The Vatican’s first envoy to Malaysia (a country that is 60% Muslim) has created a controversy by saying that he saw nothing wrong with Christians using the word Allah to describe god. Some Muslims are protesting, saying that this is a way to convert Muslims to Christianity which, incredibly, is a crime in many Islamic countries. They have called him an ‘enemy of the state’ and asked that he be recalled. [Read more…]
It looks like federal regulators have decided to let a top investment bank executive off lightly after she and her bank manipulated the energy markets so that the states of California and Michigan ended up paying $83 million in “excessive” payments to her employer JPMorgan Chase. [Read more…]
When I said that one of the main problems with religion is that they are killjoys who frown on anything that gives people joy and pleasure, I was too sweeping in my judgment.
It turns out that at least one religious group, the Rabbinical Council of California, is bucking that perception and has granted kosher certification to ‘personal lubricants’. Don’t know what they are or why it was felt that they needed to be kosherized? See the fascinating details here.
Let’s hear it for the Rabbinical Council of California for realizing that religion can be fun!
Update: Sad to say, the RCC has changed its mind and yanked the kosher certification. They explain that they had misunderstood the ‘intended uses’ of the product.
In my post on former president Carter expressing support for what Edward Snowden did and adding that “America has no functioning democracy at this moment”, I expressed surprise that there has not been a huge outcry over the remarks. Indeed, while Carter said this at a closed-door function in Atlanta, it was a German magazine Der Spiegel that first reported it. I wondered if Carter would walk back his statements but he has not done so, so we have to assume his stands by his remarks. [Read more…]
It has been well established that there is little correlation with being moral and law abiding and being religious. (Via reader Norm, I learned of an interesting post by Hemant Mehta on some recent data on the self-reports of religious affiliations of the prison population.) But how can religious people, who believe that there is a god who not only knows everything that they do but can actually read their minds and is able to mete out horrendous punishments for evildoers, commit really awful crimes? Why isn’t the wrath of god or hell a deterrent? [Read more…]
Scott Horton looks closely at the parallels and differences between what the NSA has been caught doing and what the East German secret police Stasi did during the Cold War.
The fact that such comparisons are being seriously discussed shows how deep is the rot.
Laura Wood of The Thinking Housewife manages to pull off an incredibly difficult triple Axel, pivoting smoothly from the topic of obesity in Mexico to US immigration policy. [Read more…]
It is a familiar sight to long-time political watchers. The government finds itself caught doing something illegal or unacceptable or lying or pursuing indefensible policies. It then starts using contorted language to avoid acknowledging what is obvious on its face to even a casual observer. At that point, press briefings turn into what looks like comedy sketches as one or two of the more independent-minded reporters try to get the official spokespersons to acknowledge facts and the latter try to avoid doing so by either stretching the meaning of words beyond all reason or stonewalling and repeating the same trite phrase over and over again. [Read more…]
Now that Frank Lautenberg has died, the race is on to replace him for the New Jersey senate seat. In that reliably Democratic state (Republican Chris Christie’s election as governor notwithstanding) whoever wins the Democratic party nomination in the primary in August will likely become senator at the special election in October. [Read more…]
The story of Samantha Power, president Obama’s nominee to be US Ambassador to the UN, provides a telling example of how the political and media system filters out those who do not conform to the narrow spectrum of views required to rise in either government or the media. [Read more…]