EasyJet has long been notorious for the level of service and comfort of a cattle car. However, the cattle were at least allowed to get on the plane and occasionally “moo”. Mark Leiser, who lectures at Strathclyde University, says that he was pulled out of line on his delayed flight and told that he could not board the plane. The reason? Lesier had tweeted criticism of the airline, which one would think the no-frills company would be rather used to. Apparently not. He says that he was only allowed on the plane after the airline employees discovered that he is a lawyer.
Category: International
Millions of Americans struggle on a daily basis to afford medicine in the United States which is the highest in the world. Many seek affordable drugs by driving to Canada or seeking medicine (as well as medical care) in India. Yet, one of the first things that President Obama did in the new health care law was to cave to a demand by the powerful pharmaceutical lobby to drop provisions guaranteeing cheaper medicine. The lobby then got Congress to block two measures to guarantee affordable medicine. With billions at stake, Congress and the White House again yielded to the demands of this industry, which is sapping the life savings away of millions of families. Given this history, many are concerned about a meeting planned between Obama and the Prime Minister of India. Public interest groups object that Obama is threatening retaliation against India in the hopes of blocking one of the major alternatives for families in acquiring affordable medicine. Congress has also again responded to industry demands for pressure in India to change its laws and, as a result, raise the cost of medicine. Doctors Without Borders, a highly respected medical group, has denounced the effort of the Obama Administration as threatening basic health care for its own citizens and those around the world.
Continue reading “Obama To India: Block Production Of Low-Cost Generic Drugs . . . Or Else”
It has been a bloody week for elephants in the news. Yesterday, we discussed how NBC has aired a program showing a NRA lobbyist shooting an elephant in the face for ratings while in Cameroon serial elephant poachers are facing just three years for killing more than 100 elephants. Over in Zimbabwe, three poachers have been sentenced to roughly 15 years in prison for killing another 81 elephants by poisoning their water holes. This sentence is more substantial and welcomed, though it is hard to imagine what you would have to do against the environment to merit a life sentence.
There is an increasing danger posed by new technology to privacy and civil liberties. New technology is being brought online at what seems an increasing rate with little consideration of their implications — or even their efficacy. This includes a license plate recognition (LPR) system being adopted by cities around the world which tracks and identifies the movements of vehicles — and by extension their owners. Now, a study by the National Institute of Justice has found no evidence that LPR actually reduces crime. It does however clearly reduce privacy.
Continue reading “Study Shows No Reduction In Crime Due To License Plate Recognition Technology”
Given the story today about the poaching of elephants, this video on Reddit caught my eye. It part of a show called Under Wild Skies What is this shit? For some reason, NBC Sports Network has been airing an NRA-sponsored hunting show called Under Wild Skies, which apparently airs on NBC. This video shows a lobbyist named Tony Makris shooting an elephant in the face. I am surprised to see NBC airing the scene. It shows that, while one cannot swear on television or show certain types of intimate scenes, you can still shoot a elephant in the face. [WARNING The video contains graphic and disturbing images]
The reason why elephants are going extinct may have something to do with a trial in Cameroon against twin brothers accused of killing more than 100 elephants in Central Africa. What is most striking about this story is that these brothers — Symphorien Sangha and Rene Sangha — have been arrested before and never served a day in jail. Now, with over 100 dead elephants to their credit, they are only looking at a maximum of three years in jail. Indeed, Symphorien Sangha was found guilty of killing elephants and wounding a forest ranger. He will receive 10 years for wounding the ranger but no more than three years for killing a huge number of elephants and a long record of poaching. With a deterrent level of that kind, it is astonishing that any elephants remain alive.
We have previously discussed the wholesale attack on free speech principles in France from limits on religious garments to stripping the Internet of anonymity to attempting to criminalize historical accounts. The most recent case involves a woman who named her boy “Jihad” and then dressed her three-year-old in a sweater with the words “Je suis une bombe – I am a bomb” on the front, along with his name and ‘Born on September 11th’ on the back. She was given a suspended jail sentence for “glorifying a crime” — it is a crime that is only punishable if you disregard the most fundamental principles of free speech. It turns out that the boy was born on September 11, 2009.
According to Dr Kate Loveman of the University of Leicester, the famous Earl of Sandwich was not the only member of his family with a keen culinary eye. Researchers have uncovered what is arguably the first English recipe in a collection of this grandfather, the earlier Earl of Sandwich. It turns out dessert came first in the family with recipes for chilled chocolate treats in 1668.
Sen. Lindsey Graham recently objected to President Barack Obama seeking congressional authorization to attack Syria (that’s right, in contradiction to every assumption James Madison may have made about Congress, Graham is one of those who wants to embrace an Imperial Presidency and gut the check on power represented by his own branch). Graham has been making it clear that he is not happy about the failure to join another war in the Middle East. So what does a hawk do when a war just doesn’t turn out as hoped? Graham is seeking authorization for a new war . . . not against Syria but Iran. After all, we have not defunded enough environmental, scientific, educational or welfare programs. Another war against one of the largest military powers in Middle East would guarantee a decade of military appropriations and interventions.
