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Author: By Paul Woodward

World scientists’ warning to humanity on microorganisms and climate change

World scientists’ warning to humanity on microorganisms and climate change

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An editorial in Nature says: In 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC, and more than 1,700 researchers, issued the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity. It cautioned that humans were inflicting “harsh and often irreversible damage” on the environment, and that current practices were endangering humanity’s future. More than 21,000 scientists have so far endorsed a widely publicized and equally stark second warning, issued in 2017. This week, part of the Scientists’ Warning movement calls attention to a…

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The search for extraterrestrial technology finds none

The search for extraterrestrial technology finds none

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The Guardian reports: The close encounter will have to wait. Astronomers have come up empty-handed after scanning the heavens for signs of intelligent life in the most extensive search ever performed. Researchers used ground-based telescopes to eavesdrop on 1,327 stars within 160 light years of Earth. During three years of observations they found no evidence of signals that could plausibly come from an alien civilisation. The only signals picked up by the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia and the…

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Why Trump remains open to receiving foreign aid during election campaigns

Why Trump remains open to receiving foreign aid during election campaigns

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Following Donald Trump’s reiteration that he would gladly receive electoral assistance from any source, Jack Shafer notes: Had Trump answered the hypothetical about taking campaign information from the Russians in 2020 in any other way than he did, it would have been read as a confession that he and his son did something wrong in 2016, and Trump almost never admits to having been wrong—or to anyone in his family being at fault. Confirming that Trump’s statement now amounts to…

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Rory Stewart: ‘The way that you change the world is being honest to the way the world is.’

Rory Stewart: ‘The way that you change the world is being honest to the way the world is.’

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With no notes — the eloquence, clarity, and conviction all his own — Rory Stewart tests a revolutionary proposition: that it is possible to become a national leader by being deeply committed to truthfulness; by being able to discriminate between reality and fantasy; and by placing national interest above personal ambition. In a world where clowns succeed, lies flow in all directions, and the media is perpetually focused on maximizing audience size, Stewart’s seriousness is utterly out of place. But…

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Trump’s obfuscation on the climate crisis

Trump’s obfuscation on the climate crisis

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Following Donald Trump’s interview with Piers Morgan on Wednesday where he talked about the weather changing “both ways,” noted that “it used to be called global warming,” then “climate change,” and now “it’s actually called extreme weather,” Eugene Robinson wrote: “it’s breathtaking that anyone could pack so much ignorance into so few words.” Robinson is doing what so many others do: treat Trump’s statements on the climate crisis as though they merely reflect his ignorance on the issue. The remedy…

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How angry pilots got the Navy to stop dismissing UFO sightings

How angry pilots got the Navy to stop dismissing UFO sightings

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The Washington Post reports: A recent uptick in sightings of unidentified flying objects — or as the military calls them, “unexplained aerial phenomena” — prompted the Navy to draft formal procedures for pilots to document encounters, a corrective measure that former officials say is long overdue. As first reported by POLITICO, these intrusions have been happening on a regular basis since 2014. Recently, unidentified aircraft have entered military-designated airspace as often as multiple times per month, Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for…

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Notre Dame as a metaphor for our planet

Notre Dame as a metaphor for our planet

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In a world where we are so often told that the indomitable human spirit can accomplish almost anything, the response to catastrophes natural or otherwise, accidental or intentional, is that following every loss we can rebuild or recreate. Whatever falls can rise anew — or so the popular conviction would have it. Likewise, in the realm of our mundane and material life, whatever breaks or wears out, can be replaced — often with something better. We live in collective denial…

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The Brexiteers who object to being called ‘white’ prefer to be called ‘the people’

The Brexiteers who object to being called ‘white’ prefer to be called ‘the people’

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On Channel 4 News on March 29, veteran news broadcaster, Jon Snow, candidly observed he had “never seen so many white people in one place,” in reference to the crowd of pro-Brexit protesters gathered in Westminster on the day the UK was meant to leave the EU. What was surely an honest statement, stung some sensitive skin. His remark drew 2,644 complaints sent to the British regulatory body, Ofcom, which prohibits the use of offensive language on television. Sputnik columnist,…

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When did Donald Trump become an environmentalist?

When did Donald Trump become an environmentalist?

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Well before he became a presidential candidate, Donald Trump professed a deep concern about the welfare of birds endangered by wind turbines: “[Wind power] kills all the birds,” Trump told 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on the latter’s radio show Tuesday. “Thousands of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. You know, certain parts of California — they’ve killed so many eagles. You know, they put you in jail if you kill an eagle. And yet these windmills [kill]…

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Speed kills

Speed kills

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When Evan Williams created Blogger and triggered the social media revolution of push-button publishing, an unquestioned presupposition underpinning the creation of the platform was that there was inherent value in reducing the temporal distance between authorship and publication. Supposedly, if anyone, anywhere, could broadcast their words to the world without any barriers standing in the way, this would represent the greatest leap forward in communication since Gutenberg. That turns out to have been a false presupposition for several reasons. What…

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Grassroots antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party

Grassroots antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party

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Jeremy Corbyn’s stated preference is that the media should pay more attention to those Jews who claim that there isn’t a serious problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party than to those who say the opposite: If I were in CCHQ, my next PPB (and every other PPB) would just be this video pic.twitter.com/y2RN90BmGo — Robert Colvile (@rcolvile) February 23, 2019 The letter signed by 200 Jewish Labour Party members to which Corbyn referred in this Sky News interview, states:…

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Mueller’s leak-proof investigation

Mueller’s leak-proof investigation

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On Friday, Peter Carr, spokesman for the Mueller investigation, released a brief statement challenging the accuracy of “specific statements” in BuzzFeed‘s blockbuster 1500-word report on Donald Trump instructing Michael Cohen to lie to Congress: BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate. The Washington Post then reported: Inside the Justice Department, the statement was viewed as a huge step, and…

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If dying could be sweet

If dying could be sweet

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When former presidents or other famous people die, the news of such events is always dominated by recollections of their lives. Generally we learn only the most abbreviated details of the circumstances in which life came to an end. The final days of George H W Bush’s life were unusual in that they were shared with his lifelong friend James Baker and other friends and family members who then graciously provided the New York Times with an account that conveys…

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The war and the silence

The war and the silence

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At the end of the First World War at 11 AM, on November 11, 1918, the guns fell silent. A piece of film depicting a recording of that moment has been used by Coda to Coda to create an audio interpretation of this event. Their insertion of some birdsong after the gunfire stops appears to have been a bit of poetic license, although this detail has some historical basis. The German novelist Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) fought on the Western Front:…

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Loneliness in America

Loneliness in America

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When in cold reflection, a man concludes that his life matters to no one but himself, how are we to imagine he might still retain or develop an appreciation for the value of the lives of others? It’s easy enough to characterize Robert Bowers’ deadly attack at a Pittsburgh synagogue as a product of hate-filled political discourse fueled by the inflammatory words of a cynically divisive president and yet that doesn’t account for the abject sadness of a man who…

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George Washington’s letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island

George Washington’s letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island

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On August 18,1790, during his second year in office as America’s first president, George Washington wrote: If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people. The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a…

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