The view from up there – Lake Michigan, Chicago, St Louis, Memphis…
Image Credit: NASA/Barry Wilmore
From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore took this photograph of the Great Lakes and central U.S. on Dec. 7, 2014, and posted it to social media.
Toronto, Buffalo…Columbus…Atlanta…
Another woman has a Bill Cosby story. (No, it’s not a story of how he spotted some guy spiking her drink and gave the guy a damn good talking to. Nope.) Beverly Johnson tells hers in Vanity Fair.
She grew up admiring Cosby. She was delighted when he asked her to audition for a bit part on his show. She met with him in his office and thought he was fabulous. She and her young daughter had lunch at his house and she thought he was even more fabulous.
Looking back, that first invite from Cosby to his home seems like part of a perfectly laid out plan, a way to make me feel secure with him at all times. It worked like a charm. Cosby suggested I come back to his house a few days later to read for the part. I agreed, and one late afternoon the following week I returned. His staff served a light dinner and Bill and I talked more about my plans for the future.
Wow. What not to do: make a point about climate change by trampling on a fragile, restricted, ancient artwork. [Read more…]
Atul Gawande is horrified at the way medical doctors helped the torturers.
In a series of furious tweets on Wednesday, the New Yorker writer castigated clinicians for their role in helping the CIA carry out torture — and in some cases, effectively doing it themselves.
Reviewing the Senate Intelligence Committee’s newly released report, Gawande points to nearly a dozen individual examples of physicians playing a role in the CIA’s interrogation and treatment of detainees. [Read more…]
Via a Catholic group on Facebook –
Did Jesus feed the hungry as a general thing? I know about the loaves and fishes but that was a one-off, and it was “the hungry” in the sense that a bunch of people were together for awhile and time passed so they got hungry – it wasn’t about feeding the chronically hungry poor.
Did Jesus clothe the naked? Did he care for the ill?
He is reported to have done some good things, like talking to despised people and commending forgiveness, but he wasn’t a social justice warrior. And as for the Catholic church…
Also, notice “the unwanted child”…Subtle, huh?
The BBC reports that jihadist (I would call them Islamist) attacks killed more than 5000 people
in one month.
It has useful graphics. Iraq and IS are much the worst, but Nigeria and Boko Haram get second prize.
The data gathered by the BBC found that 5,042 people were killed in 664 jihadist attacks across 14 countries – a daily average of 168 deaths, or seven every hour.
Good PR for the American Enterprise Institute – an NPR story on Dick Cheney defending the use of torture on prisoners, illustrated with Cheney in his native habitat.
Pro-unregulated market, anti-feminist, pro-torture, anti-climate science, pro-bosses, anti-unions – the friend of all humanity.
17 women are in prison in El Salvador for having miscarriages or abortions. The Center for Reproductive Justice is campaigning to get them freed.
With one of the world’s most extreme abortion bans, El Salvador prohibits women from receiving an abortion under any circumstance—not in cases of rape or incest, not even to save their lives. Since 1998, dozens of women have been wrongfully criminalized and imprisoned under this law—even when the pregnancy ended due to natural causes. Take action today to pressure the Salvadoran government to release Las 17 in time to go home to their families for the holidays.
So James Watson’s little trick worked. The rich guy who bought his Nobel medal did indeed buy it to give it back to him.
Russia’s richest man has revealed that he bought US scientist James Watson’s Nobel Prize gold medal, and intends to return it to him.
Shaheen Hashmat did an interview for the Scottish Sunday Mail ten days ago, and she has the article on her blog.
This is the transcript of an article by journalist Jenny Morrison featuring the most in-depth interview about my experiences that I’ve done to date. It took me a while to agree to do this, as it would a mean a lot more detailed exposure closer to home and my fear of a backlash was greater. But the imbalance of efforts to raise awareness and provide support throughout the UK is too significant to dismiss an opportunity to at least try and address this. Please note the minor clarifications I’ve included below the transcript.
She’s brave.
She was just 12 years old when she escaped from her family home. [Read more…]