What Fox News and Republicans stand for

Jon Stewart is at his best when responding to Fox News attacks on him. His announcement that he was leaving the show sometime later this year led them to reflect on his influence and argue that he brought little to the national political conversation except lies, snarkiness, selective editing, and unfair characterization of them and the Republican party. It is clear that, as one of the major media figures who consistently outs their deceitful propaganda, he has got under their skin.

In responding, he gives an excellent analysis of what they stand for, why they are so successful at driving home their damaging message, and how we should respond.
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Random thoughts from watching World Cup cricket

Scheduling

It seems like the organizers of this World Cup tournament have dragged it out too long, with many days featuring just a single game, making it hard to sustain a high level of interest. Yesterday there was not even a single game. There is no obvious reason why there should not be at least two and preferably three games each day. As long as a team has two days break (plus an extra day if they need to travel to a distant venue), that should be enough spacing. Like all seemingly inexplicable things, the real reason probably has to do with money, possibly to maximize TV viewing.
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The ugly secret of South Asian color prejudice

If you are a member of a group in America that is viewed with disdain by conservatives, there are few faster ways to career advancement than to espouse the views of those same conservatives. You will be hugely rewarded with political support, jobs, and media visibility on conservative outlets like Fox News. Conservatives will gratefully accept the chance to have people of color spout derogatory statements about other people of color, since this enables them to get those views out but provides them immunity from the charge of racism.
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2015 World Cup update #12: Sri Lankan batsmen dominate England, Pakistan eke win over Zimbabwe

After the previous day’s heart-stopping, low-scoring, bowler-dominated thriller between Australia and New Zealand, when fortunes were reversed time and again, the game between England and Sri Lanka was a stark contrast, a sedate batsman-dominated game that produced a different kind of engrossing game in which Sri Lanka eventually cruised to an easy victory after being set a formidable challenge by England.
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Film review: The Newburgh Sting (2014)

This is an absolutely riveting, must-see HBO documentary directed and edited by Kate David and David Heilbroner about four men accused in 2009 of plotting to carry out a terrorist plot. We all know that the US government uses money and other lures to coax young minor criminals who have no prospects and little sense into signing on to hare-brained schemes of violence so that the government can then triumphantly unmask the plot. They also carefully manufacture a link with a mosque in order to exploit the fears and anti-Muslim sentiment of the US public.
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2015 World Cup update #11: New Zealand beats Australia in a thriller

What a game!

A match between two of the three favorites to win the trophy proved to be one that was worthy of all the hype and New Zealand eked out a win in one of the closest matches ever, replying to Australia’s 151 off 32.2 overs with 152/9 off 23.1 overs. What was surprising was that in a tournament dominated by batsmen and high scoring, this time it was the fast bowlers who dominated, with both teams barely scoring 150 and neither side coming anywhere close to using up their allotted 50 overs.
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