Tag Archives: western

Even the world’s largest food company knows the American diet is an environmental catastrophe

by MichellQka Posted on April 30, 2016

Even the world’s largest food company knows the American diet is an environmental catastrophe

By on Apr 30, 2016 7:00 amShare

This story was originally published by Reveal and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

If the rest of the world ate like Americans, the planet would have run out of freshwater 15 years ago, according to the world’s largest food company.

In private, Nestle executives told U.S. officials that the world is on a collision course with doom because Americans eat too much meat, and now, other countries are following suit, according to a secret U.S. report titled “Tour D’Horizon with Nestle: Forget the Global Financial Crisis, the World Is Running Out of Fresh Water.”

Producing a pound of meat requires a tremendous amount of water because farmers use tons of crops such as corn and soy to feed each animal, which require tens of thousands of gallons of water to grow. It is far more efficient when people eat the corn or soy directly.

The planet is a on a “potentially catastrophic” course as billions of people in countries such as India and China begin eating more beef, chicken, and pork like their counterparts in Western countries, according to the 2009 report released by WikiLeaks and first reported by Reveal at The Center for Investigative Reporting in a cache of water-related classified documents. The Chinese now eat about half as much meat as Americans, Australians, and Europeans, a figure that continues to rapidly rise as more Chinese are lifted out of poverty and into the middle class.

And Nestle — which makes Gerber baby food, Nescafe, Hot Pockets, DiGiorno pizza, Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s, Nestea, Dreyer’s, and Haagen-Dazs ice cream — is deeply concerned.

Here are some of the takeaways, with key quotes from the secret report:

Global water shortages are just around the corner.

“Nestle thinks one-third of the world’s population will be affected by fresh water scarcity by 2025, with the situation only becoming more dire thereafter and potentially catastrophic by 2050.”

Major regions, including in the United States, are being drained of their underground aquifers.

“Problems with be severest in the Middle East, northern India, northern China, and the western United States.”

Excessive meat-eating is driving water depletion.

“Nestle starts by pointing out that a calorie of meat requires 10 times as much water to produce as a calorie of food crops. As the world’s growing middle classes eat more meat, the earth’s water resources will be dangerously squeezed.”

There’s plenty of water to feed everyone a diet that’s not so meatcentric.

“Nestle reckons that the earth’s maximum sustainable freshwater withdrawals are about 12,500 cubic kilometers per year. In 2008, global freshwater withdrawals reached 6,000 cubic kilometers, or almost half of the potentially available supply. This was sufficient to provide an average 2,500 calories per day to the world’s 6.7 billion people, with little per capita meat consumption.”

The American diet is eating the world dry.

“The current U.S. diet provides about 3600 calories per day with substantial meat consumption. If the whole world were to move to this standard, global fresh water resources would be exhausted at a population level of 6 billion, which the world reached in the year 2000.”

This is an even bigger problem now that other countries are eating like America and the global population’s set to grow by 2 billion by 2050.

“There is not nearly enough fresh water available to provide this standard to a global population expected to exceed 9 billion by mid-century.”

So what’s Nestle’s prediction for the future? Think “Mad Max” …

“It is clear that current developed country meat-based diets and patterns of water usage do not provide a blueprint for the planet’s future. Based on present trends, Nestle believes that the world will face a cereals shortfall of as much as 30 percent by 2025. [Nestle] stated it will take a combination of strategies to avert a crisis.”

Why is this the first time you’re hearing this from the world’s largest food company?

“Sensitive to its public image, Nestle has maintained a low profile in discussing solutions and tries not to preach … the firm scrupulously avoids confrontation and polemics, preferring to influence its audience discretely by example.”

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Continued:

Even the world’s largest food company knows the American diet is an environmental catastrophe

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Even the world’s largest food company knows the American diet is an environmental catastrophe

Clinton Ends Sanders’ Winning Streak With a Victory in New York

by MalindaGonzalez Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Hillary Clinton finally halted rival Bernie Sanders’ recent winning streak on Tuesday, scoring a decisive win in her home state of New York.

