Tuesday, October 23rd, 2018
Brandon Showalter , - Christian Post
Stephan: This is what life looks like to the fundamentalist Christian world.
The population of self-identified witches has risen dramatically in the United States in recent decades, as interest in astrology and witchcraft practices have become increasingly mainstreamed.
While data is sparse, Quartz noted, the practice of witchcraft has grown significantly in recent decades; those who identify as witches has risen concurrently with the rise of the “witch aesthetic.”
“While the U.S. government doesn’t regularly collect detailed religious data, because of concerns that it may violate the separation of church and state, several organizations have tried to fill the data gap,” Quartz reported.
“From 1990 to 2008, Trinity College in Connecticut ran three large, detailed religion surveys. Those have shown that Wicca grew tremendously over this period. From an estimated 8,000 Wiccans in 1990, they found there were about 340,000 practitioners in 2008. They also estimated there were around 340,000 Pagans in 2008.”
Pew Research Center studied the issue in 2014, discovering that 0.4 percent of Americans, approximately 1 to 1.5 million people, identify as Wicca or Pagan, meaning their communities continue to experience significant growth.
The rapid rise is not a surprise to some given philosophical and spiritual trends in culture.
“It makes sense that witchcraft and the occult would rise as society becomes increasingly postmodern. […]
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Monday, October 22nd, 2018
Stephan: Life expectancy in the US has
dropped in each of the past two years, If you live in the U.S. statistically your life will be six years shorter than if you like in Spain, or Japan. Six Years! The U.S. is not even in the top ten. Nor is it in the top 20, or 30. What could you do with those six years that you won't have? Spend more time with your grandchildren, your children? Take a long-anticipated but never attained trip on your bucket list? American society is failing its citizens in a hundred ways, this is one of the saddest failures, and its getting worse. We are now a population defined by our obesity, our short lives, and our guns.
People in Spain will live for 85.8 years on average, marginally edging out expected lifespans in Japan (85.7), Singapore (85.4) and Switzerland (85.2).
The United States will take the biggest drop in ranking of all high-income countries, falling from 43rd in 2016 to 64th by 2040, with an average life expectancy of 79.8.
The US will be overtaken by China, which rises 29 places to 39th in the table.
Americans will live only 1.1 years longer on average in 2040 compared to 2016, well below the average global rise of 4.4 years over that same period.
“Whether we see significant progress or stagnation depends on how well or poorly health systems address key health drivers,” said Kyle Foreman, […]
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Monday, October 22nd, 2018
, - Information Clearing House
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for at least 15 years, that underneath all the nationalistic crap that fills the media that a profound geopolitical transformation is taking place. It is one of the four great meta-trends: The transfer of real power from the nation state to a small nobility of money, not blood or heritage, through the corporations they control. This is the rise of Neo-feudalism, and it is well underway whether you know it or not.
Check out the full list comparing the revenues of countries and corporations 
Credit: Dash Radosti
Top corporations continue to accrue revenues far in excess of most governments, figures compiled by Global Justice Now show. Comparing 2017 revenues, 69 of the top 100 economic entities are corporations rather than governments. The top 10 corporations – a list which includes Walmart, Toyota and Shell as well as several Chinese corporations – raked in over $3 trillion last year.
When it comes to the top 200 entities, the gap between corporations and governments gets even more pronounced: 157 are corporations. Walmart, Apple and Shell all accrued more wealth than even fairly rich countries like Russia, Belgium, Sweden.
Global Justice Now released the figures in order to put pressure on the British government during UN human rights council negotiations this week to take forward a new binding UN Treaty to force transnational corporations to abide by human rights responsibilities. Campaigners are calling for the treaty to be legally enforceable at a national and global level. Britain, which currently sits on the UN human rights council, has traditionally been hostile to the treaty, which […]
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Monday, October 22nd, 2018
MARK WILSON, - Fast Company
Stephan: When you design technology with no consideration but profit, the ecology of that technology is not even a factor. But ignoring its ecological impact does not make it go away. Take your mobile phone. American society and much of the rest of the world is organized on the wrong fundamentals, and this cannot continue. Climate change won't allow it.
Alexey_boldin/iStock (phone), Austin Chan/Unsplash (smoke), Annie Spratt/Unsplash (smoke), BravissimoS/iStock (smoke)
Before you upgrade your next iPhone, you may want to consider a $29 battery instead. Not only will the choice save you money, it could help save the planet.
A new study
from researchers at McMaster University published in the
Journal of Cleaner Production analyzed the carbon impact of the whole Information and Communication Industry (ICT) from around 2010-2020, including PCs, laptops, monitors, smartphones, and servers. They found remarkably bad news. Even as the world shifts away from giant tower PCs toward tiny, energy-sipping phones, the overall environmental impact of technology is only getting worse. Whereas ICT represented 1% of the carbon footprint in 2007, it’s already about tripled, and is on its way to exceed 14% by 2040. That’s half as large as the carbon impact of the entire transportation industry.
Smartphones are particularly insidious for a few reasons. With a two-year average life cycle, they’re more or less disposable. The problem is that building a new smartphone–and specifically, mining the […]
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Monday, October 22nd, 2018
Tracy Jan, Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: I had conflicted emotions when I read this. There was a certain satisfaction in seeing people who live in an alternative fact world, confront the real thing. I also felt sorry for them. Because the state is Republican they have elected for years, I don't quite know what to call them, christofascists, racists, morons? But when you get to the lick log that's not the problem. It's not the politicians, it's the people. The politicians are but a reflection of the voters. And they're getting what they voted for, even though it is not what they wanted or expected. Because the Republican Party is not fact-based the state is woefully unprepared for what is happening, hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians are going to have their lives devastated, their worlds turned upside down, and a small number will be killed.
I hope this sacrifice is recognized for what it is, and that other Red value states act before disasters like Florence are visited upon them. Twelve years, until someone can offer counter data of the same gravitas I take it that twelve years is what we have to alter civilization, or it will be altered dramatically beyond our control.
A man crosses a flooded street in downtown Wilmington, N.C., after Hurricane Florence made landfall on Sept. 14.
Credit: Chuck Burton/AP
WILMINGTON, N.C. — It took a giant laurel oak puncturing her roof during Hurricane Florence last month for Margie White to consider that perhaps there was some truth to all the alarm bells over global warming.
“I always thought climate change was a bunch of nonsense, but now I really do think it is happening,” said White, a 65-year-old Trump supporter, as she and her young grandson watched workers haul away downed trees and other debris lining the streets of her posh seaside neighborhood last week, just as Hurricane Michael made landfall 700 miles away in the Florida Panhandle.
Storms have grown more frequent — and more intense — over the 26 years she and her husband have lived in Wilmington, White said, each one chipping away at their skepticism. Climate change has even seeped into their morning conversations as they sip coffee — ever since the neighbor’s […]
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