It is a familiar sight to long-time political watchers. The government finds itself caught doing something illegal or unacceptable or lying or pursuing indefensible policies. It then starts using contorted language to avoid acknowledging what is obvious on its face to even a casual observer. At that point, press briefings turn into what looks like comedy sketches as one or two of the more independent-minded reporters try to get the official spokespersons to acknowledge facts and the latter try to avoid doing so by either stretching the meaning of words beyond all reason or stonewalling and repeating the same trite phrase over and over again. [Read more…]

Documentarian Josh Fox has been on a crusade against the practice of hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) that is used to extract natural gas from shale rock, because of the harm it does to the environment and ground water supplies. He has just released Gasland Part II, the sequel to his earlier Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland that I reviewed two years ago. Here’s the trailer. [Read more…]

A new animated web series starring the voices of John Hodgman as a crusty senior intelligence operative and Nicole Winters as a junior agent.

(Via Cory Doctorow.)

(Thanks to reader smhll)

Tom Goldstein, who runs the excellent SCOTUSblog which is the site to go to for reliable information on Supreme Court decisions, talks with Jon Oliver on The Daily Show about the same-sex marriage and the Voting Rights Act decisions. [Read more…]

The last couple of years have been quite turbulent in terms of public agitation and protests. Apart from the uprisings of the Arab Spring, more recently we have had the massive protests in Turkey over plans to develop a public park that have escalated into larger protests against the governments attempts to chip away at that country’s secular framework. Then we have the huge protests in Brazil that started in opposition to hikes in the cost of public transit but have also escalated into criticisms of corruption and of government policies that seem to emphasize spending on showy projects like hosting the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 while money is needed for basic social services and infrastructure. [Read more…]