Author: Jim

**** NYTimes: We’re in a Fossil Fuel War. Biden Should Say So.

We’re in a Fossil Fuel War. Biden Should Say So. nyti.ms/37X3PCR

‘”This narrative has not been out there — that this war is why we need to get off of fossil fuels,” said Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies environmental politics. “More groups need to be connecting the dots, making the case that true energy independence is about running on sunshine, because sunshine is free and abundant and cannot be controlled by dictators.

I’ll let her have the final words: “I started to think about the parallels between climate change and this war and it’s clear that the roots of both these threats to humanity are found in fossil fuels,” Krakovska said in the interview. “Burning oil, gas and coal is causing warming and impacts we need to adapt to. And Russia sells these resources and uses the money to buy weapons. Other countries are dependent upon these fossil fuels; they don’t make themselves free of them. This is a fossil fuel war. It’s clear we cannot continue to live this way; it will destroy our civilization.’”


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NYTimes: How Are We Still Debating Interracial Marriage in 2022?

How Are We Still Debating Interracial Marriage in 2022? www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/mike-braun-loving-virginia.html

“As it stands, as Ron Brownstein wrote in The Atlantic last year, there is already a “great divergence” between “the liberties of Americans in blue states and those in red states.” And as Republican-led states ban abortion, ban books, restrict the teaching of America’s racial history in schools and trample on the rights of transgender people, this will only get worse.

Senator Braun’s mistake was not that he misunderstood the question; it’s that he understood it all too well. The world he and his colleagues are working toward is one in which the national government defers the question of civil and political rights to the states. And it is in the states, free from federal oversight, where people like Braun can exercise real control over what you might do, how you might live and who you might love. It’s freedom for some and obedience for the rest.”
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*** NYTimes: Putin Only Cares About One Thing, and It’s Not Oligarchs ^

Putin Only Cares About One Thing, and It’s Not Oligarchs nyti.ms/3ur3LD0

“The only people who can truly sway Mr. Putin are ideologues who share his views, the so-called siloviki. The word literally means people with force — the power that comes from being in the security forces or military. These insiders have been with Mr. Putin since his days in the K.G.B. or in the St. Petersburg municipal government, and they see themselves as protectors of Russia’s power and prestige. They have kept their money mostly inside Russia and out of reach of sanctions. And like Mr. Putin, they see the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, and believe this fight is for Russia’s “sovereignty and the future of our children.”

To influence them, the West must prioritize the things that they believe give Russia its superpower status: its oil and its military.”