When the US Supreme Court ruled last year that president Obama’s health care plan (known officially as the Affordable Care Act and popularly as Obamacare) was constitutional, Republicans and Tea Party activists were surprised and livid because they had been confident that the law would be overturned. [Read more…]
After I came to the US in 1983 and before the internet became available to keep up with events worldwide, I lost touch with cricket news. One of the things that happened in the interim is that it has become increasingly popular with women and now there are women’s teams that compete internationally. [Read more…]
I have been fascinated by the fact that evolution tells us that if we could journey back in time, then all of our ancestors start to merge, with some surprising results. I wrote a series of posts exploring this topic some years ago and pointed out some surprising (to me at least) results. [Read more…]
Given my disdain for the entire field of theology, I did not think that I would write such a title for a blog post but author Gary Wills and Stephen Colbert, while both Catholics, had quite a difference of opinion on what their church should be like. While I liked what Wills had to say, I continue to be a little puzzled by why such people still want to be considered Catholics when they have so little in common with it. [Read more…]
I have been highlighting the progress that has been made in advancing acceptance of the LGBT community as deserving of the same rights and privileges as everyone else. But it is only fair to point out that there are still pockets of deep resistance and homophobia. For example, some parents and students and at least one teacher at an Indiana high school want to organize a prom that will be open to only heterosexual students. The reasons given are, of course, religious. [Read more…]
The world of wrestling was stunned by the news yesterday that all categories of their beloved sport have been recommended for elimination from the 2020 Olympic games. The demise is not quite certain. Wrestling can be re-instated, but it has to now compete with baseball/softball, squash, karate, sport climbing, wakeboarding, wushu, and roller sports and the betting in wrestling’s favor is not good. [Read more…]
Like most people, I was surprised by the pope’s decision to leave his post to spend more time with his family. It was so unexpected that one immediately suspected that there was more to the story and the rumor mills have kicked into high gear. [Read more…]
Offbeat comedian Zach Galifianakis has an online show called Between Two Ferns where he interviews celebrities. In this two-part special, he interviews some of the people who have been nominated for Oscars this year, in which they are given roughly the same amount of time to speak as Oscar winners get at the ceremony. I think this is a wonderful idea that should be adopted by all talk show hosts. [Read more…]
Some defenders of president Obama’s policy of using drones to kill people without even charging them with any crimes, let alone trying to apprehend them, have made the extraordinary argument that this is a good idea since it does not put US forces at risk the way any attempt to capture them would. This use of drones has considerable public support. [Read more…]
End-timers, those who yearn for the end of the world when Jesus will return and destroy all the evildoers and save the virtuous (and such people are convinced that they will be among the saved), are continuously on the lookout for signs of the impending apocalypse. One of those signs is the arrival of the anti-Christ and it is said that he will have the ‘mark of the beast’ that according to chapter 13 of that wacky Book of Revelation will have the numerical value of 666. [Read more…]