While the Obama Administration continues its crackdown on marijuana, including medical marijuana, New York City is joining other jurisdictions in the decriminalization of possession of small quantities of pot. Last year, NYPD made 50,000 arrests for such small quantities of pot. The welcomed change further detaches the federal crackdown on marijuana from public opinion if not reality.
Continue reading “New York City Moves To Decriminalize Possession Of Small Quantities Of Pot”
According to Reddit, this song was written by Kate Brady and Nissa Jane for a graduation ceremony this month. The video is positively dreadful but the song and the voice is simply remarkable and I wanted to share it.
Continue reading “One More Reason To Go To Your Commencement: Meet Kate Brady and Nissa Jane”
This report in Haaretz details a highly disturbing account of how Israel’s Shin Bet security service interrogated American citizens with Arab backgrounds for hours and demanded access to their personal email accounts at Ben Gurion Airport. After spending a night in custody, they were denied entry into Israel in May. If these accounts are true, why has there been no formal and public objection from the Obama Administration?
The celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was filled with traditions going back hundreds of years — including, it appears, the use of serfs. The Guardian is reporting that the government bused in dozens of unemployed citizens to work at the Jubilee from out of town and then directed them to sleep under the London Bridge without access to bathrooms or changing areas. It was a good ole fashioned Jubilee with a diamond-encrusted sovereign floating by in splendor with yeomen and “villeins” working in their menial existence. Some radicals (and suspected Jacobites) are questioning the conditions for the workers and calling for an investigation.
We have another preacher who is holding forth on homosexuality with some pretty shocking rhetoric. Dennis Leatherman of the Mountain Lake Independent Baptist Church in Oakland, Maryland can claim to be more merciful because, while he says that he positively aches to kill gays “in a fleshy way,” he cannot actually kill because of the Bible. That means that he cannot build the death camps of Rev. Worley — as much as he might want to.
Continue reading “Leatherman: I Long To Kill Gays “In A Fleshy Way””
Today in China, unlike twenty-three years ago, nothing happens. Nothing at all. Now check out the latest Panda pics! That appears the message going out to a billion Chinese. The government has blocked any mention of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 1989. In addition, the country is rounding up dissidents and anyone else who might mention the anniversary or utter thoughts of freedom.
Continue reading “June 4th: Just Another Day In The Worker’s Paradise”
Just when you thought it was creepy for people to stuff their dead pets, Dutch artist Bart Jansen has done one better: skinning his pet cat Orville and turning it into a helicopter. The video shows cows are unnerved by the sight . . . and they are not alone. The Borg Feline is enough to send most people looking for shelter.
I have repeated complained about the runaway copyright and trademark laws — and the failure of politicians to protect the public from draconian penalties and thug-like actions by the industry. Now, the industry is targeting weddings — retroactively — to impose fees for playing that rendition of “Because You Loved Me” to be sure that Celine Dion gets her cut from the happy couple.
The Saudi Royal family has long been accused of not paying their bills, but few have acquired the reputation of Maha al-Sudani, the former wife of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Nayef ben Abdel Aziz. The princess was stopped trying to flee the Shangri-La hotel in Paris at 3:30 am without paying her six million euro ($7.4 million) bill. It is hard to sneak out of a hotel with an entourage 60 people.
We have previously discussed the trend in the West toward an international blasphemy standard and prosecutions for insulting religion (here, and here, and here and here and here and here and here and and here and here and here and here). Now, one of Spain’s best known underground artists is facing a year in jail for a 54-second film that he did in 1978 that a Catholic group charges is insulting to them and their faith. Javier Krahe’s “how to cook Jesus Christ” was a brief satire based on a cooking show.
Continue reading “Spanish Artist Faces Prison For Insulting The Catholic Faith”
Why do humans insist on ruining a good dog with human outfits? I love dogs and see no reason for improvement.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
I am sure you have all seen the comments and political advertisements and articles calling President Obama a Communist, a Socialist, a Kenyan citizen and various attempts to claim that he is a secret Muslim. I had thought I had seen them all when I came across the latest affront to reality. A Gannet newspaper in Louisiana has agreed to run an “interesting” advertisement from an organization calling itself the SOAR Project. SOAR stands for Save Our American Republic.
In my humble opinion, this advertisement goes far beyond any level of reasonableness when it leads with the question, “Will Obama and the Democrats Shoot Catholics and Christians “? Continue reading “Free Speech Versus Facts”
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
In the beginning, there was the word. And when addressing propaganda, the word was either persuade or coerce. This is the essential nature of propaganda: to change (or re-enforce if you are already sympathetic) your mind on a particular issue. As the first article showed, the most basic tool of propaganda is connotation/implication. Before venturing into the depths of the lingua tactical of propaganda, I thought it might be useful to illustrate some non-verbal and indirect methods of propaganda.
First we must realize that propaganda is the cultivation of an image. An image that relies upon idea(s) the speaker wants associated with certain people, organizations or actions. To that end, propaganda is essentially image control: seeking to create mental associations in the viewer be they emotional or rational and spreading that image/association through out a given populace. Keep in mind that literacy was for the bulk of human history limited to specialists such as scribes and/or the upper class who could afford education.
Very few people in the ancient world could read, but most of them could see. What better way to communicate the power of those who run a society to those who cannot read than by using a non-verbal symbol to send a message? Perhaps a symbol like a great building or monument. Something that says “we’re here, this is what we are about, this is our place and look what we can do” to the great unlearned masses. This form of propaganda is also as old as civilization. You could argue that it is older than modern civilization, stretching back to the late Neolithic period.
Continue reading “Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Build It And They Will Come (Around)”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
On BBC Newsnight (video below), Nobel laureate Paul Krugman was pitted against venture capitalist Jon Moulton and Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom to discuss the merits of austerity. Krugman handily demolished their arguments. Krugman likened austerity to bloodletting, where if the patient gets sicker, even more bloodletting is called for. Krugman is in Europe on a book tour and his ideas are making headlines.
Continue reading “Battle Of Britain – Krugman vs. Austerity Proponents”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ignited a firestorm on this blog and elsewhere for his proposal to ban all but 16 ounce containers of sodas, energy drinks, sweetened iced teas and other sugary beverages in restaurants, movie theaters, sports arenas and food carts (they will still be available in supermarkets and bodegas). Wondering why he’d make a proposal that could not possibly help him politically and was likely to draw the ire of Big Soda, I did a little research. Here is the abbreviated case against cola: