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Interview With a Jihad Recruiter
Recently, the German news organization Speigel interviewed a man in Turkey who was frankly recruiting fighters for ISIS (or as they now call themselves, the Islamic State. (Full article is available at http://www. ( Read more... ) -
Evolution vs. Religion
In Sunday's New York Times editorial pages, there is an article titled "God, Darwin, and My Biology Class ( Read more... ) -
The Oldest Profession
Now that the Internet has devastated Time and Newsweek, the best English-language weekly news-magazine is a British publication called "The Economist". This week's cover story is about prostitution -- the magazine is arguing that it should be legalized because the Internet is allowing pimps and madams to be bypassed, and with them are going a lot ( Read more... ) -
No Boots
There is now a serious debate over whether we should send troops to stabilize the situation in Iraq, and some are even calling to go into Syria as well. This is a truly lousy idea. Besides the obvious point of getting sucked into Middle East quagmires, there is also something called the Pact of Umar that we should be aware of ( Read more... ) -
Kidnapped Nigerian Girls
Over 200 female Nigerian High School students remain missing after a kidnapping raid last week. The parents, understandably frantic, are protesting in the streets, demanding that somebody do something. But what? No militant group has claimed responsibility and no demands for a ransom or anything else have been made. And it isn't clear where they ( Read more... ) -
This Is Worse Than We Think
There is a story behind the story of Russia's seizure of Crimea from the Ukraine. Those, like me, old enough to remember the breakup of the Soviet Union also remember that part of the immense arsenal of Soviet nuclear weapons was left with the Ukraine. This alarmed a number of people, since the Ukraine was about as stable then as it is now. In 1994 ( Read more... ) -
Wrong Song Again
Not being interested in Paranormal Activity 4 or anything R-rated, I took my son to see "Frozen" over the weekend. In doing so, we helped it achieve No. 1 status at the box office (along with several million other movie-goers) in its sixth week of release, which is jaw-dropping for a movie these days. But for once I don't mind pouring more money ( Read more... ) -
The right Right and the wrong Wrong
I came across another bit of depressing news to close out the year: apparently the acceptance of the Theory of Evolution has stalled in America:
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/
Fully one out of three Americans reject it. Not just have questions, but outright go with Divine creation at the beginning of time. Why? ( Read more... ) -
Gays and "Cultural Imperialism"
Sadly, India's Supreme Court has re-instated the country's law criminalizing homosexuality. (A good editorial on the reversal is at: http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/12/opinion/malik-gay-law-india/index.html?hpt=op_t1 Apparently, part of this is the feeling in a number of non-Western countries that the U.S. is attempting to impose its cultural values ( Read more... )
