Stephan: Until we get the special interest money out of our political process we are never going to cure the cancer of corruption. Here is an example of what I mean.
Credit: DonkeyHotey / Flickr Creative Commons
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reformers were frustrated at the many roadblocks they faced in solving the problems that beset American society. “At many times and in many localities, there have held public office in the States and in the Nation men who have, in fact, served not the whole people but some special class or special interest,” complained President Theodore Roosevelt. So it was that these Progressive reformers introduced the concept of ballot initiatives and referenda, tools that are today used in 24 states, giving the public a way around the corruption and greed that previously stymied reform efforts.
Over a century later, these tools for direct democracy are being undermined and even subverted by the very interests they were created to combat, according to a new report by watchdog group Public Citizen. The report, titled “Big Business Ballot Bullies,” outlines how corporate interests have spent close to $140 million across eight ballot initiatives in fives states through September […]
Stephan: The way you tell that a trend is underway is when you see the same stories from wildly disparate sources, across a wide range of geographic regions not only occur but slowly build in emotional intensity, and factual detail.
The collapse of coastal real estate prices I have been writing about it for years. So although there is some new information in this piece, I am running it mainly to show how the Water is Destiny Trend is developing seen from a British Columbia point of view.
Notice how much it sounds like the assessments we have seen from Norfolk and Virginia Beach in Virginia on the other side of the continent. This is a huge deal.
Turks & Caicos flooding
It has been 120,000 years since sea levels were higher than they are now.
It has been 6,000 years since the ocean rose at unprecedented levels — as much as 30 centimetres a decade. The “memory” of that exists in Haida oral tradition with stories of repeatedly being forced to move to higher ground.
But it’s happening again.
Rising sea level is “the single most profound geological change in recorded human history,” says John Englander, a Florida-based oceanographer who is in Vancouver this week for the International Aquarium Congress.
While others debate about how best to slow the changes, Englander is more concerned that communities aren’t preparing to retreat or mitigate its effects for even a conservative forecast rise of one metre by the end of the century.
“Trillions of dollars worth of the most valuable real estate and infrastructure will vanish,” says Englander, author of High Tide on Main Street and former CEO of The Cousteau Society.
He readily concedes that the planet is in a constant state of flux, […]
Stephan: An LGBT reader sent me this information. I'd had not thought of this as an issue but once I read it, I could see the point in publishing it. I hope older LGBT readers who are thinking of retiring somewhere other than where they are find it useful.
I confess I would not have guessed Salt Lake City ranked that high as being LGBT friendly.
Credit: www.friendlyhouseinc.org
Retirees from all walks of life want to settle down in a place that is fun and inviting, but also affordable and accommodating to the needs of older people. Members of the LGBT community have to be even more selective. Even in 2016 not all cities in America are particularly welcoming to those living “non-traditional” lifestyles and only a few select places have thriving social environments for LGBT residents.
Using SeniorScore™, an unbiased, data-driven algorithm that determines the most accommodating places in America for seniors, we have determined the best cities in the country for retirees who identify with the LGBT community. The SeniorScore™ evaluates over 100 variables across multiple categories that are pertinent to an area’s older residents, including access to healthcare, social and recreational activities, general affordability, safety, quality of environment, and more. Additionally, we analyzed the overall LGBT populations per capita for each city, the presence of gay-friendly social environments, support for gay-owned businesses, and the overall level of tolerance and legal protection of the communities.
Here are the best cities in America for gay-friendly retirement:
Hannah Devlin , Science Correspondent - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Additional research will have to be done but it appears we may have to entire rethink the biology of human eggs. Here is the story.
Ovarian biopsies taken from young women who had been given a particular chemotherapy drug showed that the tissue appeared to have formed new eggs. Credit: Science Picture Co/Getty Images/Science Faction
Scientists have uncovered the first evidence that the human ovary may be able to grow new eggs in adulthood.
If confirmed, the discovery would overturn the accepted view that women are born with a fixed number of eggs and that the body has no capacity to increase this supply. Until now this has been the main constraint on the female reproductive lifespan. The findings, if replicated, would raise the prospect of new treatments to allow older women to conceive and for infertility problems in younger women.
The small study, involving cancer patients, showed that ovarian biopsies taken from young women who had been given a chemotherapy drug had a […]
Stephan: The GMO argument is a complex and subtle one made all the more complicated because of agri-scientists who whore for Big Ag corporate funding, which renders the published literature problematic. But I think it is dispositive that as this report describes, "...at Cornell University, arguably the most highly regarded agricultural university in the world, no scientist would speak for the benefits and safety of GMOs."
Here's the story.
Cornell University College of Agriculture Credit: www.gwathmey-siegel.com
Who would have thought that at Cornell University, arguably the most highly regarded agricultural university in the world, no scientist would speak for the benefits and safety of GMOs?
Perhaps I should have known, however. Last year I was invited to debate the merits of GMOs at Colby College in Maine. Also invited were food activist Jodi Koberinski, Stephen Moose (University of Illinois), and Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science and prominent advocate of GMOs worldwide. Soon after Lynas heard I was coming, however, he pulled out of the debate.
It’s not the first time. Most memorably, in 2001, I attended a court case in which the British government abandoned prosecution of two of its citizens who had pulled up GMOs planted for a scientific experiment. The government preferred to lose the case rather than have the science of GMOs inspected by the judicial system. The defendants were duly and unanimously acquitted, with the judge describing them as the kind of […]
