The Daily Show spends a considerable time on the new Iranian leader president Rouhani and the delicate diplomatic maneuvering taking place between him and president Obama. [Read more…]
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
The Daily Show spends a considerable time on the new Iranian leader president Rouhani and the delicate diplomatic maneuvering taking place between him and president Obama. [Read more…]
Although I am a strong supporter of solar energy, I had not been following developments in that area so I was pleasantly surprised at this news report that a new solar cell had broken a new efficiency record with 44.7%. What this means is that 44.7% of the light from the sun, from ultraviolet through to the infrared part of the spectrum, is converted into electrical energy. [Read more…]
As I mentioned before, I will be driving to Toronto this weekend to visit with cousins whom I have not seen in many years and so blogging will likely be a little light until my return. Normal blogging will resume early next week unless I am detained at the border for the crime of looking like a Muslim.
International politics is even more complicated to understand and difficult to predict than domestic politics, and things can sometimes take a surprising turn. But although hard to foresee, one can sometimes look back and see significant evens that set in motion a chain of occurrences. [Read more…]
A group of Muslim comedians are touring the US, hoping to use humor to combat the negative stereotypes that Muslims have here. They have made a documentary of their experiences. Here is the trailer. [Read more…]
Texas senator Ted Cruz has infuriated his Republican party leadership by boxing them in into a situation where they could not avoid looking as if they were surrendering on the Tea Party push to defund Obamacare. And sure enough, this afternoon, the Senate voted to restore funding for Obamacare in the continuing resolution bill and sent it back to the House of Representatives. [Read more…]
In a post titled Threat inflation, Stephen M. Walt takes the case of the US response to the recent events in Kenya to bemoan the practice of the US viewing any terrorist action as a potential threat to the US that needs to be countered. He asks whether al Shabab, the ones who carried out the shopping mall attack, really poses a threat to the US. [Read more…]
Cory Doctorow writes that a coalition of groups under the name of Stop Watching Us are organizing a mass rally and protest in Washington DC to protest the NSA’s massive spying programs. [Read more…]
What the hell is going on in Congress?
I have been (kind of) following the posturing that has been going on over the efforts to pass a continuing resolution bill by October 1. The normal budgetary process of passing the 12 appropriation bills to fund the government for the next fiscal year has long since broken down. In its place we now have the practice of passing continuing resolutions at the last minute that essentially says that we continue doing what was done the previous year. The idea of the budget being also a planning document that determines the priorities for the coming year has gone out the window and we seem to have entered a Groundhog Day world where each year repeats the previous one, at least in budgetary terms. In fact, we should really consider this the new normal, since the chances of Congress ever getting its act together enough to do its most basic function, pass a budget, seem increasingly remote. [Read more…]