The World Social Forum calls itself “an open meeting place where social movements, networks, NGOs and other civil society organizations opposed to neoliberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, for formulate proposals, share their experiences freely …
Wouldn’t it be nice to predict future events, even if they are just ten seconds ahead? According to researchers at Northwestern University, we can do just that. Researchers already know that our subconscious minds sometimes know more than our conscious minds. Physiological measures of subconscious arousal, for instance, tend to …
California Proposition 37 to label foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is up for a vote on Tuesday, November 6. It enjoyed broad popular support as of September, with a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showing support by 61 percent of registered voters. But in the two weeks following that poll, support dropped …
Last winter, fossil-fuel enthusiasts began trumpeting the dawn of a new “golden age of oil” that would kick-start the American economy, generate millions of new jobs, and free this country from its dependence on imported petroleum. Ed Morse, head commodities analyst at Citibank, was typical. In the Wall Street Journal he crowed, “The …
Ten Years Ago Congress Began Debate Over Iraq War The official anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War falls on the day the first bombs dropped: March 20, 2003. But for those of us who served in the United States Congress who cast a vote to decide life or …
The long run—was an expression made popular by the Annales School of French historians led by Fernand Braudel, who coined the phrase in 1958. The basic argument of this school is that the proper concern of historians should be the analysis of structures that lie at the base of …
When the United States decided to invade Afghanistan to grab Osama bin Laden—and failed, but stayed on like an unwanted guest—could it have known that the Afghans were sitting on some of the world’s greatest reserves of mineral wealth? We’ve raised this topic before (see here [2])—where we noted the dubious 2010 …
The path to a new political economy leads straight away from consumerism and commercialism to a very different world in which getting and spending, material possessions, and overall consumption have a decidedly circumscribed and modest place in everyday life. In her insightful book, A Consumers’ Republic, Lizabeth Cohen documents that American …
While it’s hard to fathom right-wing nuttiness, it’s sure not hard to find these days We saw it bloom spectacularly recently, popping right out of the head of Todd Akin, the GOP’s Senate candidate in Missouri. The learned congressman gave America a twisted tutorial on the imaginary science of “legitimate …
With over 2000 highly operational nuclear weapons already in the world, it is ironic, to say the least, that Iran’s nuclear energy program is considered by the US and its allies as a threat to “global security.” In a recent report, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) has published satellite imagery …
WASHINGTON – August 24 – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today asked the Inspector General to review the Food and Drug Administration’s handling of an investigation of tainted jerky treats for dogs made in China. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been investigating consumer complaints for five years while the …
Twice as many patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) that were prescribed cannabis reported relief from muscle stiffness over the placebo while cannabis also provided better relief of body pain, muscle spasms, and sleep disturbances. In the MS study published online on July 12 in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and …
Worried critics decry the similarities between the corruption-laden late 19th-century American Gilded Age and the crony capitalism of today. “We are recreating the Gilded Age,” notes labor historian Erik Loomis. And Robert Reich, the former Democratic labor secretary under Bill Clinton, explains in the Nation that “we’ve entered a new …
Haaretz knows better. Still it misreports on Iran. On August 12, its editorial headlined “Netanyahu’s dangerous demagoguery on Iran” saying: “Iranian nuclear weapons are a threat to Israel – but its leaders’ demagoguery is just as dangerous.” Haaretz, Israeli officials, US and other Western ones know Iran has no nuclear …
Degree to which aquifers important for farming are under stress. (Gleeson, T. et al.)Almost one-quarter of the world’s population lives in regions where groundwater is being used up faster than it can be replenished, concludes a comprehensive global analysis of groundwater depletion, published this week in Nature. The world’s oldest …