In private meeting with AIPAC, Cory Booker fawns over Israel

Democratic senator Cory Booker has long been the protégé of a grifter known as rabbi Shmuley Boteach, an ardent right-wing, anti-evolution advocate of Israel who cares nothing for Palestinian rights. Booker, like many politicians, has been a frequent speaker at AIPAC conferences, the premier Israel lobby organization, and spoken of his unswerving loyalty to Israel, ignoring the rights of Palestinians and the way they have been treated by Israel. But the mood is changing when it comes to giving Israel a pass on its human rights abuses, especially in the Democratic party, along with the rise of the BDS movement.
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The color of prehistoric animals

We often see artistic representations of animals that have long been extinct. Some of these are in color, even though we only have the fossils. Fossil expert Maria McNamara explains how scientists try to infer their coloration. She says that they carefully study fossil metallic insects with hard shells that have preserved their color as fossils to see what makes them take on various colors. She says that if an animal’s skin layer is fossilized, that helps too. When it comes to dinosaur colors, she says:
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Reviews of The Favourite (2018) and Green Book (2018)

I watched these two films this past week. They share certain similarities. They are both based on actual events and characters. Both films have received praise and were heavily promoted by their respective studios for Academy Awards and succeeded, with The Favourite nominated for ten awards and Olivia Colman winning for Best Actress, while Green Book was nominated for five awards and won three including Best Film, Mahershala Ali for Best Supporting Actor, and for Best Original Screenplay.
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John Bercow’s greatest hits

While the British parliamentary machinations over Brexit have been depressing to watch, one of the few bright spots (for me at least) is watching the speaker John Bercow in action. He has been speaker through a tumultuous period, none more so than the past few months with the Brexot chaos. His attempts to control a sometimes rowdy chamber has been a treat to watch.

But all good things must come to and there are rumors that Bercow may be stepping down from this role sometime in the summer, though he himself has not confirmed it.
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Uh-oh, does this mean a rise in ‘incels’?

Christopher Ingraham tweets a link to an article that he wrote for the Washington Post has gone through the data compiled in the General Social Survey and says that the number of young men who have not had sex during the previous year has nearly tripled in the last decade and has now reached 28%.


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The life of a film extra

I have often wondered, while watching scenes from some film or TV show that takes place in a public setting, about the people who are seen in the background doing everyday things. How many are they paid professionals who do this as a living? When a superhero film was shot in Cleveland some years ago, they sent out an appeal for people to appear as extras for a few street scenes and I think many responded just for the chance to be in a film. It involved just hanging around a lot, apparently. I don’t know if they got paid at all.
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Russiagate and the new Red Scare

Katie Halper interviews Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone and Aaron Maté of The Nation about how much of the mainstream media glommed onto the Trump-Russia collusion story, predictably called ‘Russiagate’, for so long to the exclusion of many other important stories, and left themselves wide open to the kind of blowback that they are now experiencing because of the Mueller report seemingly saying (at least as far as the released short summary goes) that there was no such collusion. The entire interview is well worth reading but here are a few excerpts. (MT refers to Taibbi, AM to Maté, and KH to Halper.)
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The scandal of professional wrestling

I have never seen the appeal of professional wrestling because violence, even if simulated, makes me cringe so I never watch it. Also, even with scripted fights, there is real wear and tear on the body and actual injuries. The scandal of professional wrestling is not that the whole thing is faked because everyone knows that. It is that the wrestlers are treated like dirt by the monopolistic WWE and its owner Vince McMahon that results in many of them dying young and poor, as John Oliver points out in this expose.

Taking a lighter look at Brexit

Four indicative proposals for Brexit were selected by the speaker for debate and voting and just now it was announced that all four failed to get a majority, joining in the dumpster the eight from last week. The closest that lost by just 3 votes (273 to 276) was one proposed by a pro-European Conservative Ken Clarke though most of his party voted against it. This was seen as a minimally disruptive Brexit that would consist of a UK-wide customs union with the EU.

A disappointed Clarke reportedly said that “his customs union did not get a majority because some people’s vote supporters would not back it because they only wanted to back a second referendum. And some MPs would not back it because they wanted common market 2.0, even though they would have been happy with the customs union plan too, he says. He says he sometimes thinks this house is not very good at doing politics.” That seems like an understatement.
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Atheism and agnosticism in Asia

Signe Cohen argues that Asian countries have long had various forms of atheism and agnosticism that while not explicitly denying the existence of any gods, treats them as largely irrelevant.

The Buddha himself rejected the idea of a creator god, and Buddhist philosophers have even argued that belief in an eternal god is nothing but a distraction for humans seeking enlightenment.

While Buddhism does not argue that gods don’t exist, gods are seen as completely irrelevant to those who strive for enlightenment.
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