Ron's News

[Welcome to the monkey house. A daily pastiche of Trumpisms and responses thereto. *RON*]


Unveiled: The Secret Senate Healthcare Bill, Business Insider

Bodyguard for White Nationalist Stabbed 9 Times After Pro-Trump Rally—and He Doesn't Have Health Insurance, AlterNet

Why Lockheed May Move F-16 Production To India From Texas, Yahoo! Finance [Jobs, jobs, jobs!]

Ford to move production of US Focus to China, BBC [More jobs, jobs, jobs!]

Sean Spicer could be ready to step away from ill-starred podium reign, The Guardian [For grins, see also: Six bizarre moments we won’t let Sean Spicer forget – video report]

C.B.O. Head, Who Prizes Nonpartisanship, Finds Work Under G.O.P. Attack, New York Times

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[An interesting think-piece. Local environmental differences encourage diversity within species through natural selection. But the world is becoming a more homogenous place, especially for children who spend more and more of their time, wherever they are, staring at screens. "Darwinian theory posits that variability allows populations to survive in the face of significant environmental changes. How much will human variability be reduced as the shaping of the rearing environment becomes more and more centralised and mechanical?" *RON*]
Bruce Wexler, eflux Architecture / Artificial Labor, 21 June 2017
For thousands of years, change and its associated discomforts have been a central feature of human societies and trans-generational struggle. Hubel and Weisel were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981 for demonstrating the degree to which the structure and function of the mammalian brain are shaped after birth by stimulation from the environmen…

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[The tide of opinion is turning but this is still deemed a contentious topic on political circles. With all our dithering around so many enormous political and economic issues, it would be ironic if this is the one that finally kills us off as a species. *RON*]

Lucy Purdy, Positive News, 22 June, 2017


MEPs have overwhelmingly rejected an attempt by a UK Conservative MEP to oppose a full ban on neonicotinoid pesticides which have been linked to the decline of bees

Some 42 MEPs on the European parliament’s environment committee have voted against a proposal by Julie Girling MEP, which spoke out against plans by the European Commission to extend current restrictions on three neonicotinoid pesticides to all crops.

Neonicotinoids are the world’s most commonly used insecticides but have been banned on flowering crops in the EU since 2013. However, the European Food Safety Authority found in 2016 that using the pesticides on all types of crops poses a high…

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[This was a direct result of government policy; no reason for surprise: "the financial vulnerability of the average Canadian household would rise to levels beyond historical experience." — Parliamentary Budget Officer. See also this CCPA report: Could skyrocketing private sector debt spell economic crisis? *RON*]

Daniel Wong, Better Dwelling, 21 June 2017

Another government organization is tattling on Canadian debt problems. The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), the organization that provides independent financial analysis to the Canadian Parliament, released a report on household indebtedness. The report outlines how deep Canada’s household debt problem is, and is projecting it will get worse – fast.
Household Debt Increased

The PBO observed when household indebtedness increased. From 2002 to 2011, they note debt increased “sharply.” It then spun sideways until 2015, before slowly moving higher into 2017. To give some context, the …