Jessica Williams of The Daily Show got all teary-eyed as she went to mingle with the opponents of same-sex marriage who gathered outside the US Supreme Court on the day they heard the case, because she thinks that the court will approve of such marriages and she may never get to see this bunch of losers together like this again.
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Sam Wang unearthed some interesting facts about the recent elections in the UK where the Conservative party surprised everyone by winning an outright majority of 331 seats in the 650—seat parliament. He looked at how people had voted compared to the 2010 elections and compiled this table.
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I tend to give the letters to the editor column of the Plain Dealer only the most cursory of glances. One rarely learns anything from them but they do provide a window into some very strange minds. Within the space of two days, I saw two letters on climate change that boggled my mind. Here they are in full.
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The city of Cleveland is on alert because there are several issues that could trigger unrest. I got an email from our university president about contingency plans in case of trouble. Other places of work are warning their employees that there could be disruptions and to be ready to work from home if they can and parents are being told that they can keep their children at home if necessary. City officials and police are taking other preventative measures.
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Fox News is all of a doodah because president Obama said something that is blazingly obvious by saying that they demonize the poor. They have gone on a weeklong whine fest about being so unfairly maligned. The Daily Show poses the question of whether this shows that Fox News in merely lacking in self-awareness or is cynical or stupid or just downright evil.
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The ghastly tragedy in Waco, Texas where members of at least five gangs engaged in a fight that began in a restaurant and spilled out into the parking lot, involving guns, knives, brass knuckles, clubs, and chains that resulted in at least nine people dead, 18 injured, around 150 people arrested, and over 100 weapons collected.
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Last weekend saw yet another parade of Republican presidential hopefuls auditioning before a group of people in Iowa. Senator Lindsay Graham was one of them and during his 10-minute speech he said the following:
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If there is one country in Europe that is seen as being quintessentially Catholic, it is Ireland. That country has for a long time long had it policies determined largely by church doctrine and also had its government cover up the horrendous abuses of the church. It is really quite remarkable how recently they have moved to give people even minimal sexual freedoms.
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US elections are absurdly long and ridiculously expensive. People in other countries cannot believe what an absurd system we have in which one has to be either a multimillionaire or beholden to multimillionaires merely in order to be even considered as a serious candidate. Not only that, it is the GRAGGS issues (guns, race, abortion, gays, god, sex) that generate the most attention.
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I have recently observed repeated occurrences of the same sequence of events. Some business does something discriminatory, such as refusing to serve gays or minorities or some such thing, triggering anger at them and calls for a boycott. Then the owners complain that they are being hurt financially and punished for their religious or political beliefs or for exercising their free speech rights. Before you know what, a fundraising campaign is initiated on their behalf that generates more money than they would have lost due to a boycott.
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