In the Forbidden City, a city within the city of Beijing consisting of massive palaces and temples built in the 15th and 16th centuries, some of the stone slabs used in the construction weigh 100 tons or more. According to contemporary records they were quarried 70 kilometers away. [Read more…]
So the US Senate has finally decided to change one of its internal rules of operation concerning the filibuster. This was a rule that required 60 votes out of the 100-member chamber to get procedural matters (such as ending debate on an issue and bringing it to a vote) approved. The filibuster is still in place but will no longer be available to block any administration nominee for any post, except those to the US Supreme Court. Those procedural votes now require only a simply majority. The filibuster also still remains in place for legislation so that gridlock will continue. [Read more…]
John Bird and John Fortune are two British comedians noted for their droll conversations where they discuss the issues of the day, sometimes in the format of one of them interviewing the other who has taken on the persona of a politician, banker, general, or other person in the news. [Read more…]
It should come as no surprise that TV news shows are increasingly populated by attractive women as reporters, anchors, panelists, and hosts. They seem to be following the rule that People magazine uses for its covers based on what they think increases newsstand sales: young is better than old, rich is better than poor, pretty is better than ugly, and so on. [Read more…]
In February of this year, I wrote about how a group of secular organizations had filed a suit arguing that it was unfair that they had to file Form 990 as part of their tax returns but religious organizations did not. I described then the onerous reporting requirements that all non-profits other than churches have to annually provide to the IRS. [Read more…]
Bob Woodward, courtier journalist par excellence and faithful servant of the ruling political class, laments the fact that Edward Snowden didn’t come to him with his revelations, saying “I wish he had come to me instead of others, particularly The Guardian… I would have said to him ‘let’s not reveal who you are. Let’s make you a protected source and give me time with this data and let’s sort it out and present it in a coherent way.'” [Read more…]
Illinois legalizes same-sex marriage, with governor Pat Quinn signing the legislation into law on Wednesday. The law will go into effect on June 1, 2014. Hawaii’s legislature has also passed a similar measure and its governor signed it into law on Wednesday too. So the two of them become the 15th and 16th states to legalize such marriages. Since both laws were signed on the same day but Hawaii’s law takes effect on December 2, 2013, it may be listed as the 15th state and Illinois as the 16th. [Read more…]
In an important article in the November-December 2013 issue of Foreign Policy magazine titled The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks, Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore lay out in great detail what I have been saying here, and that is that the main benefit of the Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning leaks is that by providing incontrovertible documentary evidence of what the US government does, it has resulted in seriously damaging the US government’s ability to lie and use hypocrisy in its favor. [Read more…]
Rick Santorum is one of the most overtly religious, anti-gay politicians around. He will undoubtedly run for the presidency in 2016 but right now has started a film company to make Christian-themed films and they have just released their first one. Titled The Christmas Candle, it has angels and miracles, apparently, which seems hardly original. [Read more…]
Cleveland was rocked last year by the revelation that a man had imprisoned three women in his house for a decade, fathering a child by one of them, before they were rescued. It seemed bizarre that this could have happened in a city in a neighborhood where the houses were so close to each other, and triggered a lot of discussion and guilt about how it could be that no one noticed anything untoward. [Read more…]