Film review: The Brand New Testament (2015)

As we all know, the big theological problem that theologians try to explain away but never succeed is that of theodicy, why a loving god would allow so much evil in the world. Well, this French film, one of the most wildly imaginative comedies I have seen in a good while, answers that question. God turns out to be a real bastard who enjoys deliberately creating wars and setting people against each other. But he is even more wicked than some of us imagined. He actually creates all the laws that really annoy people, such as the phone ringing just when you start to enjoy a bath, the line next to you moving faster in the supermarket, and the bread with the jam side falling on the floor.
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John Oliver on the Trump budget

It is a pretty good description of the fact the budget hits the poor and those who voted for Trump the hardest. But I think Oliver is wrong in thinking that Trump’s fans will get fed up soon. While there is a little support for this view, usually once people have visibly given their support for someone or something, they tend to have suffer from a version of the ‘sunk cost’ mentality and will double down on their support just to convince themselves that they did not make the wrong decision. We have a long way to go until the reality hits them so hard upside the head that they will be willing to concede their error.
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Trump’s “big, beautiful” wall with Mexico takes shape

The US Customs and Border Protection agency has posted guidelines for people to make proposals for building the wall across the US-Mexico border, the “big, beautiful” magical wall that is going to stop all drugs, crime, and terrorist attacks in the US and make America great again, so that it is well worth gutting programs like providing meals to shut-in seniors to pay for it.
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Republicans really, really hate poor people

It is no surprise that Republicans love the rich and want to make them richer. So do the Democrats for that matter. What separates the two is that Democrats at least try to mask that deep love by offering crumbs to the poor and the middle class. While Republicans in the past tried, at least faintheartedly, to act as if they too cared for the less well off, now that they control the White House and both houses of Congress, they don’t even try and with Paul Ryan’s health care proposal and Trump’s proposed budget, the mask has really come off, revealing the ugliness beneath.
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