"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."
~
George Washington / "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature."
~
Thomas Jefferson / "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
~
Abraham Lincoln / "A just government has no need for the clergy or the church." ~
James Madison / "I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice." ~
John F. Kennedy / "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus --
and nonbelievers." ~
Barack Obama
posted by 0bvious
on Jan 20, 2009 -
270 comments
The president of a Savings & Loan sent the following email to his family:
If you have one hour of your time to invest in learning more about the current economic crisis, I highly recommend you click on one of the two below links and view [Paul Krugman's Friday address to the National Press Club]. His remarks take about 1/2 hour followed by 25 minutes of Q&As. I believe you will find watching it worth your time.
P.S. If you decide to view Krugman's speech, I recommend you view it
"full screen" for the best effect of viewing his body language.
Link 1,
Link 2 [more inside]
posted by spock
on Dec 21, 2008 -
63 comments
The previously-
mentioned Summums want to
place their own monument in a park which contains the Ten Commandments, making the Supreme Court's
heads explode in a a hilariously weird
oral argument[pdf]:
"Scalia: I don't know what that means. You keep saying it, and I don't know what it means. [...] Breyer: Suppose that there certain messages that private people had like "eat vitamins"—and then somebody comes along with a totally different content, "ride the roller coaster," and they say this part of the park is designed to get healthy children, not put children at risk." [more inside]
posted by Non Prosequitur
on Nov 13, 2008 -
116 comments
- "Please don't beat me. I'm having my period." ~ Mama Wangari
- "It is being both black and gay [which is problematic]." ~ Zanele Muholi (Nehanda Nyakasikana) [NSFW]
- "Sisters at heart, these women are: from Kibera to Loresho." ~ WM
- "My vagina wants an Uzi" ~ Larissa Klazinga (Amanda Atwood)
- "You are from Kenya? So are you Kikuyu or Luo?" ~ Wangui
Blogs of women from Africa. That is all.
posted by hadjiboy
on Apr 17, 2008 -
25 comments
Hitler Speaks
Using advanced speech recognition technology, researchers and voice-over actors have been able to put a soundtrack to long-silent video relics of Adolf Hitler:
Eva Braun's infamous home movies filmed at the
Berghof, private filmed meetings between Hitler and various Reich cronies, as well as the last known footage of him taped before an awkward bunch of Hitler Youth at the Reichstag in the final days of the war made famous in
Downfall. Chilling stuff.
Via.
posted by auralcoral
on Mar 22, 2008 -
177 comments
A very big day for the Supreme Court. In
Morse v. Fredrick, the Court ruled that a school could suspend a child for holding up a "Bong HiTs for Jesus" banner. (Previous post
here). In
Hein v. Freedom from Religion, the Court held that taxpayers lacked standing to challenged Faith Based Initiatives (
previous discussions). In
Wilke v. Robbins, the Court held that land owners do not have Bivens claims if the federal government harasses landowners for easements. In
FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, the Court held that the portion of the campaign finance law which had blackout periods before elections on issue advocacy advertising was an unconstitutional restriction of speech (
other). This Thursday, the Justices will deliver their last opinions of the term, including
a death penalty case and the
school assignment cases. (Opinions are .pdfs)
posted by dios
on Jun 25, 2007 -
224 comments
Bruce Sterling's talk at SXSW is described on the landing page as a 'rant'. It isn't. What it
is is a survey from 10,000 feet at what's happening in culture and technology and on the web, and I reckon it's worth spending the hour of your life it'll take to listen to it. I hope you agree.
[mp3, 59 minutes]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken
on Mar 19, 2007 -
52 comments
An Impartial Interrogation One of the things I miss about my eighteen years in the US Senate are the stories of the old Southern Democrats. I didn't always vote with them, but I loved their technique of responding to an opponent's questions with a humorous story. Once when Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina had to handle a tough question from Mike Mansfield, he said, "You know, Mr. Leader, that question reminds me of the old Baptist preacher who was telling a class of Sunday school boys the creation story. 'God created Adam and Eve and from this union came two sons, Cain and Abel and thus the human race developed.' A boy in the class then asked, 'Reverend, where did Cain and Abel get their wives?' After frowning for a moment, the preacher replied, 'Young man--it's impertinent questions like that that's hurtin' religion.'"
posted by nofundy
on Jan 19, 2007 -
17 comments
The Plantation Mentality The veteran broadcast journalist Bill Moyers spoke on Friday before 3,500 at the opening of the National Conference on Media Reform in Memphis. He announced his return to the airwaves and outlined his vision of media reform. "As ownership gets more and more concentrated, fewer and fewer independent sources of information have survived in the marketplace; and those few significant alternatives that do survive, such as PBS and NPR, are under growing financial and political pressure to reduce critical news content and to shift their focus in a mainstream direction, which means being more attentive to establishment views than to the bleak realities of powerlessness that shape the lives of ordinary people."
posted by nofundy
on Jan 18, 2007 -
48 comments
The Human Speechome Project - "A baby is to be
monitored by a network of microphones and video cameras for 14 hours a day, 365 days a year, in an effort to unravel the seemingly miraculous process by which children acquire language.". Selected video
clips.
Paper (PDF, 750KB). To test hypotheses of how children learn, Prof Deb Roy's team at MIT will develop machine learning systems that “step into the shoes” of his son by processing the sights and sounds of three years of life at home. Total storage required:
1.4 petabytes.
posted by Gyan
on Jul 23, 2006 -
21 comments
