I wrote recently about services like Wickr and Silent Circle that have systems that prevent (or at least highly hinder) the ability of the NSA and other US government agencies to spy on their members’ communications. Nico Sell is the head of Wickr and in an article Max Eddy has Sell explain how their operating model prevents them from being complicit with the government in snooping. [Read more…]
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart hails from New Jersey and knows something about its hardball politics. He is disappointed in governor Chris Christie’s behavior over the bridge closings, saying that it is far below the state’s extremely high standards of political retribution and vindictiveness. [Read more…]
Apparently your responses to 12 apolitical questions can reveal your political leanings. After doing it, you can check the rest of the article that explains the reasoning behind it. Of course, these things are meant just for fun. The whole uniaxial liberal-conservative spectrum is itself problematic.
I came out as 67% liberal, 33% conservative.
Some of you may have read about the spectacular rage that jewelry designer Jenny Lauren flew into on a plane that resulted in her chasing the poor flight attendant into the first class cabin, screaming obscenities, and assaulting not only her but others who came to her assistance. The niece of Ralph Lauren caused such a ruckus that they had to actually divert the plane, which was on transatlantic flight between Barcelona and New York, and make an emergency landing in Ireland, where she was dutifully arrested and charged. [Read more…]
Gary Leupp is a professor of History at Tufts University who also holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion. In a long essay, he tries to understand the origins of Christian homophobia, using as his takeoff point the issue of whether Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson’s much-publicized quoting of the Bible in support of his views was accurate. [Read more…]
Creationists love dinosaurs and insist that humans lived contemporaneously with them. One of the things that struck me when writing about the financial travails of Ken Ham’s vanity ark project are the many problems that creationists face with the dinosaurs. Since the Noah’s flood story requires that at least a pair of every species be saved, that means two dinosaurs of every ‘kind’ at a minimum had to be accommodated, creating a huge space and resources problem right off the bat. Ham partially deals with that one by suggesting that Noah could have chosen ‘teenage’ dinosaurs (!) to save space. [Read more…]
When it comes to the Catholic church, I have gone somewhat easy on the nuns. It is true that they have had a history of terrible cruelty and abuse towards the young ‘fallen’ women who were consigned to their care but in more recent times, at least in the US, they have been some of the more progressive voices within the church and not involved the horrific sexual abuses that have been exposed. [Read more…]
When Ken Ham opened his Creation Museum in Kentucky, it defied skeptics by drawing nearly 400,000 visitors in its first year of 2007, well above the targeted 250,000. This initial success may be one reason for his organization Answers in Genesis to embark on an even more grandiose plan to build a supposedly life-size replica of the fabled Noah’s Ark, to show people how it could have contained all the animals. “The 800-acre amusement park is supposed to feature a life-size Noah’s Ark built by Amish craftsmen, a walled city, a zoo featuring Noah’s animals, a Ten Plagues Ride, a Tower of Babel, a first-century village, an aviary and a children’s area.” [Read more…]