A question that has been swirling around is how it could have happened that the European governments got it all wrong about Edward Snowden being on the Bolivian president’s plane and caused them, in what can be described as an act of air piracy, to close their airspace and force it to land in Austria, creating a backlash around the world at what was seen as a naked act of western imperialism and colonialism. [Read more…]
Ari Mandel was an observant Hassidic Jew until the age of 23. Then he became an atheist. Now 31, he decided that since he was no longer going to heaven, the spot that had once been reserved for his soul was now vacant and so he decided to put it up for sale on eBay. [Read more…]
One of the interesting questions is how it came to be that the Guardian has become such a major player in international media. It is, after all, at its core a relatively small British newspaper with a daily print circulation of around 160,000. And yet it has broken major story after major story, sidelining ostensibly bigger players like the Washington Post and the New York Times. It was the leader in publishing the WikiLeaks documents, it uncovered Rupert Murdoch’s illegal phone tapping, and now it has been the clear leader in revealing Edward Snowden’s documents. [Read more…]
While the LGBT community is making headway in gaining acceptance in the western hemisphere, things are still bleak in the rest of the world. It looks like the nations in the continents of Africa (with the exception of South Africa where same sex marriage is legal) and Asia and the Middle East may well end up being the last to accept the reality. [Read more…]
It looks like forcing down the Bolivian president’s plane on its return from Russia was a big blunder that has backfired badly on the US. It has angered many of the governments of that region, bringing back painful memories of how the US treated them in the past. [Read more…]
Sometimes I say things that seem obvious and uncontroversial to me and am then surprised by the strong opposition they arouse. One such statement was in yesterday’s post where I strongly defended Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning and added that president Obama “has not (as least as yet) tried to kidnap Snowden or kill him with a Navy Seal operation or a drone strike but you can bet that it is among the possibilities that are being considered.” This aroused some strong reactions both in the comments and privately and I thought I would try and understand why this might be so. [Read more…]
Both Venezuela and Nicaragua have made offers of asylum to Edward Snowden.
[Venezuelan president Nicolas] Maduro said Venezuela was ready to offer him sanctuary, and that the details Snowden had revealed of a US spy program had exposed the nefarious schemes of the US “empire”.
“He has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the US spying on the whole world,” Maduro said.
Supporters of the Obama administration and the national security state make three arguments in support of its widespread snooping. One is that what the NSA and other government agencies have been doing legal, something that Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman vigorously dispute. Another is that there is judicial oversight from the federal judges of the FISA court, which has been revealed as pretty much a rubber stamp rather than a watchdog. [Read more…]
I hate wasting food. I really hate it. Hence I also hate things like food fights, sculptures made of butter and other foods, and any other occasion where people use food for things other than providing nourishment or eating pleasure. My strong feelings may be due to growing up a country where access to food was not taken for granted. [Read more…]