With 35 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton led Sanders by more than 20 percentage points, although exit polls showed her with a much narrower lead. The major networks called the race for Clinton about 45 minutes after polls closed.

Continue Reading »

From: 

Clinton Ends Sanders’ Winning Streak With a Victory in New York

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Northeastern, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Clinton Ends Sanders’ Winning Streak With a Victory in New York

Saudi Arabia Killed Nearly 100 Civilians In Yemen With American-Made Bombs

by YoungT08gxixm Posted on April 7, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A Saudi airstrike hit a crowded marketplace in Mastaba, Yemen, on March 15, killing at least 97 civilians, including 25 children. “We saw people shredded to pieces. Some with no head, no hands…Unrecognizable,” one survivor told Human Rights Watch when a researcher from the organization investigated the site two weeks later.

It was one of the deadliest strikes in 12-month-old civil war, highlighting the devastating use of weapons supplied by the United States and other Western countries in attacks that human rights organizations call potential war crimes.

In Mastaba, Human Rights Watch came across what it says are remnants of an American-made MK-84 bomb paired with a “smart bomb” guidance kit. The group also reviewed images of remnants of another bomb found by British journalists and determined it to be the same kind. These 2,000-pound general purpose bombs are the largest of their class and are capable of inflicting massive damage on their targets.

The Saudi-led coalition has been criticized for carrying out indiscriminate bombings in the civil war, which began last year after rebel forces seized control of the government. The air campaign is responsible for the vast majority of the conflict’s civilian deaths, according to the United Nations. An airstrike in February that resulted in at least 32 civilian deaths led UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to call for an investigation.

Remnant of an American-made satellite-guided bomb found at the scene of the Mastaba market airstrike. Human Rights Watch

Western governments have also come under fire for their roles in the conflict. In December, a group of lawyers wrote a legal opinion stating that the United Kingdom is breaking domestic, European, and international law by supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia. A lawsuit filed in March seeks to overturn a $15 billion Canadian arms deal with Saudi Arabia. An international movement to seek an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia is growing.

Despite providing weapons, intelligence, drones, and other assistance to the Saudis, the United States has so far been subjected to less scrutiny. In the past year, the Obama administration has inked arms deals with Riyadh worth more than $20 billion.

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the first MK-84 bomb struck near the entrance of the Mastaba market at around noon, and five minutes later, the second bomb hit, killing and wounding both those who were trying to escape and others helping the victims. The day after the strike, a team of UN investigators visited the site and compiled the names of the 97 civilian victims. And they found another 10 bodies “burned beyond recognition,” bringing the death toll to 107.

“Even after dozens of airstrikes on markets, schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods have killed hundreds of Yemeni civilians, the coalition refuses to provide redress or change its practices,” Priyanka Motaparthy, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “The US and others should pull the plug on arms to the Saudis or further share responsibility for civilian lives lost.”

Source: 

Saudi Arabia Killed Nearly 100 Civilians In Yemen With American-Made Bombs

Posted in alternative energy, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Safer, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Saudi Arabia Killed Nearly 100 Civilians In Yemen With American-Made Bombs

Marijuana is legal in Colorado, but rain barrels still are not

by JosetteSeely Posted on March 26, 2016

Marijuana is legal in Colorado, but rain barrels still are not

By on 25 Mar 2016commentsShare

While it’s perfectly legal for Colorado residents to sit around in their soft pants with one hand wrapped around a bong and the other in a Cheetos bag, there’s one surprising thing that could get them in trouble with the law: rain barrels.

