The rise of Sinn Fein: Ireland’s Bernie moment
The former political arm of the IRA now draws support from the economically besieged young. A risky game.
Brian Kaller
Italy under the coronavirus attack: the return of the Plague Spreaders
The Web can spread hate and fake news at an unbelievably fast speed. In Italy, the COVID-19 epidemics arrived just a couple of days ago and the social media are already exploding in a wave of hate against the current untori, in this case supposed to be the Greens, the Government, the Communists, Immigrants, Africans, and in general the “do-gooders” (in Italian, buonisti), supposed to have done nothing to avoid the spreading of the pandemics when it was still possible to stop it.
The return of resource nationalism
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The fall of the Berlin Wall was to bring about one, integrated world market where goods and services freely traversed borders without the interference of meddling ideologues—where the agricultural, mineral and man-made treasures of one country would be available to anyone, anywhere who was willing to pay for them: oil, gold, diamonds, soybeans, palm oil, wheat, computers, software and myriad other products of the earth and of human endeavor.
The winning strategy
Having lived through the Vietnam, antinuclear, and antiwar protest era of the past half-century, I thought that protest was a fool’s errand. I am here today to say I was wrong.
Turns out McKibben was right, albeit only by an unexpected turn of events. Protests are bringing the beast to heel, and the key battleground came not in Washington or Paris but to a lonely field in South Dakota, not very far from Wounded Knee. It was the young water keepers that killed the dinosaur.
Note to EIA: Major shale operator sending cash elsewhere
Someone should send a note to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) that maybe it’s not all going to work out. If Hess is right about a peak in U.S. shale oil production soon, that peak will come about a decade earlier than the peak forecast by the EIA.
The Fight Against Climate Science. Why is Italy at the Forefront of the Battle?
Sometimes, my American friends tell me how lucky I am because I live in a country where the top politicians haven’t embraced climate science denial as they did in the US. But things are changing: climate is becoming a politically explosive issue in Italy.
Code blue: Pandemics and hospital surge capacity in a just-in-time world
Fourteen years ago, as shortages in key commodities appeared and prices soared, I asked whether just-in-time was nearly out of time. If the corona virus spreads worldwide, we may all be asking that question soon.
The Right-Wing Steamroller: First Trump in the US, then Bolsonaro in Brazil, now Salvini in Italy….. No, wait! Salvini was Defeated!!
Even if you don’t follow Italian politics, the recent upset in the elections is significant. Italy’s Berlusconi was the first of the right populists to win power, and now Italy seems to have developed an immunity toward their propaganda strategy: “The idea is to target the lowest cultural level of the population. Use scare tactics, find enemies of all sorts, demonize them, then promise safety in the hands of a right-wing government.”
Owning your own information: How about a Constitutional Amendment?
Everywhere the key to controlling others has become controlling information related to them, and that information now includes your movements, your purchases, your habits (at work and at home), your current whereabouts, and anything and everything you put on the internet about yourself. In addition, anything you choose to monitor using “smart” technology will have the providers of such technology looking over your shoulder as you do.
Microwaving sewage waste may make it safe to use as fertilizer on crops
My team has discovered another use for microwave ovens that will surprise you.
‘Soylent yellow’: Is artificial protein really a solution to food production?
The 1973 dystopian science fiction film “Soylent Green” is set in the year 2022, just one year after a nonfictional Finnish company hopes to begin selling an artificially produced yellow protein-laden flour created by bacteria that the company says will revolutionize food production.
The flour is derived from vats of yellow bacteria whose fermentation process create a yellow protein that when dried looks like flour.
Iran, energy and war
No one can say for certain whether current tensions between the United States and Iran will spiral into war. But remember: When they tell you it’s not about oil (and natural gas), you can be certain that these resources are at the center of American motives. Absent these resources it would be difficult to understand the United States’ decades-long obsession with Iran.