I have written before about how similar is Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people and its occupation of Palestinian lands to the apartheid policies of the former Afrikaner South African regimes. [Read more…]
Do you recall the Cheerios commercial I wrote about last month that featured a mixed-race couple and their child and that sparked so much anger when it was shown on YouTube that the comments had to be shut down? Well, the show Kids React showed the commercial to their child panelists to get their reaction. It is well worth watching. [Read more…]
Jeremy Scahill’s book Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (2013) describes how the US became one of the most sophisticated torture regimes the world has ever known. It started out by the government creating the program known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) that was meant to train US forces to be able to resist torture if they were captured by enemy forces. They studied all the torture practices from medieval times onwards to distill out the most effective ones and created a SERE manual to be used as part of survival training exercises. [Read more…]
Suzanne Venker has come to the defense of the most beleaguered group in America, one that is cruelly put upon from all sides, from being bashed in the media to having schools and colleges stacked against them, all the while being falsely accused of all manner of abuses while their own victimhood is ignored. She says this group has become second-class citizens. [Read more…]
Remember the mysterious burglary of a computer laptop in Brazil in Glenn Greenwald’s home just after he emailed that he would be sending an encrypted message home? We now have another mysterious burglary at a Dallas law firm which only computers were taken and other valuables (including silver bars and video equipment) were ignored. The firm had been hired by a different whistleblower, this time in the State Department. [Read more…]
Via Juan Cole, I came across this excellent news clip from a British TV station below that summarizes the status of the Edward Snowden case. While it is a pretty accurate summary of the current situation, what I found particularly is interesting is skeptical tone that the reporters display about the US government’s claims, unlike the major US media that tends to treat them as if they have automatic credibility. They also point out the hypocrisy of Microsoft’s claims to protect their customers’ privacy, the hollowness of which was exposed by the latest revelations, though this big news disappeared rapidly from US news channels. [Read more…]
Sometimes people write in the comments that in support of some position or another, I have quoted people who may have dubious views on other issues. This does not necessarily bother me. I don’t expect people to agree with me on everything and when I read something that is persuasive, I do not check on the other views of the person writing it, unless he or she is basing the argument on something factual that requires checking. If the facts underlying it are not in dispute, the persuasiveness of an argument should stand or fall on the quality of the argument itself. [Read more…]
Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for the crime of speaking out for the rights of girls to get a good education in her country, addressed the United Nations yesterday on her 16th birthday. She gave a stirring speech, which many may have already seen and part of which can be seen here. [Read more…]
Now that the US Supreme Court has ruled on the Proposition 8 and DOMA cases in ways that were favorable to same-sex marriage but left unresolved the question of whether bans on such marriages were unconstitutional, as expected new cases are being filed at the state level that go to the heart of the matter. About 14 such cases are already in the works with more expected and at least one of these cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court fairly soon. [Read more…]