In the US someone can set up a bogus church and proceed to fleece people by getting them to donate money, even what they cannot afford. Those donations are tax deductible and the pastors get to live the high life with fancy houses, private jets and the like at our expense. The government will not touch them because as soon as they do, people will scream ‘religious persecution’.
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I am not a big fan of the T20 format of cricket where each side gets to bat for only 20 overs. Sure, it is very popular because it lasts only about three hours and thus is more commercially viable but it encourages batters to be hyper-aggressive and hit at pretty much everything, rather than play the judicious strokes that are the essence of the game.
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Super Tuesday on March 1 was supposed to be the day when the primary races were largely settled with a clear winner emerging, with all the other candidates acknowledging reality and dropping out of the race and throwing their weight behind the party nominee, enabling that person to focus for the next eight months on uniting the party and crafting a message that would win the general election in November.
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I went to see the film Where to Invade Next yesterday and it confirmed my view that Michael Moore is one of the most important American makers of documentaries. He is unabashedly political but manages to mix his messages with humor and that is what makes him different. The film is very cheerful and hopeful, that we can do better than we do.
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I have been reading about the increased number of incidents in which pilots of planes report that they have been blinded by laser beams aimed at the cockpit from the ground. I was surprised by this since the lasers one uses in everyday life are quite low in power and it is not easy to aim them. But it turns out that these lasers, which can be easily purchased online, are more powerful than the ones used in meeting presentations and are getting even more powerful. Authorities are treating them as dangerous practices and urging a crackdown.
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The Girl Scouts of America are a great organization, very supportive of diversity and inclusion, and welcoming members of the LGBT community into their ranks. Unlike the Boy Scouts who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world by threats of boycotts, the Girl Scouts have been very forward looking.
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The two party establishments must have been wishing for different results than what they got last night. On the Democratic side, no doubt they were clearly hoping that Hillary Clinton would crush Bernie Sanders and force him out of the race quickly so that then Clinton and the party could go back to their familiar and comfortable space of oligarchy-friendly, Wall Street-friendly, and war-friendly policies without the pesky Sanders forcing her to address the issues of inequality, war, and the corrupt political system that have been the cornerstones of his candidacy.
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She rightly points out that while we pay a lot of attention to presidential election years, we pay far too little attention to mid-term elections and local and state elections, although these can have very significant consequences. The low voter turnout at such elections tends to result in horrible people getting elected to office.
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One of the zombie memes of this election cycle is that while Sanders is the better candidate on the issues and has been a consistent supporter of progressive values all his life, we should vote for the warmongering, oligarchy-supporting Hillary Clinton because despite her dubious past policy positions and doubtful integrity, she is the more ‘electable’ candidate.
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Hillary Clinton has refused to release the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs, speeches for which she received a whopping $675,000 for just three speeches. It is unlikely that she had anything to say that was of practical use to the audience of investment bankers, so naturally one wonders why they were willing to pay her so much and why she is so reluctant to reveal their contents.
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