Breatharian to quit trying to live on light

You may recall Navenna Shine, a ‘breatharian’ who had decided to forego all nourishment and live on light alone. Fortunately she has decided to stop her ‘experiment’ today. She gives her reasons in a long statement. It consists partly of practical reasons (she seems to be running out of money and her phone and internet services will be cut off today) and partly because she says that the world may not be ready for this dramatic way of living and people may try to copy her without the careful preparation necessary and die as a consequence. [Read more…]

The dogs that are not barking

Republicans are torn between wanting to criticize Edward Snowden for undermining the national security state that they love so much and did so much to create and wanting to praise him for embarrassing president Obama. But I thought the real test of what they felt about this story would come from the six people that clearly have set their eyes on the Republican nomination for 2016. How they react would be indicative of where they felt their party’s base was. [Read more…]

Other whistleblowers speak out in support of Snowden

One of the arguments being used against Edward Snowden is that instead of going public, he should have informed his superiors or Congress and taken it through the proper channels. But USA Today had interviews with four whistleblowers (three of whom Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe used to work the NSA, and the fourth Jesselyn Radack who used to work for the Justice Department and now serves as their lawyer) explain that when they tried to do just that, not only were they stonewalled, their efforts were actually used against them. [Read more…]

Doubts increase over sarin claims

I said that I would wait for evidence before believing the Obama administration’s claims last week that the Syrian government had used sarin. Given the US government’s past history of blatantly lying in order to win public support for its warlike intentions, that seems to be the obviously prudent thing to do. And sure enough, Matthew Schofield of the McClatchy news service writes that chemical weapons experts are casting doubts on US claims. [Read more…]

Film review: The Loving Story (2011)

I wrote sometime ago about the pending release on DVD of the HBO documentary The Loving Story (2011), about Mildred and Richard Loving, the couple whose case led to the throwing out as unconstitutional all state laws banning inter-racial marriage. I just saw the documentary and I can strongly recommend it as a heartwarming story of overcoming racial prejudice. [Read more…]