This is amazing. In Montana, scientists have discovered a mosquito that is still carrying blood from animals in the Eocene — that is some 46 million years ago. Of course, creationists would point out that scientists are again some 46 million years off since the Earth is only a few thousand years old.
Continue reading “Scientists Find Rare Mosquito Containing Blood From Eocene Period”
There is an uproar over the rather refined tastes of the bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst. Despite the serious financial problems of the church and a new Pope who (to his and the church’s great credit) is shedding many trappings of the papacy, the bishop is building a luxurious home and offices next to Limburg Cathedral in the state of Hesse. Originally, estimated at €3 million, the complex is now up to €31 million. It includes a few items that seem out of place with a vow of poverty. He has now been called to Rome — apparently to answer why he seems to be a walk-on for a Robin Hood remake movie.
Continue reading “German Bishop Under Fire For Expensive Tastes”
Occasionally, something will happen that shows a latent tendency of dishonesty in people regardless of class or station. Once the lights go off or security is suspended, there is an explosion of thefts or some riot. I remember one Christmas seeing what looked like lawyers or businessmen trying to use umbrellas to unhook fur decorations on the Christmas tree in the Daley Plaza that were part of a Canadian holiday display. One was actually on the other one’s shoulders. I am not sure why I am always surprised. However, this weekend, the food stamp computer system in Louisiana experienced a glitch where it would not show the limit on cards. Most stores stopped purchases with the EBT cards. However, Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, Louisiana decided to continue to make sales. The word quickly spread and the stores were mobbed with shoppers who took virtually every item off the shelves. Then the EBT cards came back online with the limits on the cards . . .
Continue reading “Walmart Store Picked Clean After Computer Malfunctions In Louisiana”
As many of you know, I love football and support God’s true team, the Chicago Bears. However, I have long complained that I never take the kids to football games because of the pervasive swearing and drunkenness. For families, the most obnoxious element has taken over these games, drunken, adolescent adults who use games as an excuse to shed every notion of decency and civility. We are experiencing what Europe has faced with soccer hooligans as families are increasing abandoning stadiums. Last night showed the depth of the problem. After fans recently went to his house after a loss to berate him, Texans quarterback Matt Schaub lay on the field with an injured leg as Texan fans cheered his injury.
Continue reading “Texans Fans Cheer As QB Schaub Laid Injured On Field During Games Against Rams”
There is a disturbing story out of Los Angeles where Eugene Mallory, 80, was killed during a June 27 raid by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. Police raided the home because it reportedly smelled like a meth lab. In the end, no methamphetamine was found but Mallory laid dead with no fewer than six gunshot wounds. His widow is planning a lawsuit.
Air Canada is under fire this week for its response to the disappearance of Larry, a two-year-old Italian greyhound, on a flight from San Francisco. The dog’s owner had died of cancer and Jutta Kulic had found a family in Canada to take the animal. However, Air Canada reported that, during a delay, the dog was let out of its cage and then ran away. That is bad enough but a response from the airline sent people in both countries into a fury over the airline’s actions. This is a case where the company’s slogan appears to be “Go [TOO] Far.”
Continue reading “Doggone: Air Canada Faces International Outcry Over Its Response To Losing Dog”
I took the kids to see “Gravity” last night at a 3D IMAX theater, which was fun. I thought it was an entertaining movie but you had to suspend your disbelief (and any rudimentary scientific knowledge) at a film that is a chain of implausible or practically impossible events. (I also had to suspend my normal dislike for Sandra Bullock as an actress and not constantly hope for a catastrophic airlock failure). However, the scientific barriers to Gravity as a film pale in comparison to the historical barriers presented in the critically acclaimed movie “Captain Phillips” with Tom Hanks. I was always like Hanks as an actor and this film is being cited as one of his very best performances. Yet, there are a few critics: the crew of the Maersk Alabama who say that the film is best on a demonstrably false account and makes the wrong man the hero in the famous standoff at sea.
For tourists, there are few more quintessential scenes that coming upon a police officer and a street vendor in a profane argument. The video below is for those who have missed the indigenous wildlife scene of the Big Apple.
By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.
-The Southern Manifesto, Cong. Rec., 84th Cong. 2d Session, Vol. 102, part 4 (March 12, 1956)
‘This was an activist court that you saw today. Anytime the Supreme Court renders something constitutional that is clearly unconstitutional, that undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court. I do believe the court’s credibility was undermined severely today.”
-Michele Bachmann (R. Minn.), June 26 2012
Most people are familiar with the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al., 349 U.S. 483 (1954), in which a unanimous Supreme Court summarily outlawed public school segregation by tersely declaring, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” 349 U.S. at 495. But many people do not know that Brown involved a consolidation of cases from four states. The “et al.” in the style refers to decisions on similar facts in Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. And the response of Virginia to the ruling in Brown provides an interesting comparison with the actions leading to the current government shutdown. Continue reading “Massive Resistance and the Government Shutdown”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
We have discussed the thousands who have been killed by guns in this country on several occasions on Professor Turley’s blog and we have seen some of the same responses from both sides of the discussions about reasonable restrictions on gun ownership and use. Some say that any restriction on gun ownership, no matter how small, is a violation of their Second Amendment rights.
