The members of the US Supreme Court and high elected officials get good salaries and many perks of the job. For example, the salary of the Chief Justice is $258,100 while that of the associate justices is $246,800. This should enable them to live quite comfortably even in the pricey Washington, DC area. What it does not allow for is the ability to live like the millionaire class.
[Read more…]
The Daily Show highlights Clinton’s tendency to say the wrong things. This is probably a symptom of her lack of authenticity and her tendency to parse her words so as to mean many different things and thus try to shade her past positions to look as if she was always in favor of the things she says she now believes. When you lack conviction is when you are likely to make such errors.
[Read more…]
That’s what an Oregon man seemed to think when he started firing all his guns, resulting in bullets penetrating even his neighbors’ homes.
[Read more…]
People in the west tend to think of Buddhism as a somewhat austere and ascetic religion and its monks as people living a simple life. Those of us who grew up in predominantly Buddhist countries know otherwise. While there are undoubtedly many monks who fit that description, there are also many who enjoy the pleasures of the material life, living and eating well, driving around in luxury cars, and getting involved in politics in a big way, often to advance reactionary agendas.
[Read more…]
Marco Rubio bowed the the inevitable and accepted that the voters really don’t like him that much, withdrawing from the Republican primary race after finishing a distant second to Donald Trump in his home state of Florida and coming in dead last in the other four states of Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, and Missouri, getting less than 10% in each of those contests.
[Read more…]
On her show Full Frontal, Samantha Bee talks with a diverse group of supporters of Donald Trump as to why they support him despite his xenophobia, racism, and advocacy of violence.
I have got to hand it to Bee. Listening to the rationalizations of this group would have driven me up the wall and I would have started yelling. But she manages to keep it all together. That’s professionalism.
[Read more…]
In the opening match of the World T20 tournament that began today, New Zealand pulled off a great win against hosts India. New Zealand batted first and managed to score just 126/7 in their allotted 20 overs, a poor score in a format where you need to score about 160 runs if you bat first. But India suffered a spectacular batting collapse and were all out for a mere 79, giving the Kiwis a big victory.
[Read more…]
An hour or so ago, I voted for Bernie Sanders in the Ohio Democratic primary. I went to my usual polling place near my home and there was no line at all though people were there voting. It is hard for me to compare the turnout based on my own experience since normally I voted early in the day before going to work. This time, taking advantage of my retired status, I went in the middle of the day.
[Read more…]
The tale of Marco Rubio is in some ways a sad but familiar one of a man whose vaulting ambition leads him to try and grab the crown before it is his time and fails. We have the spectacle of a young man, gifted with good looks, fluency of speech, and the ability to win elections at the state and local level, who then decides that he could become president even before he has built up a record of concrete achievements. In order to do that he takes careful stock of whose support he needs and carefully cultivates everyone who can help him on his way, such as the party establishment and big money backers.
[Read more…]
On his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discusses the fight between Apple and the FBI about the latter’s demand that Apple weaken its encryption sufficiently to let law enforcement gain access to the data in phones. Meanwhile, other technology companies such as Facebook, Google, and Snapchat are also increasing the security of their products.
[Read more…]