Those who have been agitating for attacking Iran have been repeatedly making the claim, faithfully repeated by the compliant media, that Iranian president Ahmadinejad said that he wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the map and that this proved that he was a crazy man and that if Iran ever obtained a nuclear weapon, he would use it against Israel. [Read more…]
Today is May Day, the international day of solidarity for workers, and I thought that in its honor I would coopt the famous slogan “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains” for this post, although it has nothing to do with the labor movement.
Same sex marriage is not legal in the United Kingdom. According to Wikipedia, since 2005, they have had civil partnerships that supposedly provide the same rights and responsibilities of marriage but, as I discovered earlier, this is still not full equality since, for example, if such partners travel abroad they do not have the same rights as married couples. [Read more…]
A new game show Break That Medium! that would be terrific if the people who purport to communicate with dead people really could. (via Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy)
There have been some interesting developments in learning how birds navigate. It was thought that birds had tiny chunks of metal in their beaks or inner ears that enabled them to detect the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field. But more research has thrown doubt on the existence of these so-called ‘compass cells’, saying that they were just a type of white blood cells. [Read more…]
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a Woody Allen film. I grew up enjoying his early silly comedies and while Allen grew as a filmmaker and went on to make films aimed at a more sophisticated palate, I remained in my juvenile state of mind for some time and so we went our separate ways, so to speak. [Read more…]
I am a firm believer in the power of education. The mind is a powerful weapon in the fight for peace and justice and I believe it is a fundamental right of all children everywhere to get a good education. But it is a mistake to directly link this to incomes. [Read more…]
Below is a short clip from an anti-bullying talk he gave at a high school journalism conference. It is a terrific clip but notice how when he pinpoints how the Bible is the basis for so much of anti-gay bullying, some of the students walk out. They just can’t handle the fact that their beloved holy book has so much hateful stuff in it.
But they cannot avoid the truth forever. They are going to face it over and over again from all sides.
The continued existence of Guantanamo should be the eternal shame of president Obama and the Democratic party except of course that they are incapable of feeling any shame. Reneging on the promise to close it was bad enough, now you can add this to the rapidly growing list of things that Obama and his party gets away with that George W. Bush wouldn’t have. [Read more…]
From the 1999 film Dogma. (Thanks to Norm)
There is something richly ironic about casting the late George Carlin, an atheist whose tirades against religion in his comedy routine were legendary, as a Catholic bishop.
Here’s one such performance with some brilliant theological insights. (Language advisory)