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NBC News Poll: 50 percent of Republicans doubt their vote will be counted accurately

NBC News Poll: 50 percent of Republicans doubt their vote will be counted accurately

NBC News reports: There’s been a significant decline over the past year in voters who think their vote will be counted accurately, a trend driven mainly by Republicans — most of whom still believe false claims that President Joe Biden didn’t legitimately win the 2020 election, according to a new NBC News poll. Two-thirds of all registered voters, 66 percent, say they are confident their vote will be counted accurately, down from 85 percent in October 2020. And 29 percent…

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Shutting down historical debate, China makes it a crime to mock heroes

Shutting down historical debate, China makes it a crime to mock heroes

The New York Times reports: The young woman in Beijing began her post complaining about mobs gathering online, where recluses vent misogynistic insecurities from the safety of desk chairs. As provocative as it was, it might have passed unnoticed except that she added another beat. She mocked the toxic masculinity of users imagining themselves as Dong Cunrui, a textbook war hero who, according to Chinese Communist Party lore, died valiantly during the civil war that brought the party to power…

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Bosnia is in danger of breaking up, warns top international official

Bosnia is in danger of breaking up, warns top international official

The Guardian reports: The international community’s chief representative in Bosnia has warned that the country is in imminent danger of breaking apart, and there is a “very real” prospect of a return to conflict. In a report to the UN seen by the Guardian, Christian Schmidt, the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that if Serb separatists carry out their threat to recreate their own army, splitting the national armed forces in two, more international peacekeepers would have to…

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Being, feeling, and knowing: Our path to consciousness

Being, feeling, and knowing: Our path to consciousness

Antonio Damasio writes: The history of living organisms began 4 billion years ago. In the phylogenetic branch that led to us, I see three evolutionary stages. A first stage is marked by being; a second is dominated by feeling; and a third is defined by knowing. Curiously, in each contemporary human, something can be gleaned akin to those same three stages, and they emerge in the same sequence. Being, feeling, and knowing arise from separate anatomical and physiological systems that…

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At COP 26, countries must get serious about detailing their plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions

At COP 26, countries must get serious about detailing their plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions

Tina Gerhardt writes: As the sun rose in Glasgow, over 20,000 people—delegates from individual nations, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, and activists—gathered in Scotland for the start of the United Nations’ two-week climate conference. Known as the Conference of the Parties or COP 26, it runs from Monday, November 1 to Friday, November 12, 2021. The COP 26 will mainly focus on two things: (1) commitments on greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions reductions; and (2) funding and technology transfers from developed countries…

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This is where the first climate wars will break out

This is where the first climate wars will break out

The Daily Beast reports: Climate-related warfare is a near-term reality—not some far-off boogeyman—according to leading defense thinkers and military strategists. They are still talking about the importance of fighting climate change, but they’re also making plans to fight other human beings because of climate change. So, where will these climate-related battles take place? Some people argue they already have, with controversial academic reports claiming recent conflicts were directly spurred by the effects of climate change. Other military advisers and strategists…

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Almost a third of Republicans say violence may be needed to save U.S., poll shows

Almost a third of Republicans say violence may be needed to save U.S., poll shows

Yahoo News reports: Almost one-third of Republicans say they think violence may be necessary to solve the problems facing the United States, according to a new national survey by the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute. The finding is part of PRRI’s 12th annual American Values Survey released Monday which, among other things, highlights the continued impact of the same falsehoods and conspiracy theories that fueled the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol nearly one year later. The survey…

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‘They’re probably going to put us back in power’: GOP basks in Democrats’ discord

‘They’re probably going to put us back in power’: GOP basks in Democrats’ discord

Politico reports: Most of the House GOP isn’t lifting a finger to help Democrats out of their infrastructure jam, and with good reason. Just ask Rep. Randy Weber. “They’re probably going to put us back into power,” the conservative Texas Republican said with a loud laugh. “There’s an old saying: ‘When your enemy is trying to commit suicide, never get between him and the gun.’” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s conference is largely taking his advice to sit back and let…

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What will drive China to war?

What will drive China to war?

Michael Beckley and Hal Brands write: President Xi Jinping declared in July that those who get in the way of China’s ascent will have their “heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.” The People’s Liberation Army Navy is churning out ships at a rate not seen since World War II, as Beijing issues threats against Taiwan and other neighbors. Top Pentagon officials have warned that China could start a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait or other geopolitical…

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America has lost the plot on Covid

America has lost the plot on Covid

Sarah Zhang writes: We know how this ends: The coronavirus becomes endemic, and we live with it forever. But what we don’t know—and what the U.S. seems to have no coherent plan for—is how we are supposed to get there. We’ve avoided the hard questions whose answers will determine what life looks like in the next weeks, months, and years: How do we manage the transition to endemicity? When are restrictions lifted? And what long-term measures do we keep, if…

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Everyday noises are making our brains noisier

Everyday noises are making our brains noisier

Nina Kraus writes: Take a walk on a busy avenue and you hear either traffic whizzing by or creeping in a honk-laden crawl. Add the hissing of pneumatic bus brakes, distant sirens, the boom-boom of overloud car stereos, the occasional car alarm, music coming from shops you pass, the beeping of a reversing delivery truck. All are part of the fabric of city life. These sounds do not meet or exceed the generally accepted threshold of “unsafe.” They are not…

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Imagination: It might be the core of what human brains evolved to do

Imagination: It might be the core of what human brains evolved to do

Philip Ball writes: ‘To me,’ wrote William Blake in 1799, ‘this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination.’ The imagination, he later added, ‘is not a state: it is the human existence itself.’ Blake, a painter as well as a poet, created images that acquire their power not only from a certain naive artistic technique, but because they are striving to transcend it – to convey a vision of the world beyond superficial appearances, which only imagination…

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Biden says Russia, China ‘didn’t show up’ on climate change commitments

Biden says Russia, China ‘didn’t show up’ on climate change commitments

Politico reports: U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday blamed Russia and China for any disappointment over the level of commitment by G20 leaders to fight climate change. “With regard to the disappointment, the disappointment relates to the fact that … not only Russia but China basically didn’t show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change,” Biden said at his news conference at the end of the two-day leaders’ summit in Rome. “And there’s a reason why…

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Democracy dies in silence

Democracy dies in silence

Adam Serwer writes: The state of Florida is silencing those opposing its efforts to disenfranchise its own citizens. A lawsuit filed by a coalition of civil-rights groups contends that Florida’s Republican-controlled government has repeatedly attempted to restrict the franchise, including curtailing third-party registration campaigns, cutting early voting, and imposing an onerous poll tax on formerly incarcerated Floridians after the state voted overwhelmingly to restore their rights. The more recent restrictions involve a series of “measures that prohibit or restrict access…

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