Before law enforcement officials released photographs of the two suspects in the Boston bombing, some media outlets went overboard in their attempt to finger ‘dark-skinned’ people as culprits for the Boston bombing. [Read more…]
The debate over gun control is a complicated one. A case can be made that people should have the right to own guns of their own. But there is no question that opponents of any form of gun control invest in the Second Amendment an almost mystical quality that suggests that any regulation of any kind is a horrendous violation, and this is taking them over the cliff leading to a kind of extremism that can backfire. [Read more…]
I was always curious as to how people are selected to be in the police line up of suspects. Apart from the person of interest, who are the other people? Police officers in plain clothes was my guess. But this clip from a new comedy series The Lineup on YouTube suggests that I may be wrong. (Via Bluegal) [Read more…]
Rand Paul clearly has ambitions of running for the presidency, if not in 2016 then later. He got a lot of press for going to Howard University to talk about GOP outreach to the African-American community. It was not a big success, unless he was trying to get a negative reaction from the students there in order to improve his standing with the GOP base, which sees all minorities as moochers. [Read more…]
Margaret Thatcher was a very polarizing figure during her time in public life. Some loved her policies, others hated them, with me falling in the latter category. Following her death, there has been the predictable reaction from some quarters that those who disliked her actions should not say anything bad about her out of respect for her family. Of course, when the dead person is an enemy (such as bin Laden or Saddam Hussein and his sons) their delicate sense of propriety seems to disappear and we had in the US gleeful gloating at the highest levels (see here and here). [Read more…]
For a while I was getting worried. Pat Robertson had started saying sensible things, such as that religious people should not be saying things like the age of the Earth is just 6,000 years old that oppose well established scientific facts, and that marijuana should be legalized. I was afraid that these were signs that we had entered some strange alternate universe. [Read more…]
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show comments amusingly on something that has struck me too, and that is why is it that the thought of same-sex marriage seems to drive opponents so crazy that they immediately start making the most outlandish arguments. [Read more…]
Listen to this Catholic priest who argues on Fox that opponents of gay marriage are now the victimized ones, the oppressed ones. What is amazing is that he thinks it is unfair and outside the bounds of civilized debate to characterize certain views as bigotry while at the same time he thinks nothing of referring to people as sinners. And even though many religious people believe that sinners go to hell where they face everlasting torment, that is supposed to perfectly acceptable to say. [Read more…]
Larry Wilmore and Jon Stewart have one of their entertaining and insightful discussions on race in America on The Daily Show, this time dealing with the recent Republican efforts at improving their message to court minorities. [Read more…]
Stephen Colbert does an analysis of the GOP’s new report on why they think they lost the last election and what they plan to do about it. One strategy is to use celebrities to court the youth vote and Colbert and suggests some names of conservative celebrities that will be surefire hits with the young. [Read more…]