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Europe’s fear of refugees might be the only thing that can save Syrians

Europe’s fear of refugees might be the only thing that can save Syrians

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes: Much of Europe is eager to see the conflict end so that Syria could be designated “post-conflict” and its people repatriated. Myopic proposals have circulated since 2014 for using reconstruction funds as an incentive to secure Assad’s cooperation. But any time refugees are forced to return to an undeterrable state like Syria, they are being sent to an uncertain future with their properties confiscated, facing possible torture or death. Assad has suffered no consequences for his…

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Evolution doesn’t proceed in a straight line — so why draw it that way?

Evolution doesn’t proceed in a straight line — so why draw it that way?

Evolution has no final endpoint in mind. Uncle Leo/Shutterstock.com By Quentin Wheeler, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry; Antonio G. Valdecasas, CSIC – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and Cristina Cánovas, CSIC – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas A high school marching band’s T-shirt places a horn-playing Homo sapiens at the end of the evolutionary process. Brian Kloppenburg, Jordan Summers, Main Street Logo Evolution doesn’t follow a preordained, straight path. Yet images abound that suggest…

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How has climate change affected Hurricane Dorian?

How has climate change affected Hurricane Dorian?

The New York Times reports: The links between hurricanes and climate change are complex, but some aspects are getting clearer. Tropical storms draw their energy from ocean heat — and more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is being stored in the ocean. Storms that survive the cradle of formation can intensify quickly and become immensely powerful. While it’s common to hear the question, “Was it caused by climate change?” scientists argue that this is…

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Boris Johnson suffers parliamentary defeat as Tories turn against him

Boris Johnson suffers parliamentary defeat as Tories turn against him

The Guardian reports: Boris Johnson has suffered a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons as former Tory cabinet ministers banded together with Labour MPs to seize control of the parliamentary timetable. The prime minister is poised to ask MPs on Wednesday to support an October general election after losing a vote paving the way for a rebel bill aimed at blocking a no-deal Brexit. The government lost the high-stakes vote by 328 to 301 – a majority of 27….

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The Russians at the heart of Italy’s oil scandal

The Russians at the heart of Italy’s oil scandal

BuzzFeed reports: Two men with deep ties to top figures in Russian politics are the voices caught on tape negotiating a proposed oil deal to fund Matteo Salvini’s far-right Lega party, according to new analysis revealed today. In July, BuzzFeed News uncovered an explosive audio recording of longtime Salvini aide Gianluca Savoini discussing a plan to covertly channel tens of millions of dollars of Russian oil money toward Lega’s upcoming European election campaign. The revelations have rocked Italian politics, and…

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The gospel according to Marianne Williamson

The gospel according to Marianne Williamson

Taffy Brodesser-Akner writes: She finished her speech in New Hampshire to great applause and asked for questions, but nobody wanted to know how “a politics of love,” as she called it, would handle, say, President Vladimir Putin’s annexing Crimea, or how it would prevent a mass shooting, which were things she had thought about deeply and had specific and elaborate plans for. They didn’t want to know about her Department of Children and Youth or her Department of Peace. No,…

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U.S. chicken industry accused of conspiring to keep immigrant wages down

U.S. chicken industry accused of conspiring to keep immigrant wages down

Bloomberg reports: Companies producing more than 90% of America’s chicken have conspired to depress wages for a largely immigrant work force in some of the nation’s most dangerous jobs, according to a lawsuit. The case filed last week is mostly based on interviews with former employees, and claims the conspiracy among 18 companies, their subsidiaries and affiliates and two consulting firms continues until today. It was filed on behalf of three former workers, but seeks class-action status for hundreds of…

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A new era of machine-driven warfare: Robots that can kill

A new era of machine-driven warfare: Robots that can kill

Zachary Fryer-Biggs writes: Wallops island—a remote, marshy spit of land along the eastern shore of Virginia, near a famed national refuge for horses—is mostly known as a launch site for government and private rockets. But it also makes for a perfect, quiet spot to test a revolutionary weapons technology. If a fishing vessel had steamed past the area last October, the crew might have glimpsed half a dozen or so 35-foot-long inflatable boats darting through the shallows, and thought little…

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Perhaps meaning is more deeply embedded in words than we realize

Perhaps meaning is more deeply embedded in words than we realize

Alexander Stern writes: In the film The Big Sleep (1946), the private eye Philip Marlowe (played by Humphrey Bogart) calls at the house of General Sternwood to discuss his two daughters. They sit in the greenhouse as the wealthy widower recounts an episode of blackmail involving his younger daughter. At one point, Marlowe interjects with an interested and knowing ‘hmm’. ‘What does that mean?’ Sternwood asks suspiciously. Marlowe lets out a clipped chuckle and says: ‘It means, “Hmm”.’ Marlowe’s reply…

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The misogyny of climate deniers

The misogyny of climate deniers

Martin Gelin writes: Researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, which recently launched the world’s first academic research center to study climate denialism, have for years been examining a link between climate deniers and the anti-feminist far-right. In 2014, Jonas Anshelm and Martin Hultman of Chalmers published a paper analyzing the language of a focus group of climate skeptics. The common themes in the group, they said, were striking: “for climate skeptics … it was not the environment that was…

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Australian Medical Association declares climate change a health emergency

Australian Medical Association declares climate change a health emergency

The Guardian reports: The Australian Medical Association has formally declared climate change a health emergency, pointing to “clear scientific evidence indicating severe impacts for our patients and communities now and into the future”. The AMA’s landmark shift, delivered by a motion of the body’s federal council, brings the organisation into line with forward-leaning positions taken by the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and Doctors for the Environment Australia. The American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians…

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Texas is a leader in mass shootings. Why is Governor Greg Abbott silent?

Texas is a leader in mass shootings. Why is Governor Greg Abbott silent?

Richard Parker writes: If leadership could be rated from one to 10, Mr. Abbott’s would be a zero. The names of dead, wounded and shattered Texans on his watch, are etched across the state: Dallas, Sutherland Springs, Santa Fe, El Paso and now Odessa. He has never had the guts to do more than mouth a few platitudes while paying obeisance to the gun lobby and the state’s admittedly historic gun culture. In 2015, he even tweeted: “I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas…

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Biden knows Trump needs replacing, but he’s unclear why he should be the replacement

Biden knows Trump needs replacing, but he’s unclear why he should be the replacement

The New York Times reports: “How badly do you want to be president?” Joseph R. Biden Jr. was asked after a recent speech in Prole, Iowa. The answer to such an inquiry would appear self-evident in the case of Mr. Biden, who began his running-for-president routine more than three decades ago; in other words, very badly, one would assume. But the question, posed by a reporter, seemed to come at Mr. Biden as a bit of a curveball — a…

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Tony Blair warns UK Labour: Don’t fall into election ‘elephant trap’

Tony Blair warns UK Labour: Don’t fall into election ‘elephant trap’

Reuters reports: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is laying an election “elephant trap” for the opposition Labour Party that it should avoid, former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair warned on Monday. “Boris Johnson knows that if no-deal Brexit stands on its own as a proposition it might well fail but if he mixes it up with the Corbyn question in a general election he could succeed despite a majority being against a no-deal Brexit because some may fear a Corbyn…

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