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Advancing the ’80’s taunt, “where’s the beef,” anti-Hillary Democratic voters should now demand “where’s the backup, the winning bench players?” For evidence is not hard to find a rerun of Hillary’s clumsy ’08 implosion is gaining steam. The headline from Salon’s Bill Curry pulls no punches, “Hillary Clinton just doesn’t get it: She’s already running a losing campaign.” Nor does his subhead, “Rand Paul has edged in front of her. Jeb thinks she’ll be easy to defeat. She’s playing right into their hands.”

Plus, for Hillary critics, is a beautiful …

Before I’d even moved to Olympia, a friend told me that there was quite a ‘high end’ nursery in Olympia called Bark and Garden. He felt that, considering the size of the operation and the expense of the products offered, that they might be a great place to work.
I did stop by and seek to make out an application, but the sales clerk simply said, ‘Leave off a resume, and if Kern, “the owner”, thinks you qualify, you will get a call.”

After about 5 days, I did get a call to come in and met the owner. He …

The state of Vermont has recently adopted a Latin motto – “Stella quarta decima fulgeat”. Translation: “May the fourteenth star shine brightly”. That’s nice. Simple, straight forward. Certainly that is a motto that cannot offend anyone. Wrong.

Here is the back-story. Fifteen year old, Angela Kubicke, inspired by a love of Latin and a love of Vermont, pushed for the adoption of this motto. Congratulations to Angela for her success. During the public discussions prior to the official adoption there were many negative comments from those who cannot differentiate between “Latin” and “Latino”. The gist of the comments was something like …

Russia says the United States, Britain, France, and Jordan have rejected Syria’s proposal to add ISIL to the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions list as a separate terrorist group.

“In the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, the United States, Britain, France, and Jordan have blocked Syria’s request supported by Russia to include the Islamic State (ISIL) terrorist group in the sanctions list as a separate group,” read the statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday.

According to reports, ISIL Takfiri terrorist group is currently mentioned as al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) in the UN’s sanctions list.

Moscow, however, said such naming …

Reuters headline, April 9: “Ukraine sets sights on joining NATO.”

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headline, April 9: “Far-Right Leader Names Ukrainian Military Adviser.” ((Dates corrected — DV Ed.))

Moscow’s official line on Ukraine–and it should not be dismissed just because that’s what it is–is that the U.S. spent about $5 billion backing “regime change” in that sad, bankrupt country, resulting in a coup d’etat (or putsch) in Kiev in February 2014 in which neo-fascists played a key role. The coup occurred because the U.S. State Department and Pentagon hoped to replace the democratically elected administration with one that would …

Over this month, British officials, with enormous reluctance, will relinquish the contents of 27 letters by Prince Charles to the press termed the “black spider memos” spanning the period between September 2004 and April 2005. A better view into the idiosyncratic views of the prolific letter writing prince might be offered, though it is unlikely to be spectacular. The Royals, notably the British ones, have tended to be fairly open about their antediluvian prancing in a world that has somehow left them behind.

But that was not the point of the Guardian newspaper’s ten year challenge, which yielded …

In the United States as well as elsewhere in the global North West, Garrett Hardin’s virulent idea that “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all” has abetted an ideology (capitalism) responsible for a global holocaust. Now, there is no life too sacred, no thing too sacrosanct that it might escape the deleterious effects of the global capitalist system and its expanding reach. The whole world ails as nothing is “off limits.” Noam Chomsky treats Hardin’s argument as the epitome of what is known as the “tragedy of the commons.” In exploration of this “tragedy,” Chomsky also invokes economist Mancur …

A tax break that could be the biggest in America is essentially hidden from view. The break on stock market losses flies under the radar, unseen and uncounted, shifting up to 39.6 percent (the top marginal rate) of investment losses onto the U.S. Treasury.

And nobody suggests that this tax break should be reined in. For that matter, nobody pays it any attention at all.

Let’s see how the break operates, and how it’s totally overlooked. Then let’s give it the scrutiny it deserves—especially with Congress signaling that it might be getting serious about tax reform.

Stock market losses turn …

Drought is like death by a thousand cuts. It steadily but slowly devastates the countryside long before people recognize an emergency at hand.

Excessive drought is but one symptom that climate change has turned vicious.

Worldwide drought conditions are more severe and much quicker to arise than in the past. Inasmuch as fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal emit ever more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere with concomitant increasing levels of global warming, the outlook for escalating drought is clear and imminent.

According to scientific studies to better understand the matrix of global-warming-induced drought conditions: “Historical records of precipitation, …

Sonoma County, Northern California — “California Puts Mandatory Curbs on Water Use” reports the April 2 New York Times long article at the top of the front-page. “Steps to Confront Record-Setting Drought,” the sub-headline reads. The article describes Gov. Jerry Brown’s executive order—California’s first time restricting water use.

A 25% reduction of water use over the next year is required of residents, golf courses, cemeteries, and many businesses. But wait. “Owners of large farms…will not fall under the 25% guideline.”

Agricultural enterprises can continue to dig deep wells into our common water table and extract as much of our limited water supply as …

… and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

— Isaiah 2:3-4

England’s Easter was the culmination of recent events which have brought the would-be great and good to their knees – and knee deep in hypocrisy.

Prime Minister David Cameron, after attending an Easter service near his rural Oxfordshire home, said it was “shocking” that people abroad were still being “threatened, tortured – even killed” because of their faith.

There was no mention of Britain’s hand in this result of the …

The 1923 publication of Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard contains a brief statement, one that today’s curious seekers and revolutionaries might entertain. “Not only in the world of commerce,” writes Søren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialist thought, “but also in the world of ideas our age has arranged a regular clearance-sale.” Of course, to claim that ideas exist on the market like everything else in a “world of commerce” is not to pinpoint a truth, but rather, to invoke a metaphor. Kierkegaard does not contend that worthy ideas must come with a hefty price tag in order to verify their importance …

As spring comes to the BC coast, young wild salmon are leaving the rivers where they were born and entering the ocean.  Our pink and chum salmon take an exceptional gamble – they don’t spend a year in fresh water, they leave their rivers right away, tiny slips of silver weighing less that 1/2 a gram.  These two species salmon are a gift to our rivers.  Adult pink and chum salmon deposit tons of nutrients in the rivers when they spawn and die, but their babies don’t feed on the insect life that this abundance of nutrients produces, they leave …

No later than the Wilsonian propaganda campaign to bring ordinary US citizens and the world to support US intervention in World War I, did the inhabitants—at least the “white” ones—become convinced that not only was their nation the new Eden but that merely by virtue of being an American one was loved and/or envied throughout the world. It is crucial to mention this ideological transformation because until 1917, when the US entered the war on the side of the British elite, most inhabitants of the US could be seen as despised. Ex-slaves were despised because of their skin-colour and despite …

For Marxist social philosophy, Jon Elster recognizes personal freedom and social solidarity as inseparable. Marxist tradition rejects, for the most part, liberal attempts to rationalize the division of justice and equality into two principles: one, in the area of political liberties; and two, in the area of economics. Social participation in liberal theory is primarily directed at the maximization of political freedoms while economic participation is limited to those with resources and capital. For Locke, the liberal democratic rights theory also prioritizes the individual’s negative immunity from political coercion or interference by any part including government itself. Yet, the implied …