Some of those who are in favor of reasonable gun control measures, point to the sheer numbers of women and children and men who die each day due to senseless murders and sorrowful accidents. Emotional arguments and reasons have been offered by both sides of the discussion, but yet not a single worthwhile National gun control measure has become law and the killings and deaths continue unabated.
To my dismay and shock, not even the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, where 20 small school children and 6 staff members lost their lives to an arguably mentally ill shooter, produced any resulting legislation that could be argued offers some relief in the ever larger numbers of gun deaths.
While researching this article I had trouble finding articles written on this subject after April of 2013. There were many articles, including articles on this blog from December of 2012 through April of 2013, but very little since. In light of the dearth of media interest since April of this year, I am curious about what it will take for the United States of America to decide it is time to stop killing itself? Continue reading “When Will We Decide to Stop the Killings by Guns?”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Last week, I wrote a post titled Looking at the Causes of the Public Pension Problem in America. In it, I provided some reasons why states and municipalities may not be able to meet their pension obligations to retiring workers: the financial meltdown and subsequent loss of billions of dollars in pension fund money, the willful underfunding of public worker pensions by states and municipalities, and the “borrowing” of pension money “to finance other budget needs.”
I did not mean to imply that many public pension plans should not be revisited…that many may not need to be reformed…that some individuals aren’t abusing the system. Still, we have not been getting the whole story about the “public pension crisis” in America from the mainstream media. I hope to provide more information on the subject to readers of this blog as I continue my research to find out what’s really going on with public pension reform in this country.
The Institute for America’s Future recently published a report on the subject of pension reform titled The Plot against Pensions, which was written by David Sirota. In his report, Sirota said that many of the pension reforms being advocated today are akin to “President George W. Bush’s proposal to radically alter Social Security”—in that they would “transform stable public pension funds into individualized accounts.” He adds that these pension reforms “would most often reduce millions of Americans’ guaranteed retirement benefits. In many cases, they would also increase expenses for taxpayers and enrich Wall Street hedge fund managers.”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The Food Stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is a target for Republicans who voted to cut $40 billion from the program. The reasons that Republicans have given are so divorced from reality that one can reasonably suspect their true motivations lie elsewhere. The primacy of fantasy in the GOP has been recently evidenced by Michele Bachmann who sees signs of the End Times, a wished-for global apocalypse.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Last week I wrote two guests blogs that were essentially two sides of the same coin. “How We Are Manipulated #1” and “The Decline of Journalism” were akin in that in the former I was writing about the use of “False Equivalency” that has long been a propaganda tool, especially from the wealthy backers of the conservative movement and the bland acceptance of “False Equivalency” by our mainstream media. I receive “E mails” each week from “Media Matters for America” the organization that examines bias in the media. http://mediamatters.org/ . This organization often provides me with ideas for this blog and I think performs a yeoman service for the people in this country who wish to clear the mental fog of propaganda, supplied by people who want to destroy the democratic process, and that has bombarded us since the Age of Reagan. These people own the major media and/or use their media ownership to ensure that the truth about our country is not only hidden, but subsumed in a planned torrent of propaganda. In this piece I will continue my series by providing various quotations that serve as examples, or admonishment of the prevalence of “False Equivalency” memes in the media. Links will be supplied at the end of this blog. Continue reading “False Equivalency: How We Are Manipulated #2”
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
As a Jew who is familiar with “The Gospels” there is something perplexing about some Christians in America who have risen to power in our political process within the last four decades. Much of Jesus message, as detailed in “The Gospels” has been one of sympathy to the poor, enmity to the rich and love for humanity. I can give you the time tested quotes but just about everyone is familiar with them. Indeed through my childhood and formative teen years Christmastime every year would yield endless repetition of “Peace on Earth, Good Will to All Men”. Sometime in the 1970’s people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell gained prominence and political power preaching their version of Christianity. These Christians became Kingmakers as it was assumed and actually true that their millions of followers would vote as a bloc. The Christianity that they preached had little to do with the American Christianity that I grew up with. To be sure their teachings on sexuality differed little from Christian thought for the previous 1,700 years and so abortion was evil, virginity was prized and sexuality was to be performed in subscribed methodology. What was different was that this version of Christian belief was a far more muscular and mach one. War was good when fought for American principles of capitalism and self interest. The wealthy needn’t worry about the “eye of the camel.” Poverty was seen as the result of moral failure. Rendering unto Caesar (the Government) was no longer the moral thing to do.
Now knowing history there were always periods where certain Christian leaders were in favor of warfare, favored the wealthy and sought to kill non-believers. Nevertheless, all through those era’s the same message of peace and love was preached as doctrine, whilst the religious leadership ignored the dichotomy of their own works. However, hypocrisies have always existed in every religious belief. The overriding principles always remained static, even if logic had to be twisted to ignore the obvious dichotomy. This is certainly true of the religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam, that each give their own interpretation of the “Torah.” The most glaring example of this is the entire Chapter of Genesis, which is literally riddled with dichotomy. Who did Cain, Abel and Seth marry and where did their brides come from? The standard method of dismissing these dichotomies was to ignore them and censor the questioner. Today though, in certain Christian circles these overarching principles derived from the teachings of Jesus have become ignored, to be replaced by a new “Dominionist” view, which would turn Jesus into a warlike, wealthy Republican that hated government and taxes. That is the subject of this guest blog. Continue reading “Ted Cruz, Dominionism and Jesus”