A couple of days ago I mentioned the Pentagon’s illegal covert propaganda program instigated for political purposes by the White House: ♦ Bush’s covert propaganda campaign. A couple days earlier I commented on the fact not a single news source has followed up on ABC News’ unpromoted and forgotten reveal that key figures in the [...]
READ MORE »Monthly archives for April, 2008
Anarchist medical care.
I am not a fan of the American health care system. I take that back–the health care is fine when insurance companies are not involved. We don’t own the market on advanced care, unlike what jingoist conservatives would have you believe. There are medical facilities in developing nations that have the technology and medical training [...]
READ MORE »Up against the wall (, put ‘em…)
My final verdict on Ashcroft: this is what Hannah Arendt meant by “the banality of evil.” He seems like a normal guy (albeit one with some real anger issues), and yet…well, I don’t need to finish that sentence. This is from a contributor to the Daily KOS blog, referring to a speech given by John [...]
READ MORE »It’s easy to make your point when you use lies and fantasy.
It’s hard not to comment on the horrific screed that is the movie “Expelled”. I’ve not seen it, and I’m not sure I want to (just as I’m not interested in seeing Michael Moore’s manipulative and half-truth pseudo-docs). But Scientific America has a great article listing a few things that the movies gets horribly wrong–and [...]
READ MORE »Little Brother’s watching Big Brother. And, Bush hates literacy.
I’ve been anticipating Cory Doctorow’s latest novel for half a year now, since I first heard of it. It’s a young adult novel in which some innocent kids get picked up by Homeland Security for suspicion of involvement in a terrorist act. After the treatment they receive, the decide it’s time to bring back the [...]
READ MORE »Lettuce is the last straw, pt. 2.
Was reminded on a talk show today of how McCain, whenever he’s asked why he’s against socialized health care since, as the son of an Admiral and as a Senator, has had socialized government medical care all his life–he deflects the question or simply demonizes Canada’s and Europe’s health care as if Canadian hospitals have [...]
READ MORE »Lettuce is the last straw.
Interesting article from someone reporting on the high cost of lettuce tipping their realization scale: ♦ iReport: Realization of rise in food prices. The comments are interesting. There’s a good chance that American gas and consumable prices are simply climbing to world market standard prices, as seen in Canada and Europe. And they may end [...]
READ MORE »Bush’s covert propaganda campaign.
Taking another play out of the Goebbels’s playbook, the White House has been covertly sending in “political analysts” to the news shows promoting the war…who are either being paid by the Pentagon or have close financial ties to military contracts, as reported by the NY Times: ♦ Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand (Side note: [...]
READ MORE »“Shakespeare’s Pulp Fiction”
An absolutely hilarious posting on BoingBoing this weekend: ♦ Shakespeare’s Pulp Fiction Be sure to follow the link to the source site to see an even better sample of Pulp Fiction as written by Shakespeare. I was literally in pain from giggling reading it.
READ MORE »The religious morality test.
Christopher Hitchens has a question he asks people who think morality comes from a divine source: If you say that morality can only be derived from a supernatural authority/dictatorship, then you must be able to name for me an ethical statement made or ethical action performed by a believer that could not have been performed [...]
READ MORE »Reading right along. (And Brust/Firefly bright point.)
It’s really sad, and in a way is reflective of how my life has been going. I used to be a voracious reader. I was introduced to the works of Poe, Bradbury, and Lovecraft around the 3rd grade. I was hooked on scifi and horror ever since. In jr. and high school I read a [...]
READ MORE »Science education vs. proud ignorance.
I was having an imaginary conversation with myself yesterday, debating the question of why not allow people to have their misguided pseudo-scientific beliefs. I was thinking about it in context of things like ghost-whispering psychics, and wheat grass juice, and Airborne supplements, etc. Things which seem harmless enough (except for Airborne. You risk vitamin E [...]
READ MORE »King George admit to torture; media yawns.
An ABC News report last Friday revealed that King George, as well as top officials in the administration, knew of and approved torture of detainees. How may papers made this front page news? How many major media networks made this a leading story (or even a story at all)? None. Not a damn one. The [...]
READ MORE »“Read these walls that you guard!”
This is irony. In the very memorial for the most ardent fighter for liberty and opponent for State power and control over people, Thomas Jefferson, a student gets arrested for daring to ask what laws she was breaking by quiet celebratory dancing on his birthday. ♦ Woman Arrested for Dancing at the Jefferson Memorial Of [...]
READ MORE »Big Bad Things CAN happen; we have the ability to change things.
I learned in a theory class last year that people have a tendency to think that the way things are are the way things have always been and always will be. Before the Enlightenment, people had a good reason to believe this. For centuries of feudalism everyone followed the feudal ideology living lives defined by [...]
READ MORE »What Biblical scholars would prefer you didn’t know.
Here’s an interesting videotaped lecture from a Biblical scholar and former Christian evangelical (until, get this, after he learned Biblical scholarship), discussing how, well, basically how the masses’ religion is kept alive by people who don’t want it known what Biblical scholars know about Biblical history and validity. ♦ Hector Avalos: How Archaeology Killed Biblical [...]
READ MORE »Hopping onto the Expelled issue.
There’s a movie coming out called Expelled, which tries to argue that there are people in academia being fired and denied tenure because of Intelligent Design beliefs. And more ridiculously, how “Darwinism” (which is really a silly term) was the basis for Nazi holocaust. Well, let me allow others, involved in the film and the [...]
READ MORE »Writing on track.
I wrote 25 new pages on my novel/thesis this weekend. A huge burst of productivity! And best of all, it got me past a certain bit of creative block and got me to an area that’s progressing the plot again. And it takes me to the beginning of a character development that the novel really [...]
READ MORE »I am an atheist.
My being an atheist may not be surprising to some, but stating it is unusual. I’ve stated many times on here, and in person, that I’m a “non-theist.” Which is really just a weaselly way of saying “atheist.” (Although, it began as a all-inclusive way of saying “Deist,” then “agnostic”….) I still don’t plan on [...]
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