Stephan:  America is declining over a host of trends, much of it the result of Neoliberalism and its obsession with unregulated markets and profit as the only meaningful social priority. You can open any day's newspaper, or listen to any fact-based news program -- I know they are hard to find -- and see how wrong this entire Neoliberalism premise is. This report presents material from a new and very careful analysis of many societies, again based on facts, describing why societies collapse. Diminishing returns are the key. Sadly, I am not sure enough Americans are up to dealing with the truth, so continued decline seems to be the trend direction. We'll know based on the outcome of the 2020 elections. The full research paper on which this report is based can be found at: https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s41247-018-0049-0

Why do civilizations collapse? It is a question that has been haunting the nebulous entity we call “The West” from the time when Edward Gibbon published his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” in 1776. The underlying question in Gibbon’s massive study was ‘are we heading for the same destiny as the Romans?’ A question that generations of historians have tried to answer, so far without arriving to answer on which everyone would agree.

There are, literally, hundreds of “explanations” for the decline and fall of empires, and the same confusion reigns for the fall of the past civilizations rising to glory and then biting the dust, becoming little more than ruins and footnotes in history books. Is there a single cause for […]

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Just 66% of millennials firmly believe that the earth is round (emphasis added)

Those who believe the Earth is flat vary in the exact theories, but whether they believe in science or religious literature as the basis for their claims, a new YouGov study reveals that 2% of Americans resolutely say the earth is flat.

While an overwhelming majority of Americans (84%) believe that the Earth is round, at least 5% of the public say they used to believe that but now have their doubts.

Flat earthers find traction in their beliefs among a younger generation of Americans. Young millennials, ages 18 to 24, are likelier than any other age group to say they believe the Earth is flat (4%).

Data from YouGov Profiles suggests a link  between belief in a flat earth and spirituality. For some flat earthers, evidence of the earth’s shape may be found in scripture – more than half of Flat earthers (52%) consider themselves “very religious,” compared to just a fifth of all Americans (20%).

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Jeanine Pirro and Dennis Prager on Fox

Right-wing radio show host Dennis Prager claimed that equality has been worse for the world than Nazism, communism and colonialism during a bizarre appearance on the Fox News show “Justice” with Judge Jeanine Pirro.

The segment continued the network’s infatuation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

“Thursday, Amazon pulled out of its planned headquarters in New York City after facing a fierce backlash liberal lawmakers, progressive activists, socialists and union leaders,” Pirro said. “A move that will now cost the city and its residents thousands of jobs, reflecting how socialists attacked our capitalist values — and won.”

“One of leaders of this movement, none other than freshman Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted this in celebration of Amazon pulling out of the deal,” she noted, before reading a tweet from Ocasio-Cortez.

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Pope Francis leads a mass for priests in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
Credit: AFP/Getty

Some of the most senior clerics in the Roman Catholic church who have vociferously attacked homosexuality are themselves gay, according to a book to be published next week.

Eighty per cent of priests working at the Vatican are gay, although not necessarily sexually active, it is claimed in the book, In the Closet of the Vatican.

The 570-page book, which the French journalist and author Frédéric Martel spent four years researching, is a “startling account of corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Vatican”, according to its British publisher Bloomsbury.

It is being published in eight languages across 20 countries next Wednesday, coinciding with the opening day of a conference at the Vatican on sexual abuse, to which bishops from all over the world have been summoned.

Martel, a former adviser to the French government, conducted 1,500 interviews while researching the book, including with 41 cardinals, 52 bishops and monsignors, 45 papal ambassadors or diplomatic officials, 11 […]

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The rate of insect extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.
Credit: Entomologisher Verein Krefeld

The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are “essential” for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators […]

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