The video below was taken by Pearl Love when she was treated rudely by a woman seated across from her on a subway (language advisory). Love is a trans woman who immigrated to the US from Taiwan in 1998 and no longer has any contact with her family because of her gender change.
[Read more…]
I have recently encountered many instances of people on the radio and on TV using the word ‘misnomer’ (which has a dictionary definition of “a name that is wrong or not proper or appropriate”) when they seem to mean ‘misconception’ or ‘misunderstanding’. This interview on NPR with an Indiana congressman provides an example of this increasingly common usage. He uses the word at the 2:33 mark in response to a question that begins at around 2:00.
[Read more…]
Yesterday’s primary results in Indiana produced two unexpected results. First off was the surprise win by Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton by five points (52.5% to 47.5%) when the pre-election poll average had Clinton leading by close to 7 points. The relentless media coverage that it was all over for Sanders and that it was time for him to bow out would normally result in a snowball effect where people start drifting to the presumed leader and supporters of the trailing candidate do not bother to vote. That this did not happen and that there was a 12-point difference between polls and the final outcome suggests that many voters still cannot reconcile themselves to the policies Clinton represents and are determined to have their voice heard.
[Read more…]
Stephen Colbert comments on the curious fact that from the time that Ted Cruz started campaigning heavily in Indiana and became more familiar to the voters there, his poll numbers started tanking in a major way.
[Read more…]
I am a strong advocate of a government-funded single payer health care, along the lines of the ‘Medicare for all’ plan proposed by Bernie Sanders. Colorado is putting such a plan on the ballot for November. It is called Amendment 69 and the parasitic health insurance industry backed by oligarchs like the Koch brothers has gone all out to try and get people to vote it down.
[Read more…]
If you thought that the presidential race in the US was ugly, you should see the race for mayor of London that will be voted on May 5. Robert Mackey brings us up-to-date on the campaign pitting the Labour Party candidate and human rights lawyer Sadiq Kahn and the Conservative Party’s Zac Goldsmith.
[Read more…]
It looks like Donald Trump is going to win today’s Indiana Republican primary. According to the latest polls, he has rapidly expanded his lead over Ted Cruz in the last week, suggesting that the latter’s strategy of selecting Carly Fiorina as his running mate and the non-compete deal he arranged with John Kasich has not helped him in the least.
[Read more…]
Jon Stewart was a master at political satire and when he retired last year it was by no means because he was losing his touch. Here is a clip from 2014, just a year before he stepped down, that shows the range of comedic skills that he could bring to what he did best, and that was deliver an epic rant excoriating the hypocrisy of politicians and their media enablers.
[Read more…]
People often ask atheists what it would take for them to believe in the existence of god. I for one can think of an infinite number of things that would persuade me that god exists. When asked I say that if god commandeered all the TV stations in the world to announce that at a particular time the next day s/he would appear in the sky simultaneously all over the world to be seen and heard by everyone and that it indeed happened as promised, that would be pretty conclusive.
[Read more…]
Suppose you are a dog and your human companion leaves you in the car to go to the store and is away for too long. What would you do? This dog knows exactly what to do. I also like the way the dog looks at the person filming as if to say, “Do you have a problem with this?”
[Read more…]