Church of England votes against allowing women bishops

The Church of England has voted at its General Synod to deny women the opportunity to serve as bishops. This was despite a compromise that allowed congregations to request a male bishop if they opposed a woman. This has plunged the church into crisis. There are dire warnings that the Anglican church has seriously harmed itself with this decision by seeming to be outdated and out of touch. [Read more…]

Thanksgiving musings

(Due to the holiday, this is a repost from previous years, edited and updated.)

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. For an immigrant like me, the Thanksgiving holiday took a long time to warm up to. It seems to be like baseball or cricket or peanut butter, belonging to that class of things that one has to get accustomed to at an early age in order to really enjoy. For people who were born and grew up here, Thanksgiving is one of those holidays whose special significance one gets to appreciate as a child as part of learning the traditions and history and culture of this country. As someone who came to the US as an adult and did not have all the fond memories associated with the childhood experience of visiting my grandparents’ homes for a big family reunion on this occasion, this holiday initially left me unmoved. [Read more…]

Car doing reverse donuts

There is something bizarre about watching a car going around in reverse circles on a city street, its open door crashing repeatedly with a post, with police and spectators looking on and doing nothing.

After awhile it gets monotonous but you can skip to the 6:45 mark to see how it ends.

When I first saw this I wondered: Is this for a film? A bet? The description says that this happened accidentally when the car started moving after the driver and passenger got out to switch positions.

How did the fundamentals models fare?

In the run-up to the elections, I contrasted the predictions of the poll-aggregators (who base their conclusions on the results of opinion polls) and those of political scientists, who argue that voter preferences are more accurately predicted by the so-called ‘fundamentals’ of the economy like the GDP, the increase of disposable income, unemployment levels, etc., all of which can be measured objectively. We know that the poll-aggregators were very successful in predicting the outcome. So how did the fundamentals models fare? [Read more…]

Dispelling myths about Iran’s policies

The current flare-up in the Middle East has for the moment shifted Iran to the background. But you can be sure that once the immediate violence ends and we return to the stalemate of Israel enforcing a cruel blockade and siege of the people in Gaza that has caused such hardship, proponents of a military attack on Iran will be back, relentlessly beating the drums for yet another war. [Read more…]