• “GLOBAL WARMING APPEARS TO HAVE GONE INTO OVERDRIVE, with the northern hemisphere growing 2 degrees Centigrade (3.6 Fahrenheit) which has long been held as the point above which climate change may be ‘dangerous’ to humanity… It took from the dawn of the industrial age until last October to reach the first 1 degree C rise, then just five months to rise an extra four-tenths of a degree… The data is so overwhelming that even prominent climate change skeptics have embraced the record… What’s happening now is the liberation of nearly two decades of warming energy that has been stored in the oceans since the last major El Nino, amounting to a step-change in our planet’s climate system… We could now be in the heart of a decade or more surge which could kick off a series of tipping points with far-reaching implications on our species and countless others…that would render the planet unrecognizable from anything humans have ever experienced.” [NEW SCIENTIST – Mar 7, 16]    For a fascinating (and discouraging) map which depicts potential for future human migrations and impacts on power generation, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/29/six-maps-that-will-make-you-rethink-the-world .
  • ‘IN THE SPACE OF A GENERATION, AMERICANS HAVE TRANSFORMED from a culture of shared experiences to a radical democracy of Personal Choice… The way we work, communicate, mate, raise children and grow old are all up for grabs, and such rapid change entails a heavy dose of psychic violence…as People Power can easily be mistaken for selfishness, narcissism and irresponsibility… But despite the dysfunctions caused by digital upheaval, America’s greatest strength is People Power. Even though this looks small in comparison to Globalization, Digitalization, Disintermediation and Radicalization (the entropic forces at large in the world that are both vast & immediate, too big to fully grasp yet too intrusive to ignore)… no matter how buffeted and disjointed by change we may feel, in the end Americans emerge – due, interestingly & ironically, to the very same impulse that currently works to divide us: individualism… Nothing about these times is easy, but it is the way of hope.”  [TIME – July 11, 16]
  • THE PARTISAN COALITIONS WHICH HAVE DEFINED OUR TWO MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES FOR A HALF-CENTURY HAVE BEEN RESHUFFLED. “What we’re seeing this year is the beginning of a policy realignment… when, in essence, the party platforms catch up to the shift in party voters that has already happened. The type of conservatism long championed by the Republican Party was destined to fall as soon as a candidate came along who could rally its voters without being beholden to its donors, experts and pundits… Similarly, the Democratic coalition of relatively upscale whites with racial & ethnic minorities concentrated in an archipelago of densely populated blue cities, have a gap between the inherited orthodoxy and the real interests of today’s electoral coalition.” Populist Nationalism on one side versus multicultural globalism on the other will likely see “Republicans evolving to a party of mostly working-class whites favoring universal, contributory social insurance systems that reward work ethic (like social security & Medicare)… while opposing increases in both legal and illegal immigration – in some cases because of ethnic prejudice; in other cases for fear of economic competition… Meanwhile, the withering-away of industrial unions, thanks to automation as well as offshoring, will liberate Democrats to embrace free trade along with mass immigration wholeheartedly.” Prognostication from [POLITICO.COM – May 22, 16]
  • 3-D PRINTING MARCHES ON: A 2-story ‘mansion’ was printed in 45 days after the Chinese construction crew first installed frame and plumbing. The Printer utilized twenty tons of concrete to create some walls “which measure an astounding 8-feet thick and can withstand a major quake.” Soon on their agenda: high-rise skyscrapers. [DIGITALTRENDS.COM – July 10, 16]
  • *THERE IS ONLY ONE THING WORSE THAN ONE-PARTY AUTOCRACY AND THAT IS ONE-PARTY DEMOCRACY. At least a one-party autocracy can order things to get done. A one-party democracy — that is, a two-party system where only one party is interested in governing and the other is in constant blocking mode, which has characterized America in recent years — is much worse. It can’t do anything big, hard or important. We can survive a few years of such deadlock in Washington, but we sure can’t take another four or eight years without real decay setting in.” It’s tough to not focus on candidate’s personalities, attitudes & mannerisms, but more important is that the likely platform they would opt to implement and bureaucrats appoint is critical to the country’s direction – i.e. same course or right-turn – and perhaps survival. [Thomas L. Friedman – LBN-ELERT – July 13, 16]

       “For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.”   Ben Stein brilliantly puts the reality of PC absurdity into perspective: http://spectator.org/do-i-feel-sick