In a post on July 25, I mentioned early reports of a possible massacre by Israeli troops in the town of Khuza’a near the Israeli border, with social media providing gruesome stories. In a new report, Human Rights Watch confirms it, saying that between July 23 and 25, Israeli troops deliberately targeted civilians, killing them as they walked with their hands up or carrying white flags or were running away.
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There is new comedy show appearing on cable TV.
The new show stars Gerald “Slink” Johnson as a modern-day black Jesus living in rough-and-tumble Compton, Calif., spreading “love and kindness” with a “loyal group of downtrodden followers,” according to Turner Broadcasting System’s press release.
…In a statement, Adult Swim said “Black Jesus is a satire and one interpretation of the message of Jesus played out in modern day morality tales; and despite what some may consider a controversial depiction of Jesus, it is not the intent to offend any race or people of faith.”
There is a new study out that reinforces a point that I have made repeatedly, that focusing on people’s weight (as measured by the Body Mass Index) instead of their health is the wrong way to go and in fact may be harmful because it discourages people from a healthy lifestyle, despite all its benefits, if it does not result in weight loss. As one of the authors of the study says:
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Yesterday’s The Intercept story by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux about the numbers of people caught up in the various government’s watch lists was based on confidential documents from the National Counterterrorism Center that was leaked to them. What was interesting is that these were not part of the trove of documents released by Edward Snowden and the date of the documents is August 2013 showing that they were created after Snowden left the NSA.
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Three new bloggers have joined FrethoughtBlogs. They are Heina Dadabhoy who writes at Heinous Dealings, Aoife O’Riordan at Consider the Tea Cosy, and Hiba Krisht at Between a Veil and a Dark Place.
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There have been a spate of reports of pastors of megachurches getting caught doing things that Jesus would not do. Consider Mark Driscoll, head of the Mars Hill Church, that is actually (if you can believe it) franchised out like McDonalds to 15 different locations. He has got into trouble because of revelations about his shady behavior and he has advised his followers to not believe what they read about him on the internet.
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The Daily Show exposes the hypocrisy of the US government in that, while calling for an end to hostilities in Gaza, it is also rushing more weapons and ammunition to enable Israel to replenish the weapons stocks it has used up in the massive bombardment of Gaza so that it can keep bombing at the same high rate if the current ceasefire should break down. The assault has already resulted in the deaths of more than 1,800 Gazans of whom nearly 400 are children.
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Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux of The Intercept have a detailed analysis based on confidential documents that they have received that about 40% of the 680,000 people on the US government’s Terrorist Screening Database have no recognized terrorist group affiliation. The TSDB is the ‘watch list’ that the government uses and one can land up on it merely if some government agency somewhere decided that you are suspicious.
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The new film Boyhood has got rave reviews all around. I have not seen it as yet and so was interested by this article by Los Angeles Times and NPR film critic Kenneth Turan who was not overly impressed with it, thinking it merely OK and somewhat gimmicky.
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We already know that the CIA’s use of a fake anti-vaccination program in Pakistan to try and find Osama bin Laden has caused the entire polio vaccination campaign in that country to become the target of the Taliban who have used that appalling strategy to portray all vaccination campaigns as potential CIA plots and even kill heath workers in those programs..
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