On John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight, he had a hilarious clip (sorry, embedding was disallowed so you will have to follow the link to see it) about Ayn Rand titled Why is Ayn Rand still a thing?, because she is still a big influence on Republicans with presidential ambitions people like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz, who all proudly state that they are fans of her despite her support for abortion rights and her atheism.
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Passenger pigeons are fascinating. They used to exist in the billions in the US, so numerous that they sometimes blackened the sky. But like so many species, they went extinct. What is remarkable, though, is that we think we know the exact date that this unfortunate event happened.
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The US government has the power to issue people with what are known as ‘national security letters’ that require recipients to not only give the government any data it requests even if it is about their clients, but they are forbidden to tell anyone, even their lawyers, that they received such a letter. So for example, they can ask your librarian to tell them what items you check out or your internet provider to hand over any information they have on you. It is an astounding assertion of government power and shows the reach of the national security state.
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The events of September 11, 2001 scared the daylights out of the American public. Apart from spawning numerous deadly and endless wars around the globe that have resulted in the number of deaths being many times the original figure of 3,000, it has also spawned a mindset that seems to think that the US government has a duty to create a society where there is zero risk from dying from a terrorist attack.
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Stephen Colbert looks at some of the people having ambitions of running for the presidency and their appearance at that reactionary love-fest known as the Values Voters Summit, and what some are saying about science, focusing on Bobby Jindal. I don’t know who will be the Republican nominee in 2016 but I am almost 100% certain it won’t be Jindal however much he panders to ignorance.
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Astrology is taken very seriously in Sri Lanka with many people, including politicians and businesspeople, not taking major decisions without first getting advice from astrologers as to what the decision should be and the proper time to take action. When my daughter was born in the US, we refused to tell people back in Sri Lanka what time she was born in order to thwart some relatives there who asked for that information because we knew that they would use to create a horoscope for her and we did not want her to be saddled with this nonsense.
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Stephen Colbert could not resist talking about a topic that is ripe for ridicule and that is the fuss over the Muslim professional football player who prayed in the end zone after a touchdown, and made points similar to some of the ones I made earlier.
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I was listening to a report on NPR about the problem of police are reacting with overwhelming force in so many situations that do not warrant it, and in the process shooting and killing people who later turn out to be quite innocent.
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Spencer Ackerman writes that the Obama administration has asked a federal judge to close to the media and public a hearing to be held on its brutal force-feeding practices on prisoners at Guantanamo, prompting suspicions that they are, as usual, seeking to cover up the atrocities they are committing while sanctimoniously preaching about human rights to the rest of the world
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It looks like Obama has declared open season on Syrian civilians, including women and children.
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