Colorado is the only state in the nation that bans the use of rain barrels. According to the state constitution, all moisture that falls from the sky and into Colorado’s borders is owned by the “people” — which really means it’s owned by the state. Water is allocated according to a complicated web of water rights. All of the rain and snow that fall into residents’ yards must be allowed to flow unimpeded into waterways, for instance, where it then becomes the property of whoever owns the rights — generally ranchers, farmers, drinking water providers, and developers. This system goes back more than a century, and rights are granted based on claim date: The longer you’ve had a claim, the higher priority it gets.

As you may imagine, the rain barrel ban is unpopular among those without water rights — namely, people who would like to store snowmelt or rainwater and use it to water their gardens or even flush their toilets. And the issue has become increasingly contentious as drought in Western states has made water an even more precious — and limited — resource.

There have been many attempts to reform Colorado’s water laws in the statehouse, but none have passed. The latest attempt is proposed by Democratic state Rep. Jessie Danielson, who is sponsoring a bill that would permit Colorado residents to collect up to 110 gallons at a time, or two barrels’ worth. “If I can shovel snow off from my sidewalk and put it on my lawn, why can’t I use a rain barrel to take it from my sidewalk to put on my tomato plants?” Danielson asked during an interview with CBS Denver.

It’s a good question, but one that may not be resolved anytime soon. Although the bill passed in the state House by 61 to 3, it has stalled in the GOP-controlled Senate. One of the strongest opponents of the bill, as ThinkProgress reports, is Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, whose district is home to farmers and ranchers concerned that rain barrels would reduce their own share of water. “It’s like growing flowers,” Sonnenberg said last year about rain barrels. “You can’t go over and pick your neighbors’ flowers just because you’re only picking a few. They’re not your flowers.”

The irony here is that research shows that rain barrels actually don’t affect the amount of water that will reach streams and rivers by any detectable level. Most rain is absorbed into the land before it reaches waterways anyway. Time to flush away some out-of-date thinking.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Original post: 

Marijuana is legal in Colorado, but rain barrels still are not

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, oven, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Marijuana is legal in Colorado, but rain barrels still are not

How Hillary Clinton Won Nevada

by DemiLockett Posted on February 21, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

It might have been closer than most people would have guessed a month ago, but Hillary Clinton’s long-term investment in Nevada paid off. The former secretary of state edged out Sen. Bernie Sanders by about five percentage points in the Nevada caucuses. It wasn’t quite the 20-point edge that Clinton had in polls from late last year, but it was a decisive win that backs up the Clinton campaign’s contention that Sanders won’t be able to maintain the same level of support he enjoyed in Iowa and New Hampshire as the contest moves to more diverse states.

Nevada was always a big priority for Clinton, a first test to see if she could bring together the multicultural coalition that has formed the Democratic base across the country. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, got his start on the Clinton team running her 2008 campaign in the state. The campaign had a bevy of staffers in the state, including Mook disciple Emmy Ruiz, as soon as the national campaign launched in March. They replicated the sort of grassroots community organizing that Mook learned on Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign.

Sanders, meanwhile, didn’t get going until half a year later. His state campaign manager, Joan Kato, didn’t arrive until November. While the Clinton campaign spent the final weeks of the race running a get-out-the-vote effort to make sure Clinton backers actually showed up to caucus, the Sanders campaign was still trying to identify its supporters at a phone banking event Wednesday focused on reaching Latino voters.

“I think one of the reasons that we got here a little bit later, that the average person in Nevada understands, is that we were raising our money through small donor donations,” Kato told me later that day. “With a $27 average donation, it might take you a little bit more time to get off the ground.” But the Sanders campaign quickly ramped up, spending more on TV ads in the state and eventually opening more field offices (12) than the Clinton campaign (7).

