Of late U.S. public opinion has turned very chilly for the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists whose data demonstrates that human-generated emissions are heating the globe with potentially catastrophic results. Thanks to a confluence of events, some significant and others bogus, polls show Americans are increasingly confused about the reality of global warming. After the election of President Barack Obama, the expectation was that the U.S. government would end the foot dragging of the George W. Bush administration and aggressively move to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. While the Environmental Protection Agency did classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant and the House of Representatives passed an ambitious energy bill with cap-and-trade measures to reduce emissions, the bipartisan version in the Senate sponsored by John Kerry, D-Mass, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., faces tough sledding. The Copenhagen climate summit that was supposed to design a global climate treaty to succeed Kyoto instead produced little more than platitudes about future action. The worldwide economic recession made the costs of combating global warming less acceptable to both industrialized nations and their developing counterparts. In the midst of that gloomy outlook came a pair of highly publicized […]
DALY CITY — People have been toking up in the Cow Palace parking lot for more than 50 years. This was the first time it was legal. The International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, the first trade show in the United States to allow on-site pot smoking, attracted an estimated 15,000 enthusiasts to Daly City over the weekend. They talked bud, sold products ranging from a $500 water bong to a $19,500 mobile grow house, and discussed how efforts to legalize marijuana would impact their livelihoods. ‘We’re exercising our rights as patients to peacefully gather,’ said Bob Katzman, chief operating officer of the expo, as he stood near the designated puffing area. ‘We’re here to talk about changing some of the existing laws, but we’re not here to break the law.’ Katzman said it took organizers four years to negotiate a permit with a venue that would allow marijuana consumption. It wasn’t possible, he said, until a ‘massive change in the political climate.’ That climate is set to be tested in November, when an initiative that would legalize marijuana is to be decided by California voters. Now, marijuana is available only to those with a medicinal […]
WASHINGTON — Only 22% of all Americans surveyed said they trusted the government in Washington almost always or most of the time — among the lowest measures in half a century — according to a Pew Research Center survey released Sunday night. The results point to ‘a perfect storm’ of public unrest, Pew reports, ‘a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter, partisan-based backlash and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.’ Growing numbers of people want government’s power curtailed, Pew reports of a March and April survey that found ‘less of an appetite for government solutions to the nation’s problems — including more government control over the economy — than there was when Barack Obama first took office.’ ‘The public’s hostility toward government seems likely to be an important election issue favoring the Republicans this fall,’ Pew said. ‘However, the Democrats can take some solace in the fact that neither party can be confident that they have the advantage among such a disillusioned electorate. Favorable ratings for both major parties, as well as for Congress, have reached record lows while opposition to congressional incumbents, already approaching an all-time high, continues to climb.’ There have been political […]
By the time we get there it is already a raucous party. The elderly Freeland Hall on Whidbey island, off the coast of Seattle, with its walls and ceiling made of short strips of ancient pine boards, vibrates with the noise. Two hundred fifty people have packed themselves in tonight to eat a simple box dinner on folding tables and watch six men make fools of themselves. One of them will be voted Mr South Whidbey. The voting is done by buying votes, in the form of business card-sized bits of paper, for $1 a card. There is much encouragement to buy as many cards as possible. As I sit there eating my chicken salad, men in odd outfits-one wears a kind of apron upon which is airbrushed a nude female form with a fig leaf, another is got up as Abe Lincoln-circulate with cardboard beer six-pack carriers. Where the beer would be there are paper cups with the names of the contestants, who are also wearing improbable outfits and who range in age from one man in his early 30s wearing a kilt and sporting a chain saw-sort of like one of the Village People seen by someone […]
The long-awaited recovery is now under way, but it’s a slow, painful slog that’s short on animal spirits and long on a drumbeat of numbers that mostly shift from dreadful to less depressing. Twenty-seven months after the recession began, unemployment is stuck at 9.7%. Housing starts are dragging near half-century lows. Consumers are finally spending again, but they’re still too fearful about their jobs and homes to crowd malls and auto lots with the buoyant abandon that heralds a full-rigged revival, the kind Americans are used to. Amazingly, as consumers struggle, U.S. corporations are staging a nearly unprecedented comeback that’s largely escaping notice. The gargantuan, dispiriting job cuts that seem to dominate the news have also been the spur for an epic resurgence in profits. For 2009, the Fortune 500 lifted earnings 335%, to $391 billion, a $301 billion jump that’s the second largest in the list’s 56-year history, approaching the increase in the robust recovery of 2003. For last year the 500 raised their return on sales from less than 1% to 4%. That’s close to the list’s 4.7% historical average. Hence, the 500’s profits virtually returned to normal after years of extremes — bubbles in […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
