Dave Gram, - San Francisco Chronicle
Stephan: This is what Bernie Sanders stands for, and I agree with him on every point. This is a candidate who cares about wellness, and I am convinced that wellness oriented policies are the only hope for the United States to be a prosperous democratic society. What I notice about his announcement is that corporate media has not taken it seriously because he does not have massive money committed to his candidacy. To me this is a statement of how far down the road to oligarchy we have already gone. It is a tacit admission that without a billionaire to buy you and back you, you can not be a "serious" candidate in the U.S. I find that very depressing.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt)
Credit: aattp.org
MONTPELIER, VERMONT — With Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders entering the campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, a look at where he stands on some issues:
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ECONOMY
Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist,” has been pushing for higher taxes on the rich and more money for programs serving the middle class and poor since long before talk of income inequality became fashionable. He has long supported creating a public health care system similar to Canada’s and Britain’s. He favors equal pay for women, a higher minimum wage and stronger labor rights. He frequently expresses outrage that a “billionaire class” has taken too much control over the American political and economic systems, and labeled it “beyond belief” when the House voted last month to provide $269 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. He has backed legislation to crack down on offshore tax havens. Recent legislation backed by Sanders would provide more youth jobs, expand Social Security and increase the estate tax. He supports a five-year, […]
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Danielle Wiener-Bronner, - Fusion
Stephan: Reality as a hologram. Here is an interesting take on that idea.
What a black hole looks like, maybe. Artist’s rendition via NASA.
Everything you know to be true may be an illusion, specifically, an optical illusion, according to scientists who suggest our universe is a hologram. This is not the first time the possibility has been raised, but it is the most convincing.
New research from scientists at the Vienna University of Technology concludes that the holographic principle is possible in the context of a mostly flat space-time continuum. Let’s back up.
The holographic principle was first proposed by theoretical physicists Gerard’t Hooft and Leonard Susskind back in 1993. PBS’s Kate Becker explains:
“The holographic principle, simply put, is the idea that our three-dimensional reality is a projection of information stored on a distant, two-dimensional surface. Like the emblem on your credit card, the two-dimensional surface holds all the information you need to describe a three-dimensional object — in this case, our universe.”
The principle serves as a way to solve the black hole information paradox — […]
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Stephan: Here is the latest on the great geopolitical shift that is occurring in the world, as power shifts away from national states to virtual nongeographical corporate states and trans-national ideological movements. I was very glad to find this piece because almost no one in media is talking about this. I have previously seen this sort of material only in academic journals.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks about the Ukraine crisis after his meetings with other foreign ministers in Paris, March 5, 2014. Kerry spoke to reporters at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris.
Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
A big new State Department assessment has identified a major threat to global security. It’s not ISIS or Vladimir Putin. It’s not a rickety global economy or climate change or the threat of global pandemics.
Instead, the report argues, these individual problems are symptoms of a much bigger issue — namely, a slow breakdown in global governance. Many of the institutions that were created in the past century to deal with economic and security risks around the world, such as the UN and IMF, may no longer be adequate to the task.
If the […]
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Heather Digby Parton, - Salon
Stephan: This story has been bubbling along for several days. At first I thought it was a prank, a kind of Onion send up, that would be revealed as such and everyone who have a good laugh. But no, then I realized that in the surreal world of the Theocratic Right this was, as they say, a thing. Surely I thought the Governor and leaders in Texas would bleed the air out of this balloon. As usual though the Rightist parallel universe is even crazier than one can imagine.
I see all of this as part of the symptom profile describing the breakdown of rationality in Red value states.
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott
Credit: AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner
You have probably heard the lyrics at least a thousand times at televised Republican rallies:
And I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
Those of course are the words to “Proud to be an American” by Lee Greenwood, a song that could almost be described as the conservative national anthem. It perfectly expresses the patriotism of the Real American, the man and woman who love their country without reservation, the ones who boldly invite dissenters to “love it or leave it” and attack anyone who would dare besmirch the red, white and blue. These colors don’t run, hippie…
But something has changed. In fact, it appears that the right wing in this country has become downright hostile to the one government institution they heretofore had defended with every fiber of their being: the […]
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