The big US internet technology companies protested loudly that the mass spying by the NSA on the people using their systems was done without their knowledge or consent. One could be excused for being skeptical of their claims of innocence and now a top lawyer for the NSA confirms our doubts, saying on Wednesday that Silicon Valley companies knew all along that the NSA was spying on their systems.
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When I was reading the Harry Potter books, although J. K. Rowling told a good yarn and plotted her stories well, the romance between Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley never seemed to me to be plausible. It seemed like the author was trying to avoid the obvious narrative device of the leading man and leading woman getting together at the end and was going for the slightly counter-intuitive relationship. It just did not work for me. Harry’s romance and marriage to what’s-her-name was also implausible as can be seen from the fact that I can’t even recall her name (or her face from the films) and remember anything about her except that she was Ron’s sister.
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You may have heard of the Christian school teacher in Louisiana who ridiculed a student in her class who happened to be Buddhist. She seems to be a real piece of work and what was worse, was backed up by school and district authorities.
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Jon Stewart of The Daily Show never gets tired of the opportunity to make fun of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s facial resemblance to a turtle and to try out his voice at how a turtle might talk. McConnell’s latest campaign commercial has provided Stewart with another golden opportunity to poke fun at his stiffness.
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Cleveland is your ordinary mid-western town in a state (Ohio) that is not known for its liberal views on social issues. But I must say that when it comes to LGBT rights, it has shown itself to be well ahead of some cities that have ostensibly more liberal reputations.
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The Christian Science Monitor has reproduced the 32-question survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life to gauge people’s knowledge of religion.
According to the Pew results:
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Via Jonathan Turley, I came across this shocking story of pregnant women in police custody who, when it came time to deliver their babies, were shackled to the beds. This is even if they are not accused of anything remotely dangerous. One woman has sued to stop this barbaric practice.
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Via the Cryptic Philosopher, here is a follow-up to the post about trailer voice-over artists like Hal Douglas who died recently.
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Ed Yong has a fascinating story about six Burmese pythons who were captured in the Florida Everglades (where they have become a voracious invasive species killing off the native wildlife), implanted with radio-transmitters to track their movements, and then let loose at various locations that were 21 to 36 kilometers away from their point of capture.
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In an interview given to Rolling Stone magazine, Bill Gates reveals himself susceptible to that fatuous argument from incredulity, that just because he doesn’t understand how the complexity of the world came about, it must imply that there is a god, which is basically the intelligent design argument.
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