4 August 2019 – Democrat-Republican. Left-right. Liberal-conservative. If you listen to the mainstream media, these are the lines which divide our society and are reinforced every day on many news channels. You are also probably sick to death of hearing about the polarizing arguments that dominate the major media stations. Turn on any particular news …
Continue reading “Analyzing Societal Divisions: Double and Triple Movements”
28 July 2019 – In 1833, the German-born inventor John Adolphus Etzler looked upon a world being rapidly transformed by the steam engine and mass production related to the industrial revolution. He saw a world that was extremely close to being transformed into a Utopia, and believed that with the available technology of the time, …
21 July 2019 – Many international treaties either fail abysmally or do not even come close to achieving what they were supposed to do. But we’re not here to discuss those treaties today. This post is about the Montreal Protocol of 1987, a shining example of human cooperation on the international scale. In 1985, a …
Continue reading “That Time When Humanity Came Together and Agreed to Save Itself”
14 July 2019 – Yesterday I was collecting some petitions for an environmental group, and heard many erroneous and disheartening opinions about clean energy from people I talked to. This blog is dedicated to all those misguided folks. The fact that we need to move to a system of 100% renewable energy is obvious. This …
Continue reading “Green Energy Advocates vs. An Unfortunate Misconception”
7 July 2019 – The ocean is a fascinating place full of creatures that look like they came straight from a science fiction novel. We know less about the ocean floor than we know about the surface of the moon. Recently, however, one small mystery of the ocean was solved when scientists were able to …
30 June 2019 – This week is a continuation of last week’s post on the history of corporate charters, the contracts common in the early United States that outlined what corporations could and could not do. Now, here is the rest of this fascinating page-turner. (Screen scroller? Is that a term anyone uses? If no …
Continue reading “Charting the Charters Chart II: The Chartering”
23 June 2019 – You can’t go long these days without hearing about some egregious act committed by a corporation in the news, whether it be poisoning a city’s water supply or manufacturing a prescription drug with deadly side effects. The punishment for these horrendous acts, however, usually ranges from a slap on the wrist …
Continue reading “Resurrecting the Charter: A Hidden History”
16 June 2019 Cornelius Vanderbilt was an extraordinarily businessman in the US in the 1800s. He primarily garnered his immense fortune through shipping and railroads, using devious and brutal tactics to undercut his opponents and establish monopolies on shipping routes. His estimated net wealth was $215 billion in today’s dollars (compared to Jeff Bezos’ $150 …
Continue reading “Two American Megalomaniacs in 19th Century Central America”
9 June 2019 – The current administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a new plan. Under this proposal, the year-round sale of gasoline blended with 15% ethanol (known as E15) would be permitted. Right now, this form of fuel is banned during the summer months. This ban is not just for an arbitrary reason. Ethanol …
Continue reading “Oil Companies & Environmentalists Unite: What a Time to Be Alive!”
2 June 2019 – Senator Bernie Sanders has recently backed two different proposals that would dramatically shift the balance of economic power in the United States. These two proposals haven’t picked up much media coverage (perhaps because major media outlets have not yet figured out how to put a negative spin on them) so I’d …
Continue reading “Democracy: Coming to A Workplace Near You”
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