Right to life hypocrisy.

Trump says some migrants are "not people."

That coming from the presumed leader of a party that claims to uphold the sanctity of all human life.

About his warning of "bloodbath," it looks like a campaign staffer is trying to imply that it's a prediction of economic problems, in US auto industry, given imported cars from Mexico. The rhetoric has become way too hostile.

Did he mean that US auto industry could be decimated? He was speaking in front of auto workers in Ohio.

Looks like he wants to cut off imports from Mexico potentially harming Mexico's economy. Then he wants to keep job seekers, from Mexico, out of the US as if he doesn't care about people's suffering.

Another news item talks about Florida's GOP Governor De Santos sending troops to the Florida Keys to keep out the possibility of helping desperate migrants if they flee Haiti.

Gee, maybe there are too many people in the world so human life just can't be held as sacred; if it's going to get in the way of our greed.

Obviously, I think there are better ways to cope with the situation than Republican ideas. More birth control is a strategy for dealing with too many children, but we, as well as the whole world, should also be able to accommodate people in better ways.

Good relations with Mexico is another strategy toward dealing with issues. More sharing of wealth is a strategy. Figuring out how to create a more sustainable world and combat human tendencies toward tribalism, religious nationalism, greed and violence is a strategy. Humans ought to do better.

Each time he puts his foot in his mouth, I hope it looses him votes.

Biden is less like a dangerous cult leader than Trump.

We had our primary vote in Washington State last Tuesday. I put in my vote for Biden even though he's the presumed winner, but figured it could add a little push toward November general election when he isn't necessarily the presumed winner.

On a local talk show, someone called describing both candidates as like ancient smoking steam engines, but he thought the Republicans were more captivated by Trump while Democrats are less captivated. He was thinking, maybe Biden might step aside, but I called and thought, Biden is still better without necessarily stepping aside. Biden has more modesty to remind us, hopefully, that the president isn't the whole story. Trump is more like a cult leader.

With Biden, there is more of a sense of the big picture which goes beyond just one person.

There's the team that's the administration. There's Congress. There's a lot to government at the national and local levels. Ultimately I still believe the power rests with the American people. How we vote for Congress, local leaders, the president and so forth.

How we shop drives the power of markets and is a big part of shaping what pencils out for business. How we participate in our communities, how we treat one another and how we treat the environment is mostly what determines the fate of our country. Yes, I am still kind of an idealist as opposed to being totally cynical.

November's vote may be a test of Washington State's resolve to address it's carbon emissions.

Low gas prices and reducing carbon emissions are contradictory goals.

In November, there will be an initiative, on Washington State ballots, to repeal the cap and trade system that was passed by the legislature. Cap and trade has been accused, in the media, of making gasoline more expensive, in Washington, than surrounding states. November's vote may be a test of our state's resolve to address it's carbon emissions.

I tend to favor a simple carbon tax instead of cap and trade, but cap and trade is better than nothing.

Carbon taxing does tend to be regressive taxing, but my solution to that problem is to try and reduce dependency on automobiles for transportation. Public transit is more efficient, though admittedly not available in many areas. Public transit is subsidized by taxes and it is something that the cap and trade, or tax revenue could go to.

Using public transit also reduces the need for another big expense with automobiles; the rising cost of car insurance. I'm still amazed that the bus fare to Mount Vernon, from Bellingham, is only $2 general, $1 senior on the County Connector buses.

Growth versus limits for protecting the environment.

Ever since my childhood in the 1960s, I have thought that we are living in a world where population and economic growth keeps bumping into the limits imposed by concern for protecting the environment.

This seems to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest defining issue of modern times.

Should Ukraine try negotiation as Pope Francis recently suggested?

It's hard to know what the best strategy is for dealing with anger and violence in the world. Pope Francis has suggested Ukraine should strive to negotiate, versus continuing to fight to the bitter end. Others feel that this would be like the attempts at appeasement with the Nazis before World War II.

No one knows how history will judge any strategy tried. What will be the outcome? There are too many variables to predict. Violence and I also put most anger into the category of unfortunate aspects of humanity.

Some will say peace is the best strategy, but what if one is attacked? Is fighting back a better strategy to protect one's safety? What if one is the victim of violent crime or warfare?

Sometimes it might be better to fight back. Our officers of the peace; police, do usually have to carry guns. These aren't easy questions to answer.

Yes, striving toward non violence could be appeasement, who knows. Hindsight is better than foresight. We can look back on World War II and draw analogies to how that turned out. There's still some debate over what the best strategy would have been for dealing with that situation. Going forward it's even harder to know.

I think sometimes one does have to use force. On the other hand, maybe Ukraine should try and negotiate a peace short of trying to take back all the occupied territories; such as Crimea; for now at least. In the long run things could change for the better in Russia. At some point there will be a post Putin era, but who knows what the future will bring.

I don't have an ideal answer to these questions. I think our human propensity to violence creates situations where there is often no good answer. I think we do have to look at ourselves and try to figure out why humans are so prone to violence and I include anger as well. These problems persist all over the world and it seems like there is more and more warfare in various parts of the world; Sudan, Haiti, Israel/Gaza to name a few places in the news.

I also have to keep reminding myself that much of the world, if not most of the world, is still at peace.

Exxon CEO blames public for failure to fix climate change.

In the news I read; Exxon CEO blames public for failure to fix climate change. It looks like something I would say. I tend to blame consumption on consumers though I realize both producers and consumers share blame.

Have oil companies exacerbated the problem, or have they just been passive suppliers for consumer demand?

A big factor, not mentioned in the articles I saw, is the role played by politics; especially the role played by the Republican Party driven by populism. Climate change denial is still very strong among the public at the grass roots level. This is capitalized on by politicians, such as Donald Trump, who oppose measures to address climate change.

This political push doesn't necessarily come from corporations, but from politicians who rally populist segments of the public. Often the rallying members of the public are less educated about science than even corporate executives who may recognize the climate problem, while being inconvenienced by it.

I'll admit one can't totally blame average individuals for fossil fuel consumption as individuals are embedded in an economy that runs on fossil fuels. Still changes can be made with things like transit planning, zoning, carbon taxes, research, subsidies and so forth to move us toward reducing carbon emissions, but there is a lot of pushback, about these needed changes from voters and the politicians they elect. Part of that could be caused by voter apathy as who votes determines who wins.

I also think part of the problem is most people don't see the big picture. There isn't consensus around a vision for how all these things need to change together ranging from consumer behavior to technology to the way our landscapes are zoned and planned.