The Boy Scouts in the UK are going to make changes next week that will welcome atheists to their fold by creating a new oath for them (tentatively called the Atheist Promise) that leaves out god. The scouts had had different oaths to accommodate different religious beliefs but this is the first time they have created one for nonbelievers. [Read more…]
Tom Gjelten is an honored member of the courtier journalist class who seems to see his role as to be a press conduit for the US government. I was curious to see how he would report on the Snowden case and he did not disappoint, fully living up to my expectations of him and dutifully playing his role of government propaganda distributor by smearing Snowden. [Read more…]
Via commenter slc1, I learned of news reports that say that a now-retired four-star Marine general James E. “Hoss” Cartwright has been targeted as the source for leaking to New York Times reporter David Sanger highly classified information about the Stuxnet virus that the US and Israel used to try and impede Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.
Juan Cole gives a list of ten ways in which coverage of the Cartwright case will differ from that of the Snowden case. (#4: David Gregory will not ask that David Sanger be prosecuted for espionage because he aided and abetted Cartwright’s leaking.)
I simply could not see how the Creation Museum in Kentucky, that opened to great fanfare and big crowds, could maintain that pace of visitors because unlike real museums which are dynamic and change with new scientific knowledge thus enabling productive repeat visits, this museum is pretty much stuck with unchanging source material. Once the excited faithful had seen it, why would they come again? [Read more…]
Times are hard for the mainstream media. They are suddenly waking up to the fact that they are not such an exclusive and desirable club after all and that people do not need them that much anymore. In response they are trying to desperately reserve the label of ‘journalist’ only to those who belong to their club. It is amusing to see how some courtier journalists like David Gregory are forced to interview people like Glenn Greenwald and yet try to avoid at all costs calling him a journalist, instead referring to him as a blogger, columnist, activist, lawyer, and the like. [Read more…]
The Daily Show takes a close look at the banking sector in the US where, unlike in many countries, the banks seem to be more like crime syndicates than staid financial institutions.
In the first clip, the show discusses yet another revelation about how the banks and ratings agencies colluded to play fast and loose with other people’s money while they got rich, knowing that what they were doing was corrupt and likely to cause a collapse. [Read more…]
Many of you would be aware of how Texas state senator Wendy Davis helped defeat an effort to pass extremely restrictive abortion legislation by conducting a ‘talking filibuster’ for over 10 hours that ran out the clock so that a vote could not be taken by midnight of the last day of the legislative session. [Read more…]
While yesterday’s Supreme Court decisions undoubtedly advanced the movement towards full equality for same-sex couples, there are still many practical matters that need to be addressed. NPR had a good segment where they looked at how the court rulings will affect a whole list of things such as immigration, taxation, social security, armed forces, etc., especially in those states that still do not recognize same-sex marriages. This is because some federal regulations are tied to state laws, and that will cause complications that need to be unentangled. [Read more…]
An Australian nurse who spent years working in palliative care looking after dying people during the last twelve weeks of their lives, recorded their epiphanies at the end of life and has compiled a list of their top five regrets.
After warning earlier today that there will be every effort to discredit Edward Snowden and everyone associated with him, from those publishing his materials to those aiding him in avoiding the clutches of US authorities, I was not surprised that it turns out that there are already news stories to be released today about the private life of Glenn Greenwald. [Read more…]