While opposition to same-sex marriage is based entirely on religious reasons (although some opponents might try to disguise that fact by finding seemingly secular reasons), it is interesting that a new survey released yesterday by the Public Religion Research Institute finds that the majority of many mainline religious groups support it.
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The sudden appearance of the group ISIS and the rapid growth in the territory that it holds, coupled with the extraordinary brutality of its methods, has spurred a great deal of interest in its origins and ultimate goals. Is it primarily a political organization with secular territorial goals that uses religion as a unifying and motivating element and brutality as a tactic, or is it a fanatical religious organization that uses the appeal of territorial gains and a new state as the motivating factor?
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Politicians pander to those over 65 because they tend to vote in greater proportions and are also concentrated in key presidential states like Florida. Media also tends to pander to them because they tend to be the largest demographic that watches cable and other news shows. Tom Brokaw gave them the complimentary title of ‘The Greatest Generation’ because of the fact that they lived through World War II and that has somehow come to symbolize that they are somehow more meritorious than subsequent generations, a totally unfounded view.
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The comedy program Inside Amy Schumer used a parody of the popular TV show Friday Night Lights to highlight the problem of small towns where football is king, high school football players are treated like gods, women who are raped become the target of abuse when they report it, and that the very culture of football inculcates attitudes that justify the use of force to get what you want.
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The town of Parma, MO that I wrote about yesterday that had a population of just 740 and yet six police officers is not the only small Missouri with such a weird ratio. Beverly Hills, MO (not to be confused with its better known California counterpart) has easily bettered that, having 13 police officers for its population of just 600, or one officer for every city block.
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The selling of bottle water in the developed world has to be the biggest con job ever pulled on the public. Getting people to shell out an exorbitant amount of money for something that flows freely out of faucets has to be the most successful heist ever pulled by the advertising industry, persuading the gullible that a freely available commodity becomes a symbol of status if you pay for it.
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Missouri has been a lot in the news recently and not in a good way. In addition to the terrible situation in Ferguson, now comes another story from the small town of Parma where for the first time a black person was elected to the office of mayor. Tyrus Byrd, who was born and raised in the town and has also served as city clerk in the past, was elected mayor displacing the incumbent who had held office for 37 years.
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What has emerged about the state of policing in the town of Ferguson, MO in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown has been ugly, revealing a city in which the police and legal system has been treating the residents, especially poor people and people of color, appallingly. Now a class action lawsuit has been filed in the US District Court in the Eastern District of Missouri by people who charge that they have been abused by the city, and the descriptions by the individuals in the suit make for appalling reading.
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In his latest investigative report on the show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver takes a look at the mess that the US patent system has become and why it needs to be reformed. His report just looks at the way that patent trolls use the legal system for what is in effect a shakedown.
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The great danger with the way that cattle rancher Cliven Bundy has managed to avoid paying grazing fees for his use of federal land by having a militia threaten to shoot at any federal agents that enter his property is that it would encourage others to imitate his example. These people are just itching to force a confrontation with the government while the latter wants to avoid a repeat of the disastrous Ruby Ridge and Waco tragedies.
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