Robert Sapolsky — MacArthur fellow and professor of biology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery at Stanford University — pursued decades long research into baboon societies. He found that most baboon troops were dominated by aggressive alpha males who abused other members of the troop, had pick of the females, and enjoyed good health and low levels of…
The Koch brothers are major donators to the GOP.  As Bernie Sanders reports here: Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980: “We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.†“We favor the abolition…
Turnout was huge at Saturday’s 41st LD Town Hall at Somerset Elementary School in Bellevue. Scores of people were standing around the perimeter of the gymnasium. The largest component of the crowd was school teachers dressed in red, many of them holding signs in favor of fully funding education. There were scores of teachers outside…
In What scares the new atheists John Gray argues that militant atheists, such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Danniel Dennet, are mistaken in their belief that secularism can cure the world’s problems. Rather, suggests Gray, the atheists are cultural imperialists who, like the proponents of Social Darwinism a century or so ago,…
Robert Kuttner, of the American Prospect, has written a clear and convincing repudiation of right wing worship of the free market — the kind of worship you hear from the Freedom Foundation. Kuttner writes in It’s Bizarre: Libertarians Are Clueless About the ‘Free Market’ That They Worship: “the free market is neither efficient, nor fair,…
Republicans in Washington State are planning to raise your taxes. On Monday, March 2, the State Senate, under control of the Republicans, voted to raise gas taxes by 11.7 cents over three years. Now, in fact, I support raising the gas tax, both because it generates revenue needed for transportation and because it discourages driving,…