Since today seems to be my day for winter Olympics-related posts, I thought I’d link to The Daily Show’s Jason Jones who has been in Russia during the games and discovers that the country that US conservatives used to hate for being the main component of the ‘evil empire’ now seems to have adopted all the attributes that US conservatives want to see in the US. They would feel right at home there.
[Read more…]
His feelings hurt at being snubbed by the US Olympic figure-skating hierarchy and not given a chance to make the team (they did not even tell him when the trials were taking place) and suspecting that time is running out for him to get a medal since he will be 50 by the 2018 Olympics, Will Ferrell goes on late night TV to show the world the routine he was planning to perform if he had been at Sochi, complete with the costume. It looks to me like he coulda been a contender.
[Read more…]
David Attenborough is one of the most famous names in producing nature documentaries, going to all manner of remote and exotic locations to capture life in the wild and make sense of what may seem to outsiders to be inexplicable animal behaviors. He turns his formidable nature-observing skills to explain to us the strange behavior he observed in one group of animals in Russia.
[Read more…]
The debate between Sean Carroll and William Lane Craig on the topic The Existence of God in Light of Contemporary Cosmology that I wrote about before is being held this evening at 8:00 pm Eastern time. At Carroll’s blog you can find out more details and how to access the live stream of the event.
[Read more…]
Matt Taibbi is the latest journalist to join First Look Media, the new operation started by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and others. Since he is not on the national security beat, it reinforces the impression that this is going to be a fairly full service media outlet.
[Read more…]
While the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict may have been viable at one time, most serious observers are now abandoning it because it is clear that it and the never-ending ‘peace-process’ seem to be merely stalling tactics for time as Israel increases its steady encroachment of Palestinian land.
So what might be the solution to this seemingly intractable problem?
[Read more…]
The Swedish pop group ABBA that had phenomenal success a few decades ago were noted for two things: (1) trite, formulaic, and often meaningless lyrics set to catchy and bouncy tunes and (2) outlandish costumes that they wore during their performances. Below is a performance that showcases both.
[Read more…]
Many people are unable to speak, either from birth or due to something that happened later in life. Thanks to modern technology, we now have voice synthesizers that enable them to translate their written words into sounds. Stephen Hawking is perhaps the person whom we are most familiar with who uses this.
[Read more…]
The death penalty is in trouble. It is not because of public opposition to this barbaric practice but due to technical reasons. It turns out that the drug company in the US that made one of the three drugs that go into the cocktail that makes up the lethal injections decided to stop producing it because of the negative image it gave of a drug company being in the death business.
[Read more…]
Given that courts everywhere are overturning bans on same-sex marriage I was wondering why it had not been challenged in Oho, which passed by referendum a constitutional amendment banning it in 2004 in the heyday of anti-gay fervor. But yesterday comes news that a family living in a nearby community to mine that is headed by a same-sex couple with an adopted child had challenged it because Ohio’s definition of marriage excludes them from obtaining cheaper health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
[Read more…]