Credit: links.org.au While watching the news from Spain, I wonder what it would be like to live there now during the global depression and ongoing class war. Or Greece.  Or Iceland, or Italy, or Portugal, or any other country threatened with what I call “national devaluation.”  I would be angry. Because I’m not an economist but I can smell a scam.  I have studied some difficult subjects but I never dared try the dismal science.  I am actually proud to have spent a lifetime ignoring the theorie...

Revolutions begin in righteous idealism but too often end in absolute horror. Lots of nice ideas get bandied about, but in the end most things get worse and very little gets better. The essential contradiction, the crux of the matter is that revolutions may entail the highest aspirations of the human spirit for freedom, dignity, and fairness, but when they involve war, everybody loses. The costs exceed the benefits every time. I have always come down on the side of the revolutionaries. My mothe...

The World Health Organization recently reported that diesel fumes cause cancer. Why are we acknowledging now, in 2012, something that could easily have been predicted decades ago? Part of the problem is our gridlocked political system which prevents meaningful change and discussion. Independent voters and those not locked into the two parties can play a major role in reforming health care. This also ties into the economic system as a whole. Cancer is big business. Look at the numbers. 1.6 milli...

Generating electricity from a controlled nuclear reaction is an interesting idea. Unfortunately, human beings do not currently demonstrate sufficient intelligence or wisdom to do it safely or economically. Take for example the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant, located in Vernon, Vermont. It went online in 1972 with a license to generate 500 megawatts of electricity for forty years. It is now in its forty-first year of operation, and since 2006 has been operating at 120% of original capacity, genera...