Last year, following the beating the Mormon church took for its massive financial and logistical support in favor of Proposition 8 that banned same-sex marriage in California, the church seemed to be toning down its opposition and seemed to be taking a more moderate approach to the issue. There were hopes that the church was slowly changing its views. [Read more…]
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the massive NSA spying program has less to do with combating terrorism and is instead just a modern and highly sophisticated version of COINTELPRO (COounter INTELligence PROgram), the secret spying network the FBI set up in 1956 to supposedly combat the threat of Communism but expanded to infiltrate, monitor, subvert, and destroy those organizations whose activists were simply engaged in actions that the US government did not like. Rising public protests against the Vietnam war and social and economic injustice was something that the government was determined to suppress. [Read more…]
By now it should be clear to practically anyone who follows news with even the mildest critical gaze that the leaders of governments lie. In order to serve their purposes, they are willing to lie routinely, unscrupulously, shamelessly, and indiscriminately. The only thing that stops them from lying is the fear of getting caught and even then, in the case of James Clapper who still has his job even after lying under oath, it is sometimes not enough to stop them. [Read more…]
I was interested in this story about how some major communications companies are shocked that the NSA tapped into their networks via the cables. Companies like Google and Yahoo say that the NSA got entry into its data systems without their knowledge. [Read more…]
In a major statement released on November 24, 2013 titled Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis has leveled a major broadside at the current economic and political systems which he condemns as serving only the interests of the few and ignoring the needs of the many. [Read more…]
The comment threads, especially on highly popular sites) can rapidly degenerate into ugly name-calling. But in this funny sketch (via Neetzan Zimmerman), two actors give a dramatic reading of a comment war between two people in which the topic of discussion is whether Harry, whom I’m guessing is a member of the singing group One Direction, is gay. They actually manage to elevate to something that could have been written by David Mamet. (Language advisory) [Read more…]
Readers may recall the story of Chelsea Welch, the server at an Applebees restaurant, who was fired after she posted a receipt on the internet on which a local pastor she had served had written “I give God 10% why do you get 18”. Welch explains what happened and her bafflement at her firing here. [Read more…]
One of my biggest peeves is the media creating ghastly and unnecessary new words that are mash-ups of two perfectly good words. We have had abominations such as ‘snowcalypse’ and ‘snowmageddon’ for what could be more simply described as a severe snow storms, and ‘staycation’ to denote a vacation spent at home. I am sure there have been many others in the past that I have deliberately driven out of my memory because I despise them. [Read more…]
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US, an occasion when family and friends get together to go shopping and fight with other people to get the best bargains. No seriously, at its best, Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday, free from commercializing and just spent socializing. In fact, it has become my favorite holiday for reasons given here. (This year we received a Happy Thanksgiving card, which I view as an ominous sign of attempts to commercialize this holiday as well. It was from a firm we deal with and I hope that the practice does not spread.) [Read more…]
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and in its modern incarnation it has come to signify a day when people trample over each other in order to save money on something that is not an essential item of existence. In previous years, stores have tried to maintain the pretense of treating the day one for gatherings of family and friends by opening in the evening, although this still required workers to come in earlier to prepare the stores. This year, some have abandoned this altogether and are opening on Thursday morning. And once that has been breached, it will only be a matter of a couple of years before stores start opening at midnight on Wednesday. [Read more…]