I think that pope Francis has picked up a few ideas from president Obama. Recall that Obama came into office as the agent of hope and change, who would reverse the course of the Bush administration and bring about transparency and a commitment to end the civil and human rights abuses. Many people who hated what the Bush/Cheney regime had wrought bought into that at least partially and supported him enthusiastically. [Read more…]
The global population exploded during the 20th century, aided in part by better public health that reduced infant mortality and increased life expectancy. It now stands at around 7.1 billion. But how many people have lived during the entire time that homo sapiens have been around? [Read more…]
Although we might have thought that the US Supreme Court had ended the debate over California’s Proposition 8, that was not quite the case. Opponents argued that the US District Court case that overturned the proposition that voided the ban on same-sex marriage only allowed the two couples who brought that suit to get married and did not carry statewide implications. [Read more…]
I have previously expressed surprise that the Republican party had chosen Obamacare, of all things, as the issue that the were going to fight to the death, even though the dry details of a health care policy that actually is quite business-friendly are not the kind of things that press emotional hot buttons to arouse strong passions. That is usually the domain of GRAGGS (guns, race, abortion, gays, god, sex) issues. [Read more…]
The state of Kentucky is solidly in the Bible Belt. When it was finalizing the revision of its science standards in a document called the Next Generation Science Standards, there was the usual push from some quarters that the teaching of evolution and climate change should be removed or that at least criticisms of both and alternative theories (such as creationism and intelligent design) be included. [Read more…]
Stephen Walt amusingly suggests that since the NSA has now been caught illegally spying on Americans in America, why not turn its massive powers for good and not evil by using it to track down, identify, and put out of business all those robocallers that annoy the hell out of people? [Read more…]
What the NSA revelations have shown is the extent of the national security state that we live in. In order to achieve this stealthily, the government has developed the technique of having secret meanings for ordinary words, so that they can claim legality and transparency and due process when in reality they have none of those things. [Read more…]
Trusting in god is almost always a sure recipe for disaster. Faith healing and snake handling are two examples where people decide that prayer and faith will cause their god to overturn the laws of nature and of course they don’t and people die needlessly.
We now have another case of near tragedy. A San Diego couple and their two children (one 3 years and the other 8 months) decided that the US was too sinful for their tastes, especially when it came to homosexuality and abortion and “the state-controlled church” (???) and they decided to take a “leap of faith” and set sail in a small boat for the tiny island of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean. [Read more…]
