There are some interviews which are just fun even though they involve nothing at all, no point is being made, and there is no agenda. This one between Jon Stewart and Jason Bateman is such an example where the conversation is fun for its own sake.. Batemen and Stewart seem to be enjoying themselves so much that they did not even get around to plugging the new film that Bateman has directed.
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In a effort to reduce pollution, the city of Paris has made its public transportation free for three days so that hopefully fewer people will drive their cars. Other French cities are doing the same in order to combat pollution levels that are approaching that of Beijing. France is undergoing a heat wave that is exacerbating the situation.
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Long-time peace activist Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK describes the terrible experience she had in Cairo while trying to get to Gaza to attend the International Women’s Day celebrations there as part of a 100-member international delegation that included “representatives from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Canada and the United States” and “who ranged in age from 18 to 84, included Nobel Peace Prize winners, doctors, writers and students.”
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Today is March 14, otherwise known as Pi Day by math and science nerds, although a case can be made for July 22 being Pi Day since 22/7 is a better approximation for π than 3.14.
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CIA director John Brennan may have seriously miscalculated when he publicly derided senator Dianne Feinstein for accusing the CIA of spying on her staff and clandestinely removing some of the documents that she says her staff had been given access to in their investigations of torture by the US government. Unnamed administration sources went even further and accused committee staffers of actually stealing documents from the CIA and triggering an investigation. If senate staffers, not previously known to be masters of internet espionage, could pull off such a feat against the CIA, that would be truly impressive.
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The favorite (if not only) talking point of boosters of the awful American health care system, when confronted with data showing that health outcomes are so much better in single-payer systems like those in Canada, is to point to the wait times for elective treatments in those countries. It is true that for elective procedures, you may have to wait for some time. As a result, those in Canada who can afford it sometimes cross the border to the US and pay for treatment that they could have had for free at home, a fact that is seized upon eagerly to argue that this shows how superior the US system must be.
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The news media and the internet in general is abuzz about the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian airliner on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and we are at the stage where theories as to what happened are getting increasingly exotic. I have not been following the story closely because it seems likely that despite the fervent hopes of people who had loved ones on it that the plane might have landed somewhere, the sad truth is that it did crash into the ocean and that everyone perished and that eventually the wreckage will be discovered and the cause determined.
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A new study finds that saying that you represent a group of active campaign donors is five times as likely to result in a meeting with a member of congress or their chief of staff than if you say you are representing a group of interested ‘local constituents’. While the researchers were not surprised by the difference, they did not expect it to be so large.
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Those who have played or watched table tennis at a high level know that it requires great skill, speed, coordination, and excellent reflexes. In the video below, we see a robot named KUKA play against Timo Boll, a German champion of the game. I particularly liked the way it did the open-palm serve one-handed. (Via Rob Beschizza.)
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Alun and Donna Leppitt are evangelical Pentecostals who take part in faith healing revivals and are part of a movement that claims that their prayers have enabled miracles such as women with hysterectomies having children, curing people who have cancer, and even replacing a defective heart with a new one.
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