about building friendships with nations by helping them with large development projects. [Read more…]
Once again we have a flare up of violence in Israel and Gaza. And once again we will have the predictable reactions, with each side accusing the other of starting it first, a pointless argument that can never be settled in a conflict that goes back decades. [Read more…]
Despite some hopes by Republicans that they had managed to close the gender gap, in the final analysis women voted for Obama by a margin of 55-44%. Since women as a whole made up 53% of the voters, this gap has to be of considerable concern to the GOP. [Read more…]
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sued the IRS for not auditing the tax-exempt status of churches that are openly supporting candidates in elections in violation of IRS 501(c)(3) rules that govern such bodies. You can read the lawsuit here. [Read more…]
I enjoy a good sex scandal as much as the next person. It is like watching a film or reading a novel, with a plot that is usually easy to follow, involving emotions and motivations that are easy to understand, and that can be viewed dispassionately because it does not affect one personally. What is surprising in real–life sex scandals is the amount of attention paid to the minutest details of something that usually has no serious consequences for anyone other than those actually involved. Of course, reasons will be trumped up (National security! Abuse of power! Need to uphold standards!) to give all this prurient probing a veneer of journalistic respectability. [Read more…]
Before and after the election we saw plenty of business owners whining about how the re-election of Barack Obama would sound the death knell for business and would require them to shut down their businesses or fire people or make them part-time so as to not have to provide them with health care benefits. [Read more…]
You do not have to go to exotic places like Charles Darwin did to find evidence for evolution. In an article titled Evolution right under our noses, Carl Zimmer says that Manhattan and its surrounding areas are rich in examples, such as mice responding to urban stress, fish in the Hudson river responding to pollution by becoming resistant to PCBs, worms becoming resistant to cadmium, and so on. [Read more…]
It is clear that the issue of homosexuality is going to doom religions unless they learn to accept it. Some have re-interpreted their texts to accommodate the changes but this is not going to be easy for others (evangelicals, the Catholic church, and Muslims) to do because they have gone to the mat on this issue, to argue that it violates the very core of their religious beliefs. [Read more…]
The oligarchy is insatiable in its greed. Since 1980, they have enjoyed enormous gains in wealth at the expense of everyone else. In doing so, they were aided by both Republican and Democratic parties but in order to preserve any credibility with its base, the Democratic party had to oppose some of the more obvious money-grabs, such as more tax cuts for the rich or the gutting of regulatory agencies or the elimination of social safety nets such as health care, minimum wage laws, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. [Read more…]