Recently we had stories of black people being stopped and searched when they bought expensive items from upscale stores. Jessica Williams gives advice on how to shop safely in upscale stores. This is especially important during the holiday season when you don’t want to have your holidays ruined by spending time in jail. [Read more…]
In the light of all that we have learned in the last few months, let’s recap where we are: We have a government that collects everyone’s communications data in secret and stores them, justifying the practice by using secret interpretations of the law and getting authorization to do so from a secret court that issues secret rulings, telling a handful of congresspersons in secret just a little of what they are doing, and putting people on secret kill lists and secret no-fly lists on the basis of criteria that are secret. [Read more…]
I can’t believe that while I was writing recently about how ancient civilizations managed to figure out how to move massive stones over large distances to create monuments such as the Pyramids of Egypt and the palaces and temples of the Forbidden City in China, I completely forgot to inform readers of Eddie Izzard’s reflections on how Stonehenge came to be built in England. (Language advisory) [Read more…]
Reports are emerging that the Geneva talks were preceded by many secret meetings between representatives of the Obama administration and the Iranian government, facilitated by the Sultan of Oman, of which the Europeans and Israel were informed only in late September of this year. (Here is a fact sheet on the deal put out by the White House.) [Read more…]
Much of the recent conversation amongst the political chattering classes in the US media has been about the partial elimination of the filibuster rule in the US Senate. This change in one of the many arcane internal rules of the Senate has been hyped by the chronically hyperventilating US media as if we have just witnessed a major political cataclysm. [Read more…]
John Bird and John Fortune are two British comedians noted for their droll conversations where they discuss the issues of the day, sometimes in the format of one of them interviewing the other who has taken on the persona of a politician, banker, general, or other person in the news. [Read more…]
Pretty much the entire internet must have seen by now the Volvo ad featuring action actor Jean-Claude Van Damme. [Read more…]
There are eccentric people everywhere. The thing about small towns is that such people are much more likely to stand out and actually have an impact. The people behind The Colbert Report seems to have the knack for finding such people and getting them to agree to be on TV. [Read more…]
There were several items that I had noted and was planning to write about but found that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report had addressed them well. So I am handing it off to them. [Read more…]
I have been bemused by the efforts of Republicans to make the death of the US Libyan Ambassador and his associates at Benghazi into some kind of major scandal and cover up. You may recall that Mitt Romney tried to do so in presidential debate and got the wind knocked out of him. And yet, the search for the smoking gun continues. [Read more…]