Stephen Colbert visits Jacinda Ardern

New Zealand’s prime minister managed to quickly get a ban on assault rifles in her country after the horrific Christchurch shooting. Colbert accepts her invitation to visit the country to talk about this and other things and she picked him up at the airport, driving her own car. What impressed me is how the New Zealand prime minister drives a modest car herself without a massive security entourage, lives in a normal sized home, and acts like a normal person. That is as it should be with heads of states unlike the ridiculous circus surrounding the US head of state.

At the beginning in the car, Colbert was really annoying, finding her cell phone in the car and pulling the jerk move of repeatedly trying to get her to give the passcode to her phone, which she refused. He kept making guesses until, predictably, her phone got blocked. It was behavior that was more in keeping with Colbert’s former Comedy Central character than in his present role. The interview got better after that.

Monterey SkeptiCamp meeting on Saturday, January 4th

The sixth annual meeting of this group that features “a day of free presentations on science, skepticism and critical thinking” will be held this coming Saturday from 10:00am to 4:00pm. The event is free and open to the public but prior registration is requested. I will be one of the speakers talking about the ideas in my new book.

You can get information on the speaker schedule, registration, and other information here.

The event is organized by the Monterey County Skeptics and the Humanist Association of the Monterey Bay Area.

William Greider (1936-2019)

This exceptional journalist, who towered above most of his contemporaries, died on Christmas day. Jon Schwarz explains why his was such an important voice in the political media world.

Greider pulled this off because he didn’t care about the daily political garbage tornado. Instead, his focus was always on the huge subterranean battles that actually determine our lives, i.e., capital vs. labor, creditors vs. debtors, marketing vs. people, and capitalism vs. democracy.

The message running through his work is that, for decades, one side in these fights has been absolutely beating the shit out of the other. But Greider didn’t spend his life diagnosing America’s disease to make us despair. It was the opposite — he did it because he believed we can develop the cure, if we put in the work. He thought that normal humans were capable of understanding the world, and governing ourselves.
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Buttigieg’s deep support in the intelligence community

Pete Buttigieg’s campaign has just announced impressive fundraising results. Sam Finkelstein has taken a close look at the people who have endorsed, funded, and supported Buttigieg’s presidential candidacy and does not like what he finds.

Two questions continue to loom large over the 2020 Democratic primary field: Who is Pete Buttigieg? And what is he doing there?

Seemingly overnight, the once obscure mayor of Indiana’s fourth-largest city was vaulted to national prominence, pockets stuffed with big checks from billionaire benefactors.

The publication of a list of 218 endorsements from “foreign policy and national security professionals” by Buttigieg’s campaign deepened the mystery.

Some observers have raised questions about Pete Buttigieg’s intimate relationship with the national security state, after it was revealed that his campaign had paid nearly $600,000 for “security” to a Blackwater-style military contractor.
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The fallout from the Ron Reagan atheist ad

In watching an earlier Democratic debate, I mentioned how surprised I was to see an ad featuring Ron Reagan, former president Reagan’s son, on behalf of the Freedom From Religion Foundation that argued for the separation of church and state. He began by describing himself as an “unabashed atheist” and ended with him declaring himself to be a ” lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.”


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Reason’s Greetings to all this blog’s readers

This is going to be one hell of a year in the US as we have deranged, narcissistic, vain, lying, cruel, mean, insecure, xenophobic, sexist, transphobic, racist, petty, (did I miss any descriptor?) person running for re-election as president, solidly backed by a Republican party filled with sycophants who abjectly grovel before him, evangelical Christians who have given up on all their principles, and wealthy people who care more about increasing their already massive share of the wealth than doing anything of value with it.

It is going to be a really ugly year.

My wish for everyone is that we manage to stay sane during this tumultuous year and that it ends with us replacing this sociopath in the White House with Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or, failing that, with a halfway decent person who cares at least a little for those who are at the bottom of the economic and social ladder.

UN rapporteur condemns continued torturing of Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning is currently being held in prison since May 16 for refusing to testify to a grand jury against WikiLeaks and her treatment amounts to torture, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on torture.

In the missive, [Nils] Melzer says Manning is being subjected to “an open-ended, progressively severe measure of coercion fulfilling all the constitutive elements of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

Manning, who was detained on 16 May after refusing to testify before a grand jury, is currently being held at the Alexandria detention center in Virginia until she agrees to give evidence or until the grand jury’s term expires in November next year. She also faces fines currently running at $1,000 a day.
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