Mixed news on the racist organization front

The number of organizations classified as ‘hate groups’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center has risen in recent years, seemingly fueled by the bizarre idea that president Obama is some kind of weird Muslim, Kenyan, communist usurper of American legitimacy who must be overthrown by force before he destroys motherhood and eats all the apple pie. These people cannot seem to see the obvious, which is that Obama is the latest in standard-issue, center-right, pro-oligarchic, authoritarian, political leaders. [Read more…]

Reducing the level of war rhetoric

On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart thinks that the bellicose language about war with Iran is the result of politicians pandering to their own constituencies, and tries to lower the intensity of the war rhetoric.

(This clip appeared on March 6, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)

The implications of the ‘Broken Windows’ theory

Political scientist James Q. Wilson died last week at the age of 80. He was most famous for his ‘Broken Windows’ theory of urban crime that postulated that small signs of neglect in a community can be the trigger for crime, and that if the police ignore minor crimes that leads to more major crimes.

Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo explains the theory. [Read more…]

Pat Robertson, atheism’s friend

I really like Pat Robertson. Whenever something major happens, he can be counted upon to unfailingly say the wrong thing. For example, most religious people think that prayer can nudge god into overcoming the laws of nature but they also have the sense that to blame deadly natural disasters on insufficient prayer, while being a perfectly logical consequence of that belief, may sound callous and be ridiculed, and so they refrain from doing so. [Read more…]

The Mormon church, racism, and Mitt Romney

When it comes to religions, they all have such weird beliefs that comparing them to see which ones are more bizarre is futile. Can we really say that Scientology is crazier than Islam, Mormonism than Judaism? Bahaism than Christianity? How does one measure levels of craziness to enable such comparisons? And yet, people often do make just such judgments. [Read more…]