Let’s talk about ISIS. Yes, it’s a military organization, amongst other things, but far more than that, it’s an idea, a radical Islamic idea. It’s a terrible idea, based on medieval attitudes, but it’s still an idea. Hands up who …
I have railed for months about the pro-Clinton bias in the NYTimes. Today’s headline reads Three Crucial States Show Tight Races Between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton PARA 2: “The Quinnipiac University surveys, released on Tuesday, show Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. …
Paris/San Bernadino happened because of ISIS. ISIS arose because Iraq was invaded. Iraq was invaded because of 9/11. 9/11 happened because of U.S. missile strikes on Bin Laden’s HQ, see White House daily brief, Wikipedia. The missile strikes happened because …
From a NYT article about a new anti-gay policy of the Mormon Church: It appears that the new rules were not supposed to be made public. They were issued as changes to a confidential handbook, and sent out by email …
What Religion Would Countenance a Confidential Handbook? Read more »
Mother Jones has a really interesting article on how our beliefs block new information: Pre-existing beliefs, far more than new facts, skew our thoughts. Feelings arise before conscious thoughts and color them. Confirmation bias gives more weight to facts that …
David Brooks is the token conservative on the New York Times OpEd page. He replaced the insufferable William Safire, but has still been reliably conservative. But something has happened as of late; he has been writing columns displaying empathy, such …
Here’s what the corporate state has come to: You need a college education to get a job; You have to pay for it; You can’t escape that debt (it’s high interest, and not dischargeable in bankruptcy); Therefore you have to …
The existence of elections, civil law and free speech gives the appearance of a functioning democracy, but in practice they are not acting as intended. 1. Voting is not Representative Voting is skewed in America in many ways. Districts are …
The NYTimes reports that how Supreme Court Justices vote on 1st Amendment claims depends on their political leanings. The worst liberal bias is 1.3, whereas the conservative biases range from 3 to 7. This is unsettling enough by itself, but …
Political bias measured in Supreme Court Decisions Read more »
Nice article in Salon suggesting that Republicans adopt a religious mantle to capture voters in the South for whom religion is so important that it trumps their economic interests.