The Fake SEAL Pastor and His Enabler

Can we fit three of the most poisonous things wrong with our society into a single incident?  YES: A Pastor fabricated his past as a Navy SEAL (emphasis mine): Several former SEALs wrote into The Patriot-News casting doubt on the reverend’s account of his service. “We deal with these guys all the time, especially the [...]

Japan’s Radiation and Trusting the Experts

Japan’s radiation problem keeps getting worse.  Radioactive Iodine and Cesium and pouring into the Pacific Ocean, and while experts are trying to be reassuring they are going about it in a decidedly worrying fashion. Take this AP Article for instance: Very close to the nuclear plant — less than half a mile or so — [...]

The Liars That Get Away

Professional liars like James O’Keefe are able to successfully manipulate the media into damaging their targets.  Amanda Marcotte writes: At this point, he releases a video, everyone knows up front that he’s a liar, and everyone will just pretend that he’s not for the 12-24 hours it takes for the video to ruin someone’s life.  [...]

Republicans: Democrats Shouldn’t Be Able to Fund Campaigns

The Republican attack on unions is best viewed in concert with the Citizens United decision, which has grossly impacted elections in the favor of the right wing and the corporate status quo that rules both parties.  For them its not about balancing budgets, its about taking a crack at the financial ability of Democrats to [...]

Open Letter to CS Monitor – Tea Party Coverage

Please stop referring to the Tea Party as “grassroots” or “populist”. The Tea Party exploits populist sentiments – to a degree – and is otherwise the plaything of very wealthy and powerful conservative men. Writing like this piece by Patrick Johnson at the otherwise excellent CS Monitor is simply negligent: But the tea party phenomenon [...]

The AP and Soft Support of Theocracy

Lightning struck down a giant statue placed alongside a public highway in Ohio. No author is listed for this piece, which is just as well.  It is an embarrassment.  It softly offers up uncritical support for the religious statue (emphasis mine): Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by [...]

Stupid Headline: How the New Wealth Taxes Won’t Hit You

Let’s say I wanted to write an article about how a local tax in a South Carolina town might effect local residents.  I wouldn’t give that article a sweeping title implying residents of Massachusetts or Texas might face the task.  Well, I’m not a writer nor an editor for the Wall Street Journal. In an [...]

Anger: Markets and the Reverse Galt Reality

Watching Jon Stewart eviscerate Cramer, MSNBC and Financial Reporting was a cathartic experience.  All the more so with the rash of movement conservatives and talking heads putting Ayn Rand on a pedestal and contemplating the virtues of Going Galt.  Because the idea being “Going Galt” is that it is the CEO’s who are the wealth [...]

Brief Update and Two Recommended Posts

Shortly (I hope) I’ll be announcing a new education blog related to my nonprofit.  In the meantime I’d like to recommend two exceptionally insightful posts…

Youtube and Pearl Records Don’t Understand Fair Use

A video of mine was taken down from Youtube due to a copyright complaint from Pearl Records (which seems to be Garth Brook‘s personal record label). I don’t think they get Fair Use. The video in question was a few seconds of Garth Brooks performing American Pie (which is owned by Don McLean) at the [...]

Israel vs Palestine: Trust

A huge problem I have negotiating the very rough waters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is trust. Both sides have such a problem seeing and understanding the other that the views pouring out of that miasma are convoluted and stained with assumption.  The pro-Palestine side seems to think a rain of rockets is a mild annoyance, [...]

Inauguration Photos and Videos

I’ll have  a writeup later tonight (and more videos!). In the meantime, please enjoy my new flickr account and youtube channel!

Palin is a Zen Master

Palin is a master of not doing by doing: But Palin said she had adopted a philosophical attitude on the downside of the spotlight. “You have to let it go,” she said. “Even hard news sources, credible news sources — the comment about, you can see Russia from Alaska. You can! You can see Russia [...]

Choosing A Content Management System

I’ve shied away from tech blogging.  Even though its how I make ends meet, it isn’t really my passion in life.  Nor is it something I’ve considered terribly relevant to the purpose of this blog.  This post by Pam Spaulding finally convinced me to post this. I think that an understanding of how corporations work [...]

Movie Idea! A Proposal

Movie idea!  A man is about to be deported to Canada, and to keep his high powered job, orders his assistant to marry him, or he’ll fire her.  Afraid of losing her job, she complies, and through a series of endearing mishaps falls in love with her boss. Switch the roles and its an instant [...]