[Vaclav] Havel spoke always from a conviction that civic intelligence is the most valuable commodity in any nation, and its erosion is the greatest danger.… Read More Functioning society or the Big Lie? We can’t have both.
Our bigger and continuing job, clearly, is to push back, not only against the lies, but against the liars. We need to rid our society of this toxic poison if we are ever to return to the improving path I believe we were on, until around 1990.… Read More We need to rid our society of professional liars
At every level, political, financial, ideological and bureaucratic, the clear advantages of pumped hydro energy storage are stifled. Our communities, our society and the planet need this straightforward, non-polluting energy storage option to be unshackled and rapidly promoted.… Read More Pumped Hydro Storage: the neglected, stifled no-brainer
The commercial media are parasites that inject toxins into our social and political discourse. We need to acknowledge and address the disease if we are to retrieve something like the open society we claim to be.… Read More Freedom of the Press Barons?
It is sensible to be afraid of a crocodile sharing the river you are playing in. It is not sensible to be afraid of monsters under the bed. It is not sensible to be afraid of a puppy begging to be friends.… Read More Monsters, real and imagined
A book from 2017 explicitly confirms the existence of a strategy. It is a strategy of subterfuge, with the goal of limiting democratic controls so that the ‘spontaneous order’ of the market, as Hayek called it, can operate and allow the rich to do what they want.… Read More The radical right: subversive sociopaths
There is an overriding reason to single out the First People of this land from all the rest of us immigrants, and descendants of immigrants: our gain was their loss.… Read More The Voice: our gain was their loss
I expect to resume more frequent commentary, though not on a regular schedule.… Read More Resuming
The old political parties are still fighting last century’s political battles from within their traditional colonial mentality. Each has completely lost touch with its founding purpose.… Read More AUKUS: Sordid, Dated Domestic Power Games of Cringing Colonials
The debate can be clarified by distinguishing quality from quantity. We can aspire to reduce the quantity of resources we use even as we continue to improve our quality of life. Whether the GDP rises or falls as we do so becomes irrelevant. Given that many exploitative and polluting activities are counted as positives in the GDP, it is quite plausible that the GDP would decline even as our quality of life improves.… Read More An economy that shrinks quantity and grows quality
Thrival Economics 