Continue reading “Graham Calls For Authorization Of War . . . Against Iran”
BBC News anchor Simon McCoy cause quite a chuckle this week by apparently confusing a ream of printer paper for an iPad. Of course, while the weight was a bit much and the WiFi horrible, the ream appeared to have the same connectivity over some 4G networks as an actual iPad. This network is more 3M and 4G.
Continue reading “Worst WiFi Ever: BBC Anchor Confuses Ream of Printer Paper With iPad”
A court in Sweden has handed done a rather novel ruling. The Södertörn District Court has declared that it is legal to masturbate in public so long as you are not “targeting” anyone in particular. Moreover, public prosecutor Olof Vrethammer says that he entirely supports the ruling.
Continue reading “Swedish Court Rules That Public Masturbation Is Legal”
We have previously seen stories of fake eggs, the sale of rat meat and other disturbing accounts from China’s food supply system. Accordingly, this story is not quite as shocking as it probably should be. Chinese officials in Xi’an, Shaanxi province have seized over 20,000 kg of fake beef made from pork and treated with chemicals to be sold for human consumption.
China appears to be returning to the Cultural Revolution with public confessions of dissidents as a warning to all those who would challenge the ruling party. Chinese viewers were exposed to a truly sad and transparent confession of American businessman and leading Chinese blogger, Charles Xue. The Chinese recognize the Internet as the greatest threat to the totalitarian regime. Xue was therefore rolled out to degrade himself before the Chinese people — begging forgiveness for forgetting his place in objecting to such things as contaminated water. He admits to feeling like the “emperor of the Internet” and apologizes for spreading rumors against the ruling party leaders.
Fights over beer are hardly unknown, particularly in the hard drinking circles of Russia (though vodka would appear the more likely fuel). However, police were called to a fight between two men standing in line over beer where one shot the other after arguing over . . . the writings of philosopher Immanuel Kant. It is clear that Kant and beer do not mix.
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
I’m an easy mark for those who want to approach me emotionally. My own life, with the normal tragedies of living seven decades has let me be attuned to others pain and to view that pain with an empathy born of my own suffering. Working out my own problems via years of therapy in my twenties and thirties, allowed me to finally let myself cry at the early death of my parent’s years before. I had put a “bottleneck” on tears since a teenager, choking sad emotions by constricting my throat and being in intellectual denial of the mourning I felt at their loss. This is not to say that I had no emotional outlets in my years prior to therapy, but they were limited to events far outside the ken of my life. Thus I could identify with wronged characters in movies and could cry at the death of Marin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. In my personal life though, I acted out the role ascribed to me in my High School Yearbook “Mike thinks that life is just a snap of his fingers”. Therapy changed that and allowed me to let myself be aware of and be guided by my emotions.
Emotionally, I am as patriotic an American as you might find. I love this country and I love the fact that I’m a citizen of it. My tears well up at the playing of our National Anthem. The Constitution is a sacred document to me and the aspirations of our “Founding Fathers” seem noble and just. In sports I often find myself moved to tears when athletes or teams overcome adversity and triumph. My family knows this emotional side of me since I cry at movies like “The Little Mermaid”. In personal relationships I am also ruled by emotion. People who treat me with kindness are not only repaid in kind, but I find myself rooting for their happiness and sad at their sadness. It is therefore quite easy to become someone I consider to be a friend and difficult for me to note imperfections in the friendships I’ve made. However, that is on an emotional level and as all humans, I am far more than just my emotions. Intellect and experience play important roles in shaping who we are. On a personal level I have experienced betrayal by “friends” and lovers. In my career I’ve experienced betrayal by those I thought of as friends and co-workers. However, I think those “let downs” are merely a normal part of the human experience. We humans learn and grow from our social interactions, allowing them to inform our interactions with each other.
We humans co-exist though in a larger context than mere personal interactions and that is a society known as “country”. Through the norms and mores of that society we find that our emotions are stimulated by the commonality of our existence as part of a whole. We rely on that society to protect us from predators and from those from other society’s that would do us harm. We unite emotionally in times of crisis and we feel warmth and comfort from being part of the whole. The most emotionally jarring event of the past five decades was the attack on 9/11 that galvanized this country almost as one entity. We commemorated the twelfth anniversary of this overwhelmingly sad event this past week. I need not describe the effect of this event on all of us, since I know that we all have sharp personal memories of that day and the days of anger, fear and confusion that followed. The reactions politically that followed 9/11 has personally scarred those who lived through it and have done great harm to our country. People from all sides of the political spectrum feel betrayed by the events that followed 9/11. Some feel betrayed because the majority of the country no longer supports the military interventions that ensued. Others feel betrayed because there is clear evidence that our government “lied” us into a costly war against a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. We have become then a nation of cynics when it comes to our government and I will explore why this can be either good or bad for the future of our country. Continue reading “In Defense of Being a Political Cynic”