Gaia What about tomorrow’s 26th Climate Change summit in Glasgow? Polluter India has rejected the proposed “encyclical.” China- and Russia-polluting leaders won’t even attend. But the conclave is real for President Biden. Today’s elite is largely secular. Unlike religion’s collection of beliefs, morals, and stories, science is knowledge of natural phenomena and human behavior, proved or disproved through analysis and evidence. But science leaves a hole in our soul. We long for force beyond what we see. And while environmentalism is based upon science, it believes we care for Earth, we love it or we die . So “climate change” is the “it” religion. Environmentalism, in fact, worships an actual god  — Gaia , the Greek mother goddess who personifies Earth. Following World War II’s horrors and the post-war nuclear terror of “mutual assured destruction,” intellectuals sought answers beyond religion. “Ban the Bomb” disarmament, the anti-nuclear testing movement, promised salvation throu...

Yes, Florida, [your Gov.] DeSantis is allowing you to choose death so that he can have a greater political life. — Charles Blow, New York Times On May 13, 2021, "the CDC’s head Rachel Walensky announced “Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing. If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. “The President backed up Walensky. The vaccine is widely available to anyone 12 or over who wants it; those unvaccinated remain so mostly by choice.” Leaders had spoken. That was then , when this blog wondered if Covid was nearly over. Two months later, the Delta surge swept America. On July 28, the 7-day average of U.S. Covid cases reached 69,300, up from 12,000 five weeks earlier. The 7-day average — the measurement used for all figures that follow — of cases would peak at 167,445 on September 2. Hospitalizations would lag c...

Maddow                          Hannity   FOX continues to dominate cable news ratings. Same as the network did in August, when the Afghanistan disaster brought many to FOX. On October 8, "Maddow" did beat "Hannity" when Hannity took vacation. The day before, Hannity's interview with Trump drew the top cable news audience, 3.15 million, more than the eyeballs landing on Maddow and CNN's Chris Cuomo combined. Every FOX prime time winner October 8, in fact, had a larger audience than MSNBC plus CNN (see chart).  FOX's cable news domination now seems the norm. During China's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when the country's news was 100% Maoist propaganda, the Party circulated a classified publication to its cadre called Reference News ( 参考消息 ; pinyin : Cānkǎo Xiāoxī ).  The "inner party" needed objective information to help make sound decisions. I believe Americans today hunger for ...

Wood           Reed            Pullmann             Uzzell Critical Race Theory (CRT) underpins progressives’ race-based attempt to unite America against white males. As with communism’s utopia — economic equity for all — an unreachable target keeping Lenin's “vanguard of the proletariat” eternally in power, CRT proclaims whites will never grant  nonwhites utopian full equity, which would, Leninist-style, keep the CRT “vanguard” always with us.   CRT, as John Wood, Jr . of “Braver Angels” writes , is far from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s peaceful path to power. Wood recognizes that while King was concerned with power, he increasingly focused on nonviolence to achieve it, including the moral power of agape love. King “dignified the humanity of both the seeker of justice as well as the opposition.”  While CRT’s Ibram X. Kendi sees tension between love and power, Wood ...