David Letterman pokes fun at the photos of Paul Ryan released on the day of the debate. When I first saw them, I thought that they were photoshopped but it turns out that he actually posed for them. It adds to the overall image of a self-aggrandizing narcissist. [Read more…]
We have heard charges from the Romney-Ryan camp that the Obama administration will cut the defense budget while the Obama camp has countered that their opponents are proposing a $2 trillion increase without saying how they will pay for it. [Read more…]
The Obama administration has had shifting explanations for the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the death of US diplomats. After initially claiming that it was the result of spontaneous anger over the Innocence of Muslims film, it then said that it was a planned attack by al Qaeda that used a demonstration generated by that anger as a cover. It now appears that there was no demonstration at all. [Read more…]
Remember my post last month about Ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis protesting a proposed new law in New York City that would require parents to sign a consent form before the rabbis could practice a form of circumcision where the rabbi uses his mouth to suck the blood from the infant’s bleeding penis? [Read more…]
The debate was certainly livelier than the presidential one, with surprisingly quite substantive exchanges between the two participants. I think that this debate showed more clearly the differences between the two candidates, especially on domestic policy. You can watch it and read the transcript here [Read more…]
They provide one of the best examinations of how the entire ‘plan’ is a fraud. There is no plan. All there is is a bunch of words strung together to make people feel that they will get something for nothing. [Read more…]
The notable silence by the Republicans on the issue of same-sex marriage during the current election campaign is a sign, if one needed one, of how rapidly sentiment has shifted on this issue. In 2004 opposition to this was very potent and was used to galvanize voters to go to the polls and vote for George W. Bush. Daniel McCarthy argues in The American Conservative that it is one more sign of the retreat of religion in the face of modernity. [Read more…]
Taliban gunmen in Pakistan shot a 14-year old girl Malala Yousafzai in the head and neck. Her offense? They claimed that she had ‘promoted secularism’ on the blog or diary she wrote for the BBC starting in 2009 when she was just 11. But all she was doing was chronicling the anxiety and tensions of a child living in a danger zone. She had written under a pen name but her identity was exposed. [Read more…]
In investigating further following my post on Pulpit Freedom Sunday, I was initially dismayed by the possibility that there was a reasonable chance that the US Supreme Court may rule that churches have the right to engage in partisan political activity and support candidates and parties while still retaining their tax exempt status. It seemed like it would be yet another case of privileging religion in public life, allowing them advantages that are denied to non-religious groups. [Read more…]
When my children used to live at home and they heard me talking on the phone, they said they could tell immediately, even when they were little, whether the person at the other end of the line was of Sri Lankan origin or not, even though I was talking in English. They said they could tell from my choice of words and the inflections in my voice even though I was not aware of making any changes in my speech patterns. [Read more…]