The US Secretary of Defense says that the Iraqi army abandoned Ramadi the same way it abandoned Mosul — it lost the will to fight.

I am glad to see frankness from the Obama regime for a change. Obama is resisting pressure from hawks that want the US to send an army to fight PISSI . That would be as futile as it was in 2005.

The only way to defeat PISSI is to give Sunnis in that region another alternative.

Senator McCain mocked Obama for calling [global heating] a worse threat.

Obama is right. What McCain ignores is that the civil war in Syria was caused by the effects of global heating. That gave the PISSI a place to move to, when it could not succeed in Iraq.

PISSI is an example of the wars that global heating will create , around the world, if we don't take the danger seriously.

Too bad Obama isn't taking the danger seriously in his policies.

Joseph Stiglitz tears austerity to shreds.

It is interesting that, even in brute terms, the UK's economy is still doing worse than it was in 2007. But we should not make the mistake of thinking that per capita GDP is a good measure. When inequality is increasing, as nowadays, it overestimates the picture.

The Treacherous Plutocratic Poison would give fossil fuel companies more power to block clean energy measures.

Vietnamese children are smuggled into the UK as slaves. Probably into other countries as well.

I wonder why Vietnamese parents do not learn will really happen to their children if they accept this temptation. Who spreads the misinformation, and why isn't it countered?

Edward Snowden says that eliminating section 215 of the PAT RIOT Act is only the beginning of what we need to do.

Here's my view of what we need to do.