I like to watch films and so read a lot of film reviews since there are so many films and so little time and I need guidance in selecting what to watch. But while good reviews are the most helpful, it is the nasty ones that are the most fun to read, especially if they are written in a witty manner. [Read more…]
You will have noticed that there are ads on this blog. The people who run the FreethoughtBlogs site have contracts with various agencies to place the ads and when people click on the ads, it generates a small amount of money for the network that is then distributed to the various bloggers. The ads that appear are based on some sort of algorithm that looks at the content of the page as well as the browsing and search engine queries history of the person viewing the page. So two people viewing the same page at the same time may well see different ads. [Read more…]
Steven Brill has an article in Time describing how some of the very people who would benefit most from the Affordable Care Act have been misled by the virulent anti-Obamacare campaign to think that it is a terrible program and would do nothing for them. He also highlights the way that hospital monopolies and the reluctance of people to change providers prevent a truly competitive system from being created that would lower costs. [Read more…]
President Obama gave an eagerly anticipated speech yesterday outlining his plans for the reform of the NSA. You can see the speech and read the transcript here. While the initial quick reactions amongst the punditry were mixed, more careful reading of his words reveal (as usual) that there is less than meets the eye. It is once again vintage Obama, using his skill with words to make the unacceptable palatable. [Read more…]
The only planet on which we know for sure that life exists is Earth. Even though this gives us just a sample of one, it is tempting to think that conditions here must be close to the ideal for life to emerge and that if there are other planets on which life exists, they must be Earth-like in terms of size and occupying the so-called ‘stellar habitable zone’ (SHZ) from its star so that the temperature range is similar to ours. [Read more…]
What is with people who are constantly worried that American manhood is under threat? It seems like anything that seeks to make people safer or expects people to treat others with respect and dignity and not act like a jerk, is taken as evidence of the increasing wussification and feminization of America. [Read more…]
The president of Uganda Yoweri Museveni has decided not to sign a controversial bill that the parliament passed that called for life imprisonment for gays. There had been worldwide protests against the bill (earlier versions of it had called for the death penalty for homosexual acts) and although he claimed that this had not influenced him, he had warned legislators of serious damage to the country’s international relations if the law passed. [Read more…]
In the discussion following my post about the use bicycle helmets, many spoke about their own personal experiences with its use and how it influenced their decisions on whether to use them. An interesting side discussion then ensued about the use of anecdotal information in making decisions. [Read more…]
Former Seventh Day Adventist pastor and teacher at two Christian universities Ryan Bell decided to adopt as a New Year resolution to “live without God” for a year. In other words, he will live as an atheist would and “refrain from praying, reading the Bible and thinking about God at all”. Instead, he will read atheist authors, attend atheist gatherings and seek out conversation and companionship with unbelievers. [Read more…]
In ruling that the prayer practices of the town of Greece were unconstitutional, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals basically said that the US Supreme Court, in its 1983 precedent-setting case Marsh v. Chambers, had used the wrong reasoning by rejecting the so-called Lemon Test and other tests for Establishment Clause violations and using instead an argument based on history and tradition. It is quite unusual for a lower court to challenge a Supreme Court precedent and the Appeals Court had to do some dancing around to justify this. [Read more…]