If you ask Americans what the major flashpoints are that worsened relations between the US and Iran, the takeover of the US embassy in Teheran and holding the embassy personnel hostage will be easily recalled. Less likely to be recounted is the CIA-backed coup of 1953 that ousted the elected prime minister of that country and replaced him with the despotic Reza Pahlavi who adopted the grandiose title of the Shah of Iran. [Read more…]
I really don’t know much about this man who is described as an actor-comedian except that he has popped up on some clips that I have seen while surfing the net and he seemed like a lively and interesting guy who seemed to have no interest in being ingratiating and obsequious to the hosts of these shows so that he would be invited back. He seems to speak his mind and I like that attitude in a TV show guest. [Read more…]
News reports recently have focused on the angry reactions of the leaders of Brazil, Mexico, France, and Germany to reports that the NSA was eavesdropping on even their communications with their close confidantes and cabinet ministers and, in the case of the German chancellor, even her cell phone. [Read more…]
He returned from a one-week hiatus and took on the Republican party and Fox News effort to turn that sow’s ear of the shut down debacle into a silk purse of victory. [Read more…]
New Jersey started allowing same-sex marriages on Monday. In New Mexico today, the state Supreme Court will listen to arguments on whether same-sex marriages should be allowed, a case that was triggered by a clerk in one of the counties unilaterally deciding to issue marriage licenses to such couples. [Read more…]
The excellent book Dirty Wars that I reviewed yesterday is about 530 pages but is so well written that it was not hard to get through. What made it hard to take were the things the book described. For those who do not have the time to read it, the documentary of the same name covers the main points. But even those who have read the book will find the film well worth watching. It is one thing to read about the people and events described in the book, it is quite another to actually see the people and places involved and to hear from them first hand. [Read more…]
In a startling display of good sense, the ban on Chinese scientists attending a conference on the Kepler space telescope program at a NASA site has been reversed, after many non-Chinese scientists started talking about boycotting the event altogether, since even Chinese graduate students and post docs working in the US with US scientists would be barred. [Read more…]
Ohio governor John Kasich managed to get the Medicaid expansion policy passed in Ohio yesterday by doing an end run around the Republican-dominated state legislature that had opposed the move because they oppose anything to do with the Affordable Care Act even if it benefits those who are too poor to benefit from the new health care exchange and even if the federal government fully funds it for the first three years and at 90% thereafter. [Read more…]
Yesterday, as a result of a court ruling, same-sex couples were able to get married in New Jersey, making it the 14th state to do so, along with the District of Columbia. This is of course an important step forward for equality but I thought it a telling sign of how same-sex marriage has become normalized, at least in the major media, that the story they seemed to focus on was governor Chris Christie’s decision to not appeal the lower court decision to the New Jersey Supreme Court and what impact that move would have on his chances to win the 2016 Republican nomination for president, assuming that he decides to run. [Read more…]