Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know that the NSA and the US government have used every linguistic contortion, legal loophole and, when those failed to meet their needs, outright breaking of laws in order to achieve its ultimate goal of sweeping up all the communications on the planet, and then lying about it.
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In the last year, ever since the US Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor last summer, advocates for the legalization of same-sex marriage have won one victory after another in federal and state courts. But the real test will come when the Appeals Courts around the country rule on the appeals against the lower court verdicts.
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Thanks to reader Marcus Ranum, I learned that the Washington football team has lost trademark protection for the name ‘Redskins’ because the term is disparaging to American Indians. The decision was handed down by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
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First the bad news about the upcoming debate with Joe Puckett where I will be affirming the proposition ‘God Does Not Exist’: Plans for livestreaming the event fell through. So if you want to see it live, you will have to come to Northwest Church of Christ, 3904 38th Street NW, Canton, OH on Saturday, June 21, 2104 at 6:00 pm. The good news is that the entire debate will be posted later on YouTube.
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Jon Oliver had a great bit on why the Washington football team should change its racist name. The clip is well worth watching and includes a powerful commercial that was made to illustrate why the name is so offensive. Oliver also made his own commercial for the cause.
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I found this news report interesting. It says that in a study done with having purported students send out resumes for jobs, those who mentioned having been involved in some sort of religious activities resulted in them being less likely to receive a response.
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The reverberations from the loss of House majority leader Eric Cantor to political neophyte David Brat continue, with the usual menu of reasons being trotted out by the punditocracy. But Justin Raimondo says that if you look at the actual details of that race, they go against the convenient storyline that has been settled on in the media.
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The open-carry movement continues to spawn ridiculous posturing that can easily veer off into tragedy. One recent case involved an elderly white-haired man wearing what looks like pajamas scaring the daylights of people by walking on the sidewalk of a strip mall armed with what looks like some sort of assault rifle and talking about revolution. Several police cars, alerted by several callers expressing alarm at the sight, came and shut down the street and started negotiating with him and finally managed to get him to lay down his weapon.
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Every day reports emerge of new violence in Iraq with large numbers of people being forced to flee their homes and roam the country looking for safety, carrying whatever meager belongings they can. The pictures and stories of these internally displaced people are both pathetic and infuriating to read. It is hard to imagine that before the US invaded Iraq, it was one of the most modern countries in the region with good infrastructure and public services. Now much has been destroyed and the people deeply impoverished.
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Is there any controlling body of a major sport that is not guilty of bribery, extortion, and corruption? It seems like they leverage their fans love of their game to exploit them and their cities and nations to enrich themselves. This is definitely true for the FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, NCAA, NFL, NBA, and MLB, and probably true for other big organizations as well. The national sports bodies in Sri Lanka have historically been riddled with corruption and cronyism and I suspect this is true for other nations too.
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