Stephan: The United States of America is the world's largest death merchant. A statement of fact. How does that sit with you? I find it despicable. Why is it happening? Because it is incredibly profitable for the handful of corporations for which death, violence, and suffering are the purpose of their products.
A new analysis of global weapons sales published Monday revealed that the United States now accounts for well over a third of all arms exports worldwide over the last half decade and nearly half of these weapons of war were sold to nations in the Middle East—a region beset by war and conflicts unleashed and exacerbated by American foreign policy.
According to the new data on global arms transfers compiled and analyzed by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a decrease in arms sales between 2016 and 2020 by Russia and China—the second and fifth exporters overall, respectively—was offset by increasing sales made by the other top five weapons exporters: U.S., France, and Germany. And while the sales remained steady compared to the 2011–2015 period, the report shows that the past decade still saw the highest levels of weapons sales worldwide since the height of the Cold War in the 1980s.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1371399722615898114&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2021%2F03%2F15%2Fsaudis-suck-weapons-us-accounts-over-13-all-global-arms-sales&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=e1ffbdb%3A1614796141937&width=550px
According to SIPRI’s analysis:
The United States remains the largest arms exporter, increasing its global share of arms exports from 32 to 37 per cent between 2011–15 and 2016–20. The USA […]
Stephan: I found this story gobsmacking. It's not just the anti-science posturing, and the willful ignorance; it is also the callous indifference about putting other people at risk. It is so Republican and captures in one simple story so much of what is wrong with Republicanism.
Madison Cawthorn at the RNC (Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee Credit: Getty
Slow acceptance of the coronavirus vaccine among lawmakers is delaying plans for the House of Representatives to return to a full legislative session, allowing members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to stall bills that have clear majority support.
About 25% of House members have either refused to be vaccinated, are avoiding it due to medical conditions or have not reported getting one, according to a memo from the Office of Attending Physician obtained by Axios. The memo said that congressional doctors cannot make new recommendations “regarding the modification or relaxation of existing social distancing guidelines” until they understand why members have not been vaccinated.
The report did not specify which members have been most reluctant to get the vaccine but polls show that white Republicans, particularly men and Trump supporters, are far more likely to oppose the vaccine than any other group, while Democrats overwhelmingly say they want a vaccine or have already received one. Congress has had its own vaccine supply since December.
“I won’t be taking it. The survival rate is too high […]
Stephan: Trump's unwillingness to competently respond to the Covid-19 pandemic through his presidency and, now, in his post-pesidency is, in my opinion, an act of moral evil of historical proportions
Credit: Bloomberg
Reluctance among Republicans to receiving a vaccine is one of the biggest risks to coronavirus control efforts, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser said, although one GOP governor said attitudes may change.
Fauci said he’d like to see former President Donald Trump come out and publicly urge his supporters to get the vaccine.
“I wish he would,” Fauci said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He has such an incredible influence over people in the Republican Party. It would really be a game changer if he did.”
A PBS News Hour/NPR/Marist poll released Thursday showed that 41% of people who identify as Republicans, including 49% of GOP-leaning men, said they had no plans to get one of the three federally approved coronavirus vaccines. Among Democratic-leaning men, only 6% said the same.
Separately, a Monmouth University poll found 56% of Republicans either wanted to wait and see before getting a vaccine, or said they were likely never to get one. Only 23% of Democrats felt the same way.
“I just don’t get it,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when […]
Stephan: Yesterday I ran a story on the challenges of Hydrogen power Here is a major test case. Japan will show us how Hyrdrogen power plays out at scale.
TOKYO – When Warren Buffett’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway announced last August that it had acquired more than 5% of the five largest Japanese general trading companies – Mitsubishi Corporation; Itochu; Mitsui & Co; Marubeni; and Sumitomo Corporation – most failed to notice that Buffet was buying into coal-fired power projects.
Within three months, a group of institutional investors led by Nordea Asset Management of Finland sent a letter to Mitsubishi Corp requesting that it abandon its Vung Ang-2 coal-fired power plant project in Vietnam. Friends of the Earth, Greta Thunberg and Japanese environmentalists piled on, but to no avail.
In February, however, Mitsubishi Corp announced its withdrawal from the Vihn Tan 3 coal-fired power plant project, also in Vietnam, and said that Vung Ang-2 would be its last such project.
Both Itochu and Mitsui & Co have also announced plans to exit thermal coal. Marubeni and Sumitomo Corp plan to do so except in cases when no other source of power is available and where the most advanced emission-reduction technologies are used.
Stephan: I am beginning to see an increasing number of stories about the struggles of coastal communities as they face the challenge of rising sea levels. It is all too often a tragic story and this is just the beginning of this trend. This New York Times report is about the Outer Banks of North Carolina which, by most predictions are doomed to be submerged. But it could be about many places around the world. We are going to see more and more of this, as well as the internal migrations these coastal submergences create.
Avon, N.C., faces a crisis: The main road into town risks being destroyed by the sea. Credit: Erin Schaff/NYT
AVON, N.C. — Bobby Outten, a county manager in the Outer Banks, delivered two pieces of bad news at a recent public meeting. Avon, a town with a few hundred full-time residents, desperately needed at least $11 million to stop its main road from washing away. And to help pay for it, Dare County wanted to increase Avon’s property taxes, in some cases by almost 50 percent.
Homeowners mostly agreed on the urgency of the first part. They were considerably less keen on the second.
People gave Mr. Outten their own ideas about who should pay to protect their town: the federal government. The state government. The rest of the county. Tourists. People who rent to tourists. The view for many seemed to be, anyone but them.
Mr. Outten kept responding with the same message: There’s nobody coming to the rescue. We have only ourselves.
“We’ve got to act now,” he said.
The risk to tiny Avon from climate change is particularly dire — it is, […]
