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At the speed global water conversion from foul-to-fresh is spreading around the globe—via inexpensive household solar ‘desal’ units—a few hundred billion ordinary people will NOT go thirsty.

The average human adult can survive for only two or three days without potable water, depending on the region, altitude, temperature, and humidity levels. ((Younos, Tamim and Tammy E. Parece, (2013), Water use and conservation, 21st Century Geography: A Reference Handbook. Stoltman, Joseph P., U.S. Geological Survey, SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks CA, 40, p. 447.)) Yet world population—7,164,000,000—has outstripped potable water supplies. At least a sixth of that population …

Neoliberalism may be the most domineering socio-politico-economic influence in the history of humankind, far and away.

Moreover, when left unregulated, neoliberalism goes bonkers by concentrating wealth into fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer hands. The evidence is everywhere, same as the late 18th century when too much wealth concentrated in too few hands finally became too much, depicted by the rich golden splendor of Versailles (Fr).

Back then, in the 18th century, peasants starved on the streets of Paris, and as a result, conspicuous consumption became the formula for the French Revolution, one after another, aristocrats lost their …

Overtly, the Israeli superpower of the Middle East has been keen to posture as having no role whatsoever in the four-year old devastating conflict in Syria, where all major regional and international powers are politically and militarily deeply involved and settling scores by Syrian blood.

In his geopolitical weekly analysis, entitled “The Islamic State Reshapes the Middle East,” on November 25 Stratfor’s George Friedman raised eyebrows when he reviewed the effects which the terrorist group had on all regional powers, but seemed unaware of the existence of the Israeli regional superpower.

It was an instructive omission that says a lot …

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been taking bows for being the guardian of American law, decency, and character. It’s not. It’s not even close. American law, decency, and character have yet to be redeemed. Worse, only a small percentage of Americans in or out of power seems to care enough to act against the pall of moral failure still spreading through the culture.

The intelligence committee has done a good, small thing in its effort to make some partial truth somewhat better known, but its report is fundamentally short on meaningful intelligence. This is a committee divided against itself …

By the time the officer (pictured below) said “OK, everyone here is under arrest!” it was too late. Encircled on three sides by the police and on one side by a tall brick wall, there was seemingly no place to go and nowhere to hide. We were, as they say in protester argot, completely kettled-in. I had been at the protest for about an hour, had committed no crime, and yet there I was: trapped on the corner of 29th and Telegraph in Oakland.

All photos …

The US Senate Report documenting CIA torture of alleged terrorist suspects raises a number of fundamental questions about the nature and operations of the State, the relationship and the responsibility of the Executive Branch and Congress to the vast secret police networks which span the globe – including the United States.

CIA: The Politics of a Global Secret Police Force

The Senate Report’s revelations of CIA torture of suspects following the 9/11 bombing is only the tip of the iceberg. The Report omits the history and wider scope …

I will state flatly that the bulk of this country’s white population impresses me, and has so impressed me for a very long time, as being beyond any conceivable hope of moral rehabilitation. They have been white, if I may so put it, too long; they have been married to the lie of white supremacy too long; the effect in their personalities, their lives, their very grasp of realty, has been as devastating as the lava which so memorably immobilized the citizens of Pompeii. They are unable to conceive that their version of reality, which they want me to accept, …

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Our nation was born in genocide…. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade.

— Martin Luther King Jr. ((Quoted on p. 78 of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2014).))

Somehow, even “genocide” seems an inadequate description for what happened, yet rather than viewing it with horror, most Americans have conceived of it as their country’s manifest destiny.

— Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz ((An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2014): p. 79.))

Given …

Humanity indeed finds itself embedded in a technological world. This is a world where human beings consume technology, and where technology in turn incorporates human identities. It shapes human interaction, and it shapes the future. There have been many unforeseen byproducts from the advancement of technology and technologic science. The nonplussing lack of “miracles,” and astounding strides in progress, for example, reveal the deep-seated complexities that arise from the dynamic relationships inherent to science, technology and human society. James Smith writes in his book Science and Technology for Development: Development Matters, that, “Society and technology are mutually constitutive.” …

Pathological cruelty and neglect have to be dealt with so that animals do not fall prey to the farming trade’s worst practitioners. This means that the meagre welfare laws and regulatory restraints currently in place must be strengthened and enforced. But no-one should imagine that either regulated or unregulated suffering can be banished from animal farming and slaughter. Meat, egg and milk production are pitiless, bloody activities that are predicated on industrial-scale animal exploitation and killing.
– Animal Aid

Intensive farming is carried on all over the world, and animals suffer terribly in their millions because of it. Compassion in World …

The first-ever “truth commission” in Israel, to be held on Wednesday, will feature confessions from veteran Israeli fighters of the 1948 war who are expected to admit to perpetrating war crimes as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes.

The commission is the culmination of more than decade of antagonistic confrontations between a small group of activists called Zochrot, the Hebrew word for Remembering, and the Israeli authorities as well as much of the Jewish public.

Founded in 2002, Zochrot is dedicated to educating Israeli Jews about what Palestinians call the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe, referring to Israel’s creation …

The ‘false-on-its-face’ telecom claim of increased costs to consumers is designed to protect their unregulated monopolies that charge too much and provide terrible service.

In a claim that must have people laughing out loud, the telecom and broadband providers are fighting net neutrality by claiming that they will raise the rates of consumers! It is hard to believe that even telecom lobbyists, well-paid to mislead Congress and regulators, could make this claim without smirking as cable bills have been rising at four times the rate of inflation without net neutrality.

Now they claim to be concerned about consumer costs. Why? Because they …

On 15 November 2014, Mr Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, was in Canberra addressing the Australian Parliament.

He was flaunting his aggressive macho/militaristic credentials. His speech included the following words.

For the first time since the 1970s the UK is expanding our presence east of Suez, opening diplomatic posts across Asia.

Our economic prosperity underpins our national security and we are using it to modernise our armed forces with the most modern equipment—new fighters; new hunter-killer submarines; renewing our nuclear deterrent; type 26 global combat ship, the world’s most advanced frigate; and two new aircraft carriers, the most powerful the Royal Navy has …

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On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20’s new “bail-in” rules are …

The view is from room 300, level 3 of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. The sunlight has long vanished, leaving the twinkling lights of the old castle quarter, Hrad?any, to do their magic outside the windows. The students funnel in. The chalk is waiting to be used. The topic is something that is already wearing thin, not because it lacks weight, but because it has begun to disappear into the ether. What effect did Mr. Edward Snowden have, notably in states with a previous history of massive surveillance?

Any country with a rich history of resisting forgetting would, you would …