Continue Reading »

Original article: 

How Hillary Clinton Won Nevada

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Hillary Clinton Won Nevada

7 Great Environment Longreads From 2015

by AdelaidN61 Posted on December 28, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

From California’s nut boom to the green guru of professional sports, it’s been a great year for longreads about the environment here at Mother Jones. In case you missed them (or you just want to read ’em again), here are some of our favorites, in no particular order:

  1. “Invasion of the Hedge Fund Almonds,” by Tom Philpott. In California, farmers are converting their farms to almond, pistachio, and walnut orchards at a breakneck pace—and Wall Street firms are buying them up. No wonder, since these nuts are extremely valuable right now. That’s because they’re the health food du jour, both here and in China. There’s just one problem: Tree nuts suck up more water than practically any other crop. So how can there be a nut boom during the worst drought in California’s history? Tom Philpott has the fascinating answer.
  2. “How the Government Put Tens of Thousands of People at Risk of a Deadly Disease,” by David Ferry. Valley fever, a potentially fatal fungal disease, recently reached near-epidemic proportions among the Golden State’s prisoners. The illness is endemic to California’s Central Valley—which also happens to house a high concentration of state prisons. African American and Filipino people are particularly susceptible to the fungus, yet correctional officers repeatedly ignored recommendations to transfer these vulnerable prisoners away from Central Valley facilities. The results were nothing short of tragic.
  3. “Bark Beetles Are Decimating Our Forests. That Might Actually Be a Good Thing,” by Maddie Oatman. Ever-worsening infestations of pine beetles have killed large swaths of forests in the Western United States. As climate change intensifies, the beetle carnage is only expected to increase. The US Forest Service maintains that the only way to stop the marauding bugs is by thinning: cutting down trees to stop the beetles’ progress. But entomologist Diana Six, who has devoted her career to beetle ecology, thinks the beetles may actually know more than we do about how to make forests resilient in the face of big changes ahead as the planet warms.
  4. “This May Be the Most Radical Idea in All of Professional Sports,” by Ian Gordon. If you’ve ever been to a pro sports game, you may have noticed that most are not exactly green operations. In addition to the mountains of beer cans, Styrofoam nacho trays, and peanut shells, there’s the giant energy cost of powering a stadium, and all the carbon emissions that go with it. Sports execs considered all of that an unavoidable cost of doing business—until a charismatic scientist named Allen Hershkowitz came onto the scene a decade ago. Since then, thanks to Hershkowitz and his Green Sports Alliance, at least 28 venues have started using some kind of renewable energy and 20 stadiums have been LEED certified, while the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball have all made major changes to reduce their environmental footprints. So how did Hershkowitz do it?
  5. “Does Air Pollution Cause Dementia?,” by Aaron Reuben. Scientists have long known that air pollution causes and exacerbates respiratory problems—such as asthma and infections and cancers of the lungs—and they also suspect it contributes to a diverse range of other disorders, from heart disease to obesity. But now cutting-edge research suggests these particles play a role in some of humanity’s most terrifying and mysterious illnesses: degenerative brain diseases.
  6. “This Scientist Might End Animal Cruelty—Unless GMO Hardliners Stop Him,” by Kat McGowan. Scientist Scott Fahrenkrug has big plans to make life for millions of farm animals a whole lot better. Through a technique called gene editing, Fahrenkrug’s company has made dairy cows that can skip the painful dehorning process—because they don’t grow horns in the first place. He’s created male pigs that don’t have to be castrated because they never go through puberty. He’s tweaking the DNA of a few high-performance cattle breeds so they’re more heat tolerant and can thrive in a warming world. Fahrenkrug’s ultimate goal is animals with just the right mix of traits—and much less suffering. But many people see genetically modified foods as a symbol of all that’s wrong with the industrial food system. Fahrenkrug will have to convince them that it offers the surest and fastest route to more ethical and sustainable farming.
  7. “Heart of Agave,” by Ted Genoways. In Mexico, fine tequila is serious business. That’s in part because over the last 25 years, US imports of pure agave tequila have doubled—with the greatest leap coming in the super-premium division, where sales of high-end tequilas have increased five times over. The billion-dollar market has become so lucrative that George Clooney, Sean Combs, and Justin Timberlake each have their own brands. All that growth has pushed growers to plant vast monoculture fields and deploy the products of American agrichemical companies, like pesticides and synthetic fertilizer. But that could soon change: Journalist and author Ted Genoways tells the story of the rogue Mexican optometrist who has started an organic tequila revolution—and how his radical ideas are catching on.

