The modern consumer economy is a thing of wonder, isn’t it? We don’t just have iPhones, we have brand new models of iPhones every couple years. We don’t just have two linen shirts to wear anymore, we have new lines of fashion twice (or more) annually and most clothes are so cheap, it doesn’t matter
Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready GMO soybeans are facing a classic Red Queen race. Originally modified to include a gene that renders the soybeans resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, enabling farmers who planted them to spray their fields with Monsanto’s Round-Up without harming their crop, they are becoming less useful to farmers because the weeds that the
I was nine years old when, in 1983, the first black woman was crowned “Miss America.” I admit that at the time, I didn’t fully comprehend the significance of what she had achieved. To that point, I had never been exposed to people who actively despised others they didn’t personally know. In fact, I hadn’t
A given population, whether it is the yeast in a homebrewer’s carboy or nation-state of people, will tend to expand to fit or exceed the size of the available resource base. If a population exceeds the budget of resources that can be reasonably accessed, the inevitable result is suffering, as the overshoot resolves itself. (In
What will be the reaction now that millions of Americans have been Berned? For legions of Bernie Sanders supporters, the Vermont senator’s syrupy speech Tuesday night at the Democratic Party’s convention, culminating in his call for Hillary Clinton to be nominated the party’s presidential candidate by acclamation, was difficult to choke down.
The Case for a Socialist America On the road the other day, I saw a bumper sticker that made me laugh out loud. Placed next to a “Bernie 2016” sticker, and in the same design, it read, “Giant Meteor 2016” and in smaller print, “Just end it already.” Leaving aside the particular disgruntlement of a
Unsafe Liquid Plumr Bottles Recalled The Clorox Company has recalled 4.5 bottles of Liquid Plumr whose caps are not child-proof. The recall was announced July 14. The bottles are easily opened by children, who would then have access to the highly caustic and toxic substance. Included in the recall are the products Liquid Plumr Pro-Strength
Tesla Admits Autopilot Involved in Montana Crash Automaker Tesla has confirmed that its autopilot function was activated when a Tesla car crashed earlier this week. The Model X car collided with a guardrail near Whitehall, Montana. Neither the driver nor passenger was hurt. According to the Detroit Free Press, Trooper Jade Schope said the driver,
A brief obstacle was placed in the way of the security state when a federal judge elected to suppress evidence gained by surveillance technology without a warrant. U.S. District Judge William Pauley ruled in Manhattan on Tuesday that evidence of a defendant’s location by use of a stingray, a device that makes use of a
Tonight Americans will turn on their TV’s, check their Facebook pages, watch YouTube and otherwise plug into the opinion-forming current of mass media. What they will see, hear and read from that mass media, corporate-owned and corporate-controlled, will try to persuade them that they live in a country torn in two by race. A country