A martyr to knowledge

The deliberate killing of innocent people in the middle of war zones is reprehensible. There may be no rational reason why some deaths arouse stronger feelings of anger and sadness than others since all such deaths are equally tragic to their loved ones. The killing of children is one case where one can hazard a guess as to why it strikes even strangers more deeply. There is something about a life pointlessly snuffed out before it has fully experienced life that makes it especially sad.
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A case for removing all traffic signs and lights

In order to have cars and trucks share the same space with more vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists, we have created a whole system of rules and regulations designed to smooth the flow and prevent accidents. But is that the only way to go? Some argue that when there are rules, people do not really pay attention to their surroundings, thinking that just following the rules is enough.
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The Most Transparent Administration Ever strikes again

There are many things wrong with Guantanamo, the most basic one being that it exists at all. It is a place where human rights, and humans too, go to die. People have been tortured there, rectally force-fed, and subjected to all manner of indignities and kept in prison without being brought to trial because the government has felt that it could not win a legal case against them.
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The Bobby Jindal show about to end its brief run?

In the wake of the Louisiana theater shooting on July 23, that state’s governor Bobby Jindal announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign. This came as a shock to many people who had (a) never heard of Bobby Jindal before and if they had (b) had no idea that he was even running for president. He must have resumed his campaign again since he participated in the Republican candidates forum on August 6 but nobody noticed that either.
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John Oliver starts his own church

In order to illustrate the absurd way in which frauds and charlatans (also known as televangelists) exploit the tax exemptions for religion that exist in the US tax code to enrich themselves by taking money from poor people by promising them rewards, Oliver has created his own church called Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption to see how far he too can push this racket before the IRS shuts him down.
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The Republican immigration strategy just exploded

Immigration has become a major topic in the Republican race and has placed the party in a quandary. In order to win the presidential election, their eventual nominee will need to attract Hispanic votes and a moderate stance on the issue of undocumented immigrants would help. But in order to win the nomination, they have to adopt the hardline stance that their primary voters seem to want. Any suggestion of giving the undocumented some legal status, even short of citizenship, has been denounced as an ‘amnesty’ and is seen as political poison. Marco Rubio tried to venture there and had to beat a hasty retreat from his earlier co-authorship of a plan to provide citizenship for at least some of them, because of the flak he received.
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A direct attack on the death penalty

Last week, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the state’s death penalty was unconstitutional. The state had already passed a law in 2012 outlawing the death penalty but the eleven people who were already on death row were not exempted. The Supreme Court’s action means that their lives too will be spared. In the past 54 years, only two people have actually been executed in the state and they both volunteered for it. Connecticut becomes the 17th state to eliminate the death penalty and the fifth in the last five years.
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