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Showing posts from December, 2015

Truth Be Told

December 25, 2015 - We saw the movie The Big Short today; I highly recommend it.  It's surpassingly sad that we, i.e. American society, have allowed the compilation of lies accumulated during the Bush/Cheney years to go so long unaddressed.  This movie takes an important step in the direction of redressing these omissions.  I readily confess I didn't understand all parts of the movie, though the delightful "asides" provided throughout did help.  Though I wouldn't characterize the movie in general with the word delightful, it has its moments. To what degree were the actions of our government, the banks, real estate companies, and investors set in motion the day Bush/Cheney were permitted to steal the 2000 election?  Permitted by an apathetic and confused electorate, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court of the United States, the patently nefarious intentions of the Republican candidates proceeded as planned.  Speaking for myself, I argued silently that my place

COP21: Setting Our Sites

December 14, 2015 - I wonder whether the US Congress will vote to approve the COP21 climate treaty or not.  I don't think it would be approved by the current Congress, but if the vote can be forestalled until a new Congress begins in 2017, perhaps it would.  There is a lot of debate in the press right now about the treaty's merits, but since it's the best global leaders could do, I think we should sign on.  If the U.S. can do better than what is required by the treaty, that would be wonderful.  That's really what we should set our sites on doing. The fact that the entire world has acknowledged that drastic change is necessary is very encouraging.   At first I thought that wealthy countries were only donating $100 billion in total to help poor countries lessen their emissions.  However, I just heard on the Diane Rehm Show that that is an annual budget, beginning in 2020.  That sounds much more aggressive; I can only say I hope wealthy nations live up to the agreement.