When I was still in my early teens I became a huge fan of comic writers such as P. G. Wodehouse, S. J. Perelman, and Stephen Leacock. I loved the way they played with words to get laughs and dreamed of writing just like them. So I tried writing a comic story, a parody of the hard-boiled detective genre which Perelman in particular was a genius at, such as his famous short story Somewhere a Roscoe.
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I have long used the word oligarchy to describe America because I think it accurately captures the reality of the current state of politics where a small coterie of wealthy individuals and families control the country and make all the major decisions on economic and military issues. The so-called people’s elected representatives are merely the people in front of the curtain, there to entertain us and distract us from the fact that we really have no say except on a limited set of social issues that the oligarchy does not really care that much about as long as the stability they need to maintain their own lifestyles is maintained.
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The audio of this morning’s oral arguments in the same-sex marriage case Obergefell v. Hodgeson before the US Supreme Court is now available. The first part dealing with the issue of whether states can ban same-sex marriages (what is known as the “marriage question”) lasts for 90 minutes and can be heard here while the second part dealing with whether states can refuse to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples who were legally married in another state (the “recognition question”) lasts 60 minutes and can be heard here. (Warning: autoplay).
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If one wanted to see evidence of the shallowness of the US news media and its incestuous relationship with politicians and the way reporters (I use the term loosely) get gooey-eyed when they meet film and TV stars, you need look no further than the annual White House Correspondents Dinner that took place last Saturday. I am amazed that the event didn’t shrivel up and die after the brutal roasting it got in 2006 from Stephen Colbert when the organizers made the mistake of inviting him to give the keynote speech and instead of the usual pandering they expected to get, he took the opportunity to tell them to their faces that they were nothing better than star-struck stenographers who suck up to the powerful and famous. Incidentally, there is a new documentary titled Nerd Prom that gives an inside look at this event, if you have the stomach for it.
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A money-grubbing preacher of a megachurch (is that redundant?) called the World Changers Church International with the highly appropriate name of Creflo Dollar beseeched his congregation to donate generously so that he could purchase a new luxury private jet that costs $65 million to replace the one he already has. The new plane is a Gulfstream G650, a model that has billionaires waiting in line to purchase, and no self-respecting man of god would be seen dead without one.
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The city of Baltimore is experiencing violent clashes between members of the public and the symbols of authority such as police and firefighters, accompanied by looting and fires. This has resulted in a state of emergency being declared and a week-long curfew from 10:00pm to 5:00 am imposed. The clashes broke out following the funeral of Freddie Grey, the 25-year old man who died in police custody.
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The answer is, of course, none at all. The feelings of some religious people will be offended but that is about it. But Pema Levy says that opponents feel that their prior inability to articulate actual damage has hurt them in past legal cases and so they filed several briefs in tomorrow’s Supreme Court case where they marshal the evidence for the tangible harm that will arise if same-sex marriage is allowed.
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Tomorrow the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the issue of same-sex marriage. Of course, what the court usually looks are not broad questions but more narrowly focused ones that can have broad implications, and understanding what those questions are enables us to better understand the oral arguments. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog is my go-to person for explaining the background to cases and he has written about the questions that will be at play.
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I hate the death penalty for many reasons that I won’t bother to go into here. But the recent results of an investigation about how over many decades the FBI faked forensic evidence to aid the prosecution in criminal cases should settle the case against it once and for all since it throws serious doubt on our ability to reach the level of certainty about guilt that a death penalty requires. (Thanks to Marcus Ranum for the link.)
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There is a lot of heated debate over the use of genetically modified organisms or GMOs, especially when it comes to food. I have not quite understood some of the opposition to it. There seems to be nothing intrinsically dangerous about food that has been genetically engineered in the laboratory to be different, since nature and agricultural practices have been genetically modifying organisms over a long time. I would have little worry about eating a genetically modified food, for example, although I must admit that I have not studied the topic in great detail.
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