Another Great Decision

Some of you may recall the absurd situation that arose in 2010 when basketball player LeBron James’s contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers expired and there was speculation as to whether he would re-sign with the team or go elsewhere. James made himself a laughing stock by arranging a 75-minute TV special on ESPN grandiosely titled The Decision where he was interviewed, during which he announced that he was ‘taking his talents’ to Miami.
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I’m back!

After taking a week off from blogging, I am now back.

My daughter’s wedding on Saturday went off without any hitch and everyone seemed to have a good time. Weddings are a good time to meet with family and old friends and to meet and make new friends from among the in-laws. We had a lot of houseguests and the last of them left yesterday. I come from a close-knit extended family and many relatives came from all over the world and we had a wonderful time together.
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Blogging hiatus

My younger daughter is getting married later this week and I am having a lot of friends and relatives visit over the next week, some as houseguests, so this blog will be on hiatus for a while.

I will of course be monitoring the blog from time to time. If something really compelling comes up and I have a few minutes of time alone I may blog about it. Otherwise, I will return towards the end of next week once all festivities are over and all the houseguests have left.

Child labor abuse in the US

For all the talk about family values in the US, it is appalling how badly children can be treated in this country, either by parents thinking that children are their possessions and subjecting them to abuse or by employers taking advantage of the laws to exploit them for their labor. Samantha Bee turns in another fine report on the scandalous way that children are made to work is appalling conditions. I had not realized that child labor laws were so lax in this country that you can make them work under such harsh and even dangerous conditions.
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Immunity for US forces in Iraq

President Obama announced that he was sending an additional 200 troops to Iraq to add to the 275 troops that were sent in earlier and the 300 advisors. Although these people are called advisors, they are not accountants and lawyers and economists and academics in suits. They are usually Special Forces and other armed military personnel who could well end up in a shooting war. So the number of armed personnel sent back is now actually 775 and there is a real risk of some incident where they kill or otherwise injure Iraqi civilians.
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Whom the US Supreme Court views as persons

meh

(Thanks to Sarah Baker)

The whole issue with restricting access to safe, affordable birth control shows that if there is one thing that conservatives in the US hate, it is the thought that women should have the freedom to decide when and where they have sex and with whom. Denying them contraception is a means of restricting their choices by threatening them with the possibility of a pregnancy.

When the rich cry poor

For someone who has been in politics for so long and who seems to want to carefully craft her image, Hillary Clinton has shown herself to be surprisingly maladroit. She recently said that “the Bible was and remains the biggest influence on my thinking”. Does anyone really believe that bit of shameless pandering to the religious? Then after the silliness about she and her husband being ‘dead broke’ when they left the White House, she later acknowledged that they had made a lot of money since then but claimed that it was by ‘dint of hard work’.
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