As many on this blog know, I have long been a supporter of same-sex marriage and gay rights. However, I have qualms about a story this morning that Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich has been forced to step down after a campaign by an online dating service. The campaign revealed that Eich had made a donated $1,000 in 2008 in support of California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state before it was struck down in the federal courts. The controversy raises again the tension between free speech and corporate identity.
Category: Society
Israel’s Second Authority for Television and Radio has banned the Hoodies commercial below as containing “too many sexual insinuations.” The commercial shows a supermodel with Red Orbach, a famous puppet character, in bed with not so veiled references to puppet-human relations. It raises again the ongoing controversy over censorship in commercials to protect younger or more sensitive viewers.
Continue reading “Banned In Israel: Censors Block The Red Orbach in Hoodie Commercial”
Ever wonder how Italians learn to speak with their hands? By the way, every Italian word that I ever learned was taught to me by my Sicilian grandmother, Josephine Piazza, over her kitchen table.
We have been discussing the horrific rollback of environmental protections in Australia under Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Now, Abbott’s government and industry allies are pushing for a change in competition laws to ban on campaigns against companies on the grounds that they are selling products that damage the environment.
Continue reading “Australian Government Moves To Ban Environmental Boycotts Under Competition Laws”
I must be missing something. English prosecutors are heralding the sentencing of Mohammed Khalid Jamil as a “landmark case” in their campaign against computer fraud. Jamil ran an international conspiracy to defraud people of millions in a Microsoft scam. However, he received just a four-month sentence and that sentence was promptly suspended. As for the fine, he was told to pay £5,665. How exactly is that a landmark?
Angela Timmons, 54, an employee at Virginia College in South Carolina, appears to have carried out an April Fools’ Day prank that few in her family will soon forget. Timmons, 54, send an email to her daughter that there was a gunman on the loose at the school and the daughter called police — triggering a massive response. It was a stupid prank. However, the range of charges against Timmons is a bit disconcerting.
Continue reading “Fool Me Once . . . : April Fool’s Day Prank Of Daughter Leads To Mother’s Arrest”
The Albuquerque police have long been criticized for a high rate of shootings and the increasing militarization of their operations. This month, many have joined in that criticism after the release of a videotape of police shooting a homeless camper, James Boyd, in the foothills outside of the city.
As the United States continues to grapple with openly corrupt officials and businesses in Afghanistan and Iraq who have stolen billions in aid, the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian system appears eager to outdo their counterparts. The poster boy of Ukrainian corruption is Vladimir Belonog who has been openly selling meals ready to eat (MREs) that were shipping only days before to the country to support its besieged military. Belonog is selling the MREs with the U.S. markings still on them and the warning “U.S. Government Property, commercial resale is unlawful.” What is most remarkable is that he has not been arrested after selling the aid in plain view of the government. Diplomats and experts have described Ukraine under Presidents Kuchma and Yushchenko as a virtual kleptocracy, or government of thieves.
It is like a bus version of Thomas the Tank Engine.
We previously discussed how CIA officials were accused of trying to intimidate Senate staffers working on an investigation into allegations of torture and lies by the agency officials. Now the details of that still classified report have been leaked to the media. For the Senate Intelligence Committee (long accused of being a rubber stamp for intelligence agencies), the report is quite damning. The Senate found a pattern of misinformation knowingly released by the CIA to convince the public that its torture program yielded valuable intelligence — and new forms of torture that have never been previously confirmed. What is most striking however is what is not in the report: a recommendation for criminal prosecution. Indeed, consistent with its past approach to intelligence abuses, the Committee does not recommend any action be taken against a single CIA official.
While the Obama Administration struggles to restore good relations with Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom continues to lead the effort among Arab nations to deny most rights of free exercise, free expression, and free association. Saudi Arabia has fought for the creation of an international blasphemy standard (with the support of the Obama Administration) and has continued to deny basic rights of worship to religious minorities. Now, the the Kingdom has introduced new criminal provisions that makes atheism not only blasphemy but terrorism.
Not that long ago, we discussed a case where an elderly couple was pulled over by Tennessee police because they had Buckeye leaf decal as Ohio State football fans — including a leaf image that police mistook for a marijuana leaf. They were told to be more careful in showing such images in the future. It seems that the entire state of Colorado could receive the same treatment after Darien Roseen, 70, was stopped when he was returning from a baby shower. He says he was searched because he had a Colorado plate. Since the state recently legalized marijuana, Idaho State Trooper Justin Klitch allegedly stopped his car in what is being called a case of “license plate profiling.” He is now suing over the stop and search.
It is not unknown for medical researchers in history to make themselves a test subject to avoid endangering others in their experimental treatments or medicines. Russian history professor Andrei Zubov took the same approach recently with his own field. As with many intellectuals in Russia, Zubov was convinced that Vladimir Putin has long worked to reestablish a dictatorship in Russia. He decided to put this theory to the test by writing an article comparing Putin to Hitler. The experiment was successful in a curious way. Zubov was immediately fired for the “immoral act” to criticizing the supreme leader.
Continue reading ““So-rella! So-rella!”: The Singing Nun Hits A High Note On The Voice”
Poverty and hunger continue to be a major problem across the country. However, in a decision that baffles and outrages many, Costco has decided that it will not allow millions of dollars worth of peanut butter to be given away. Instead, the company has ordered that the food be dumped in a New Mexico landfill.