Read More – 

7 Great Environment Longreads From 2015

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, organic, PUR, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 7 Great Environment Longreads From 2015

We Need to Re-Learn the Lessons of the Iraq War

by OrvalMedrano Posted on November 17, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Jeff Guo writes about the likelihood that the Paris attacks will inspire reprisals against Muslims:

“This is precisely what ISIS was aiming for — to provoke communities to commit actions against Muslims,” said Arie Kruglanski, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland who studies how people become terrorists. “Then ISIS will be able to say, ‘I told you so. These are your enemies, and the enemies of Islam.’”

….The researchers see the Paris attacks increasing radicalization in two potential ways. First, the killings project power and prestige, burnishing ISIS’s image and attracting those who want to feel potent themselves.

Second, the attacks will escalate tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims. They have already led to some anti-Muslim activity, and will likely provoke more. Not only will these events make Muslims in the West feel marginalized, but they will also provide extremist propagandists with examples of Western oppression.

What really gets me about this is not just that it’s true. It’s that we’ve seen this movie before with Al-Qaeda. We know perfectly well that it’s ISIS that wants to turn this into a war of civilizations, just as Al-Qaeda wanted to do. It’s no secret. Why are so many conservative hawks so willing to play along with this?

More generally, it’s astonishing—or depressing, take your pick—how soon we forget what we learned just a few years ago. Should we send a massive force into Anbar to crush ISIS once and for all? Well, we’ve tried that before. Remember? We sent a massive force into Iraq and, sure enough, we toppled Saddam Hussein regular army units pretty quickly. Then, despite a huge military presence, the country fell apart. The Sunni insurgency lasted for years before it was finally beaten back. Then the Shiite government of Iraq decided that fealty to its Shia supporters was more important than uniting their country, and before long Anbar was in flames again, this time with ISIS leading the charge.

You want to take out ISIS? Me too. But if you want to do it fast in order to demonstrate how tough you are, it’s going to require 100,000 troops or more; it will cost hundreds or thousands of American lives; and the bill will run to tens of billions of dollars. Remember Fallujah? It took the better part of a year and nearly 15,000 troops to take a medium-sized city held by a few thousand poorly trained militants. Now multiply that by ten or so. And multiply the casualties by 10 or 20 or 30 too. This isn’t two armies facing off on the field of battle. It’s house-to-house fighting against local insurgents, which isn’t something we’re especially good at.

Still, we could do it. The problem is that President Obama is right: unless we leave a permanent occupying force there, it will just blow up yet again—especially if we take Ted Cruz’s advice and decide we don’t really care about civilian casualties. Having defeated Al-Qaeda 2.0, we’ll end up with Al-Qaeda 3.0. Aside from a permanent occupation, the only thing that can stop this is an Iraqi government that takes Sunni grievances seriously and is genuinely willing to govern in a non-sectarian way.

This isn’t just a guess. We went through this just a few years ago. But everyone seems to have forgotten it already. Just send in the troops and crush the bastards! That worked great against the Nazis. It doesn’t work so great in Iraq.

Read the article:  

We Need to Re-Learn the Lessons of the Iraq War

Posted in alo, ATTRA, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We Need to Re-Learn the Lessons of the Iraq War

How Honest Is Your State?

by VincentWintle9 Posted on November 10, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This year, the Center for Public Integrity has once again ranked all 50 states for their transparency and accountability. A high score means your state is tolerably honest. A low score means corruption galore. AJ Vicens has the whole story here, along with plenty of detail.

