Having successfully implemented his program of alienating women, blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, and gays, Mitt Romney has set his sights on the one remaining group that still supports him – Republicans. Humorist Andy Borowitz says that this is all part of a carefully planned strategy. [Read more…]
1. The Center for Inquiry Northeast Ohio will be holding its 2012 conference on the topic “On the Barricades: Reason vs. Religion in Public Policy” on Saturday, October 6, 2012 from 9:00am to 4:00 pm in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Independence, Ohio.
More details of the program and registration information can be found here.
2. The CWRU chapter of the Center for Inquiry will be hosting Eddie Tadash who will talk on “Is America a Christian Nation?”
The talk is free and open to the public and will be held on Sunday, October 7 at 6:00 pm in Room 322 in the Wickenden building on the Case quad of the campus.
Glenn Greenwald gives us a horror story of how the US government will go to any lengths, however cruel, to prosecute ordinary people for minor crimes that were well intentioned, while ignoring the major crimes of important figures.
His recounting of the story of how they treated Dr. Shakir Hamoodi should make people’s blood boil.
It is to Bill Clinton’s eternal shame that he did not veto the Defense of Marriage Act when he was president and to my knowledge he has never apologized for it, but has simply shifted in his reasons for signing it. It is anticipated that the constitutionality of the law will be decided by the US Supreme Court in its upcoming term, though it has not selected any of the cases as yet. [Read more…]
As could be predicted, the violence resulting from the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims has resulted in calls for the limits to freedom of speech and laws for the protection of religious sensibilities. The president of Egypt Mohamed Morsi and the president of Yemen Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi both made speeches at the United Nations this week calling for such restrictions. [Read more…]
Roger Waters of Pink Floyd has a new arrangement of We Shall Overcome composed as a tribute to the people of Gaza and calling for an end to the blockade imposed on them by Israel. It and the accompanying video, produced as part of the documentary Roadmap to Apartheid, are very moving. [Read more…]
The Republican party has become the home of such extreme people that even political leaders in other countries feel free to ignore the usual protocols and start piling on, with the Australian deputy prime minister Wayne Swan saying, “Let’s be blunt and acknowledge the biggest threat to the world’s biggest economy are the cranks and crazies that have taken over the Republican Party.” [Read more…]
The political chattering class recently was agog about two incidents. One concerned Mitt Romney expressing concern that airplane windows could not be opened in the event that smoke filled the cabin, something that happened recently on a plane on which his wife Ann was traveling. People took this as yet another sign of a clueless candidate out of touch with reality. [Read more…]
You can be sure that when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the United Nations General Assembly today, he will ramp up the rhetoric against Iran. With all this saber rattling, the plight of the Palestinians in the occupied territories has taken a back seat. [Read more…]
Last week, the Australian parliament took a step backwards by voting 98-42 to uphold the ban on same-sex marriages, despite opinion polls that favor allowing it. (On a more encouraging note, here are photos of a same sex marriage held at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. It is not yet legal there, though legislation has been pending since 2003.) [Read more…]