US Supreme Court upholds Hobby Lobby’s decision to not provide contraception

It looks like Hobby Lobby has won its case. In a 5-4 decision along the usual lines (Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito, and Kennedy, all of whom are Catholics by the way), the court said that ‘closely held corporations’ (a specific type of for-profit corporation) each owned and controlled by members of a single family cannot be forced to provide contraception coverage for its employees and should be given the same accommodations as the government gave nonprofit organizations.
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Abuse of government power

Woe to anyone who happens to get on the vindictive side of the US justice system. While there is nothing wrong with the government using its resources to capture criminals and prosecute them, the danger is when it decides to persecute ordinary people using the vast resources at its disposal. We have seen how they are very solicitous of the big financial banks and their executives but they can be tireless and ruthless when ordinary people appear in their sights.
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Ole Costa Rica!

My team for the tournament Costa Rica is through to the quarter finals with a close victory over Greece. After leading 1-0 for most of the game, Greece equalized during injury time but then Costa Rica pulled it through 5-3 on penalty kicks.

This coming Saturday they face the 2010 World Cup losing finalist the Netherlands who beat Mexico 2-1. That is going to be a very tough game for them to win.

The Republican war on the poor continues

I have been harshly critical of those elements in the Democratic party who are sleazy, beholden to corporate interests, and anti-progressive, and the current governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe is a prime example. But it is good to always remember that the two parties are not completely equivalent and that in some areas the differences can have significance.
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Exciting Test cricket

With the advent of the shorter forms of cricket such as the 50-over One Day Internationals and the even shorter 20 over Twenty20 format that almost certainly produce a definite outcome, there has been concern that the traditional five-day Test matches may not be able to match them for excitement. These fears were allayed by the two Test matches just completed between England and Sri Lanka. In both those matches, games that seemed to be drifting to foregone conclusions suddenly experienced dramatic reversals of fortune that led to nail-biting finishes where the outcomes were in doubt right up to the very end. These are the kinds of games that cricket aficionados remember for decades and to have them back-to-back was highly unusual.
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Anti-vaxxers suffer legal defeat in NYC

The anti-vaccination movement has resulted in a serious health hazard being created for everyone. One simple way to make sure that people vaccinate their children is to require vaccinations for all children attending school. But it turns out that all you have to do is claim that you object to vaccinations for religious reasons and you are exempt from that requirement, another example of the ridiculous ‘respect for religion’ trope that plagues the US.
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There’s always money for wars and killing

Here we go again.

President Obama has asked Congress for half a billion dollars to support the rebels fighting the Syrian government. But, you are thinking, isn’t that group ISIS (sometimes referred to as ISIL), that consists of a ruthless group of Islamists that seeks to create a new state by combining Iraq and Syria, and whose ideology is so extreme that even al Qaeda washed its hands of them?
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