But for those of you who just want the tl;dr version, I’m here to help. The chart below shows how all 50 states did. Congratulations, Michigan! You’re our most corrupt state, edging out Wyoming by a few tenths of a point. In the “beats expectations” category, I think I’d give the award to Illinois, with New Jersey as runner-up. In the “most disappointing” category, I’d pick Oregon, which really brought down the otherwise impressive performance by the Western states.

Continue reading – 

How Honest Is Your State?

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Honest Is Your State?

How Our Constitution Indulges the Great Conservative Fantasy

by NiklasDambrosio Posted on October 7, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A few days ago Matt Yglesisas wrote a #Slatepitch piece arguing that Hillary Clinton “is clearly more comfortable than the average person with violating norms and operating in legal gray areas”—and that’s a good thing. In a nutshell, Democrats can’t get anything done through Congress, so they need someone willing to do whatever it takes to get things done some other way. And that’s Hillary. “More than almost anyone else around, she knows where the levers of power lie, and she is comfortable pulling them, procedural niceties be damned.”

Unsurprisingly, conservatives were shocked. Shocked! Liberals are fine with tyranny! Today Matt responded in one of his periodic newsletters:

A system of government based on the idea of compromises between two independently elected bodies will only work if the leaders of both bodies want to compromise. Congressional Republicans have rejected any form of compromise, so an effective Democratic president is going to try to govern through executive unilateralism. I don’t think this is a positive development, but it’s the only possible development.

I don’t think I’m as pessimistic as Yglesias, but put that aside for a moment. Look at this from a conservative point of view. They want things to move in a conservative direction. But compromise doesn’t do that. In practice, it always seems to move things in a more liberal direction, with a few conservative sops thrown in that eventually wither away and die. This leaves them with little choice except increasingly hard-nosed obstructionism: government shutdowns, debt ceiling fights, filibusters for everything, voter ID laws, etc. etc.

And there’s a lot of truth to this to this view. The entire Western world has been moving inexorably in a liberal direction for a couple of centuries. It’s a tide that can’t be turned back with half measures. Conservative parties in the rest of the world have mostly made their peace with this, and settle for simply slowing things down. American conservatives actually want to reverse the tide.

That’s all but impossible in the long term. It’s just not the way the arc of history is moving right now. But American conservatives are bound and determined to do it anyway.

This is the fundamental problem. British conservatives, in theory, could turn back the clock if they wanted to, but they don’t. Their parliamentary system allows them to do it, but public opinion doesn’t—which means that if they want to retain power, there’s a limit to how far they can fight the tide. If American conservatives were in the same situation, they’d probably end up in the same place. Once they actually got the power to change things, they’d very quickly moderate their agenda.

It’s in this sense that our system of governance really is at fault for our current gridlock. Not directly because of veto points or our presidential system or any of that, but because these features of our political system allow conservatives to live in a fantasy world. They dream of what they could do if only they had the political power to do it, and they really believe they’d do it all if they got the chance. Thanks to all those veto points, however, they never get the chance. Full control of the government would disabuse everyone very quickly of just how far they’re really willing to go, but it never happens.

We are living through an era in which conservatives are living a fantasy that can never be. But our system of governance denies them the chance to test that fantasy. So it continues forever. It will stop eventually, either because conservatives somehow do gain total political power and are forced to face up to its limits, or because it burns itself out through continual head banging that gets them nowhere combined with demographic changes that decimate their base. Probably the latter. It’s only a question of how long it takes.

Originally posted here: 

How Our Constitution Indulges the Great Conservative Fantasy

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Our Constitution Indulges the Great Conservative Fantasy

Why Is No One Talking About the Menace of the Pacific Ocean?

by TangelaCulpeppe Posted on September 24, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Look, if we’re going to have a wall on the Southern border and the Northern border, then I want a wall along the Western border too. I won’t feel safe until we build one.

Shame about the view, but national security comes first.

Excerpt from: 

Why Is No One Talking About the Menace of the Pacific Ocean?

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Is No One Talking About the Menace of the Pacific Ocean?