It’s official. We live in a Corporatocracy. The recent 5 to 4 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is a dangerous expansion of ‘corporate personhood.’ I haven’t seen any convincing evidence supporting the ruling. I see no benefit from (and large problems with) the expansions of the already questionable doctrine of corporate personhood. [...]
This week I read a USA Today story (from the first screen of Tuesday’s homepage) that made a couple common mistakes. The newspaper’s mistake is basing a story on a press release from an advocacy group, instead of doing an independant story based on the study itself. As frequently happens, the press release commits a [...]
One important issue not receiving enough attention is efficiency increases forced by population growth. The Earth is a finite system: resources do not grow as population does. This means that to maintain the same results (standard of living, &c.) as population grows, efficiency must increase. This is important for issues such as land use, food [...]
Must watch! This is scary. We had come to expect stuff like this from G. W. Bush, but not Obama. He did vote for the renewal of the KGB act, so we can’t expect too much. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, [...]
I’ve been doing some research into car fuel economy and how easy it would be to increase the efficiency of cars. Two things I needed to find were how long cars last and how many miles they are driven. I found an interesting Department of Transportation study with equations for this information. Car lifetimes are [...]
Two news stories could lead to Chrysler surviving the current economic panic, and becoming a strong company again. The first is Chrysler’s deal with Fiat. The second is Obama’s order for the EPA to reconsider the Bush administration’s rule disallowing California from implementing emissions standards less lax than federal standards. This potential rule reversal is [...]
Yesterday Obama sent an important memo to the heads of departments and agencies in the executive branch. The President wrote: A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through [...]
I wrote this in response to Tim Pape–my city councilman–who asked that I explain my reasoning for supporting the light pollution ordinance. It passed, but it seems that most people in Fort Wayne oppose it. I think the opposition exists for three reasons: A significant fraction of Fort Wayne is anti-government, not just anti-bad-government. This [...]
The City of Fort Wayne passed a light pollution ordinance this week. The quantity of criticism of this commonsense law is amazing. I certainly agree that this shouldn’t need to be a law, but unfortunately, it does. The only problem I see with this ordinance is that it only applies to residential properties. It is [...]
In surprising good news, the Fort Wayne city council passed–and the mayor signed–a residential light pollution law. This is something I have supported for at least twelve years. I can see the point of some on the council that this shouldn’t be a law, but their reasoning is wrong. It shouldn’t need to be a [...]