It is rumored that Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Ewen MacAskill, and Barton Gellman who broke the first stories based on the Edward Snowden documents may get the prestigious George Polk award for 2013, a major honor in journalism. As Matthew Zeitlin writes: [Read more…]
Karl Marx is one of the major influences in the whole field of political economy. Even those who think he is the embodiment of evil have to acknowledge how much his analyses of capitalism has shaped the way we view things and structure our socieities. But some of his most publicized predictions were spectacularly wrong, chief among them that the communist revolution would first occur in advanced industrial societies like Germany during his time. The fact that it happened in the more backward feudal and agrarian country of Russia, plus the collapse of the Soviet Union and the shift of so many formerly Communist nations such as those in Russia, Eastern Europe, and China to more market-based economies were widely portrayed by his critics as conclusively demonstrating failure of his entire theory of political economy and seemed the occasion to bury Marx’s ideas for good. [Read more…]
One of the worst aspects of the current US health insurance system is that it is employer-based, which means that people can get trapped into jobs just in order to get health insurance, a phenomenon that has been given the name of ‘job lock’. So any improvements in the system that would enable people to get affordable health care outside of employment was bound to result in people deciding to leave their jobs voluntarily, either to stay at home to look after children or others who need them, to start their own businesses, to freelance, and so on. [Read more…]
Via Atrios I came across this article by Pam Martens. She worked for over two decades on Wall Street but has since turned into a watchdog, exposing its wrongdoings with her insider’s perspective and knowledge. [Read more…]
Canada is one of the ‘Five Eyes’ group of English speaking countries that formed a pact following World War II to share their spying information, the others being the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. This arrangement enables these governments to skirt the letter of the law that some countries have that prevent spying on their own citizens, since each country can spy on others and then share the information. [Read more…]
The conventional view is that dogs chase cats, not the other way around. I have only had dogs as companions so have never experienced what the dynamic is between members of these two species if they live together.
But from reader Norm I received this video that indicates that in homes that have both dogs and cats, the cats seemed to be quite mean to the dogs and the latter, even big German Shepherds, were quite intimidated by them. [Read more…]
A British judge has dumbfounded legal experts by ordering Thomas S. Monson, the current president of the Mormon Church, to appear in court on March 14 and prove the factual statements that his religion makes. [Read more…]
While writing my post reviewing the film 20 Feet From Stardom about the anonymous backup singers to the famous singers, I recalled that I used to think that for someone with limited musical ability like myself but yet thought that it would be fun to perform, the role of backup singer seemed ideal. It seemed like all it required was the ability to sway and clap while occasionally singing something. A cushy gig, it looked like. [Read more…]
There is something quite alluring about lists, especially if they are lists of things that one cares about. Sites that specialize in ‘listicles’ (articles that are lists of things) are sometimes accused of using them as click bait and I must say it is a successful strategy at least some of the time for me. [Read more…]