This is fun to watch. It is possible that the video is faked and that the music notes were produced separately and spliced in. But I think it is entirely possible that he had to kick a lot of broken crockery to get the full set of notes he needed and then picked those clips that he could sequence to get the result he wanted. That’s still pretty good. [Read more…]
Susie Madrak has been following new-elected US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s performance at the first meeting of the Senate Banking Committee and says she proved her worth by putting regulators on the spot about why they go aggressively after powerless defendants while allowing big banks to make deals with them by paying fines that are just included as the cost of doing business and do nothing to deter future wrongdoing. [Read more…]
Documents obtained by Justin Elliott at ProPublica under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the Obama administration has been supplying arms to the government of Bahrain even while that government has been engaged in brutally suppressing pro-democracy voices. [Read more…]
Self-driving cars have clearly reached a level where they are no longer the stuff of science fiction but are now a reality, and we should soon be seeing them on streets everywhere. Once people get over the spooky aspect of it, we can expect to see an explosion in their numbers. Watch this demonstration of such a car driving itself to see how it can be a real boon to some people. [Read more…]
Via reader Walter, I came across this excellent review by Richard Brody of D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. Like him, I was both appalled at the racism of the film (especially in the second half that traced the events following the Civil War and dealt with the period known as the Reconstruction), while impressed with the way the filmmaker used techniques to manipulate the viewer. If you want to see a clear demonstration of the power of film as a propaganda weapon in skilled hands that can tug the viewer to sympathize with people and views that are abhorrent, this is the film to see. [Read more…]
The US Supreme Court has made it quite clear that public schools cannot take a stand one way or another in favor of or against religion. This means that the school administrators and teachers, who are seen as agents of the government, cannot be seen as promoting any or all religions or no religion. Strict neutrality is what is called for. [Read more…]
Academics tend to be respected because of their reputations for having expert knowledge and some level of objectivity. As a result they are often sought as endorsers for various positions. I have written many times before of the danger that exists when that esteem is abused. This danger seems to be most present in the field of economics and medicine, not coincidentally because there is a lot of money at stake there. [Read more…]
I have written extensively about the fact that the Republican party is increasingly out-of-step with what the country is thinking, especially as a result of demographic changes and that its main problem is that its base has been fed a steady diet of rhetoric against women, minorities, immigrants, and LGBT groups for so long that taking that food away from them is likely to provoke howls of anger. [Read more…]
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…]