In Bellevue and other Eastside communities, there is highly partisan debate underway, online and at city meetings, about the proposed men’s shelter in Eastgate, and about King County’s plan to have safe injection sites for the most addicted opiate users. The real reason for the fervency of the opposition on these issues is that Republicans…

How can cooperation emerge in a world of selfish individuals ruled by a Darwinian competition for survival? This is the question that Martin Nowak, Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard University, discusses in Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. Nowak and his collaborators have published a series of…

Strangers are poisoning you and your families with toxic chemicals. Even if you don’t agree with the vast majority of climate scientists about human-caused climate change, you should believe what the American Lung Association says about the effects of vehicle exhaust on health. In Living Near Highways and Air Pollution, The American Lung Association says…

Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published to coincide with Tax Day, April 15. Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups,…

Government and taxation are a form of cooperation and charity for those less well off.

The Official Local Voters’ Pamphlet for the primary election in King County includes statements for and against Proposition 1, which would impose a 0.1% increase in the sales tax in order to fund arts, science and cultural enrichment programs. The statement against Proposition 1 states, “it is unwise and inequitable to impose another $500 million…

Image courtesy of Jen Sorensen

Matt Ridley is Hereditary member of the House of Lords, and a Tory. “Viscount Ridley is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1900 for the Conservative politician Sir Matthew White Ridley, 5th Baronet, Home Secretary from 1895 to 1900. ” (source) Ridley is a climate change skeptic, has…

There are three splits on the left: 1. The Democrats are split from the Socialists, Greens,Anarchists and others on the far left, and (2) Within the Democratic Party, the progressive Dems and Berniecrats are split from the mainstream, corporate Dems, and (3) Within the far left, the various factions rarely agree and often have weird…

Two New Studies Undermine Climate Denial Arguments