There were two exchanges on TV recently that were interesting to watch. In both, Glenn Greenwald took on alleged liberals who could not hide their disdain for Edward Snowden while at the same time being obliged to concede that the documents he released revealed hitherto secret government activities that we had a right to know about. [Read more…]
Just a reminder for those who are in the Cleveland area that I will be part of a panel that will discuss the Greece v. Galloway case at an event that is free and open to the public. The actual title of the session is (for some obscure reason) Religion and the Constitution in Modern Life. My series of posts on this topic can be seen here. [Read more…]
Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum, has translated a 3,700-year old Babylonian cuneiform tablet that gives precise and detailed instructions for constructing an ark and, to everyone’s surprise, the shape of the ark is circular, not the regular boat shape that we have grown up with. This ark was designed to be like a giant round basket, 3,600 square meters in area, or about two-thirds the size of a football (i.e., soccer) pitch. That’s pretty big but still would be pretty crowded with all the animals. [Read more…]
The Republican National Committee at its winter meeting by a voice vote on Friday passed a “Resolution To Renounce The National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program” which said that “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution” and that “unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society and this program represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy and goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act.” [Read more…]
There are two British comedy series that can be seen on Hulu and that I can recommend.
One is Spy that consists of 17 half-hour episodes spread out over two seasons. The other is The Wrong Mans that consists of just six half-hour episodes. [Read more…]
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Richard Hofstadter’s article The paranoid style in American politics, published in Harper’s magazine in November 1964. To read it is to see how little some things have changed, apart from the names of the people and groups involved. [Read more…]
A new report has been released by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that was created by Congress in 2004 to serve as “an independent, bipartisan agency within the executive branch” to “review and analyze actions the executive branch takes to protect the Nation from terrorism, ensuring the need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties” and to “ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of laws, regulations, and policies related to efforts to protect the Nation against terrorism.” [Read more…]
The discovery of the Tiktaalik fossil back in 2006 was a cause of great celebration because it was a 385 million year old fossil that showed the early stages of forelimbs that indicated it was a transitional one from sea to amphibian. Neil Shubin, the leader of the team, wrote a highly engaging book Your Inner Fish that showed how much our human bides were shaped by our fishy ancestors. [Read more…]
The 7 Most Intriguing Philosophical Arguments for the Existence of God was the title of an article and of course I had to click on it. The author George Dvorsky started with disclaimers, emphasizing that these were purely philosophical arguments unsupported by any kind of scientific evidence. He added some other caveats: [Read more…]