I am just about fed up with this election

I can’t stand it. This election has reached a stage where, for me at least, the sheer shallowness of the campaign and coverage has become so sickening that I can barely stand reading election news any more. All we seem to see and read about are surrogates trash talking in the media and getting smacked down in turn by the online commentariat. Even the comedians are losing their appeal for me which is the real sign that I am just sick of it all
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Let us salute those who are willing to stand alone for what is right

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and elsewhere and there were many commemorations of that somber occasion. But it is also good to remember that it generated a period of mass fear and hysteria in the US that has resulted in endless, cruel, and needless wars, and accelerated a massive increase in the powers of the national security state and severe erosions on people’s privacy and civil liberties, all in the name of fighting terrorism.
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Haste makes waste

Breakfast cereals are not for everyone. I myself rarely eat them, mainly because I find I get tired of it after a couple of days. Also, the cereal I eat when I do choose to do so is corn flakes that requires adding sugar and I am not a fan of eating sweet things in the morning. But what surprised me was this story that said that many younger people are turning away from cereal because it takes too much work.
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How dogs watch TV

This article says that what dogs see when they watch TV is different from humans.

This research indicates that dogs have a preference towards watching other canines – but our studies have also discovered that sound often initially attracts dogs towards television and other devices. Favoured sounds include dogs barking and whining, people giving dog-friendly commands and praise, and the noise of toys squeaking.

How dogs watch TV is very different to the way humans do, however. Instead of sitting still, dogs will often approach the screen to get a closer look, and walk repeatedly between their owner and the television. They are essentially fidgety, interactive viewers.
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How Edward Snowden escaped from Hong Kong

In a long article that appeared in the Canadian National Post, two Hong Kong lawyers Robert Tibbo and Jonathan Man describe how they hid Snowden from the Hong Kong and US authorities and the media while they devised ways to get him to safety. This story has not been told until now and it is timed to coincide with the release of the Oliver Stone film Snowden that premiered yesterday at the Toronto International Film Festival and goes into general release on Thursday, September 15.
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Saudi Arabian atrocities

There can be no doubt that Saudi Arabia has one of the worst governments n the world. It is a ruthless monarchy that ignores the basic human rights of its citizens, persecutes the LGBT community, treats women as second class and its immigrant low-level workers like chattel, and has a punitive and barbaric judicial system that dates back to the Dark Ages. It deserves to be treated as an international pariah.
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Thin versus thick theism

When writing about religion, I encounter a problem in describing the various forms of it. One form consists of that favored by theologians and sophisticated religious apologists who move in academic circles where they encounter deep critiques of religion. They usually speak in abstract terms about god, as a first cause, a prime mover, and so on. They do not anthropomorphize god by ascribing human passions and qualities to their deity. The second type of description is by those who see god as much like a human except that their deity also possesses superhuman attributes and is perfect in every way. Their deity intervenes in the world in response to prayers and can override the laws of nature in order to do so.
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Mother Theresa becomes a saint. So what?

Pope Francis has just taken the final step making Mother Theresa a saint. Her record is at best mixed. On the positive side she did take in the sick and dying from the streets of Calcutta and provided them with some minimal care. On the negative side, in order to raise money for her work, she hobnobbed with some of the worst people in the world like the Duvaliers in Haiti and praised them, thus providing them with cover for their misdeeds. She also was an implacable foe of contraception and abortion and seemed to have this bizarre love for suffering for its own sake, seeing it as somehow ennobling and bringing you closer to god. As one critic said, she was not a friend of the poor so much as a friend of poverty.
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