Bill O’Reilly dismisses the young Republicans report

You may recall that I wrote about a recent report put out by young Republicans that surveyed the views of young people in general and what they found was that the Republican party was viewed very unfavorably, being described with words like closed-minded, racist, rigid, and old-fashioned. The young Republicans think that the party only cares about protecting those who have already made it rich and does not care about those who are still struggling to find their feet. Since almost all people, but especially the young, fall into the latter category, this has to hurt. [Read more…]

The remarkable passivity of Americans

The last couple of years have been quite turbulent in terms of public agitation and protests. Apart from the uprisings of the Arab Spring, more recently we have had the massive protests in Turkey over plans to develop a public park that have escalated into larger protests against the governments attempts to chip away at that country’s secular framework. Then we have the huge protests in Brazil that started in opposition to hikes in the cost of public transit but have also escalated into criticisms of corruption and of government policies that seem to emphasize spending on showy projects like hosting the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 while money is needed for basic social services and infrastructure. [Read more…]

California moves fast to allow same-sex marriages to resume

The ever-reliable SCOTUSblog reports:

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court on Friday afternoon lifted a year-old order blocking same-sex marriages in California, apparently clearing the way for county clerks across the state to start issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. The one-sentence order immediately nullified a stay order issued last June by the Circuit Court in the “Proposition 8″ case — Hollingsworth v. Perry.

Almost immediately state officials issued statements that same-sex marriage ‘”is now legal in California and that marriage licenses must be issued to same-sex couples immediately.”

There is no going back. Californian becomes the 13th state to legalize same-sex marriage and since this is the most populous state, it add a huge demographic weight to the movement for equality.

One of NPR’s courtier journalists weighs in on the Snowden affair

Tom Gjelten is an honored member of the courtier journalist class who seems to see his role as to be a press conduit for the US government. I was curious to see how he would report on the Snowden case and he did not disappoint, fully living up to my expectations of him and dutifully playing his role of government propaganda distributor by smearing Snowden. [Read more…]

Cartwright and Snowden

Via commenter slc1, I learned of news reports that say that a now-retired four-star Marine general James E. “Hoss” Cartwright has been targeted as the source for leaking to New York Times reporter David Sanger highly classified information about the Stuxnet virus that the US and Israel used to try and impede Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

Juan Cole gives a list of ten ways in which coverage of the Cartwright case will differ from that of the Snowden case. (#4: David Gregory will not ask that David Sanger be prosecuted for espionage because he aided and abetted Cartwright’s leaking.)

Creation Museum in trouble?

I simply could not see how the Creation Museum in Kentucky, that opened to great fanfare and big crowds, could maintain that pace of visitors because unlike real museums which are dynamic and change with new scientific knowledge thus enabling productive repeat visits, this museum is pretty much stuck with unchanging source material. Once the excited faithful had seen it, why would they come again? [Read more…]