Jumps and falls
If you are fascinated by people falling through the air, you'll love this video of ten extraordinary jumps and falls.
How broken is our system of electing members of Congress?
How broken is our system of electing members of Congress? It's abominable, according to Senator Ted Kaufman, who is not seeking election and who is willing to speak candidly on major issues. It's no coincidence that he is not running and that he is willing to speak candidly, according to Kaufman.
Americans are ignorant of basic religious teachings
Lots of people are talking about the new Pew Religious Knowledge Survey, which dramatically demonstrates that Americans are incredibly ignorant about the basic teachings of religions, including the basic teachings of their own religions. These Pew findings don't surprise me at all. I was raised Catholic and I have knows…
Britain’s advertising authority bans pregnant nun ice cream ad.
An ice cream ad has been banned by Britain's advertising watchdog, apparently out of fear that it will offend those people who believe that it is possible to get pregnant without having sex. Actually, the "strapline" of the ad uses the phrase "immaculately conceived," which is interesting. In my experience, most Catholics will tell you with some certainty that the "Immaculate Conception" refers to the "fact" that Mary gave birth to Jesus even though she never had sex with a man. I challenge you to try this out on Catholics. At least 3 out of 4 will say this, but it is fundamentally incorrect. The "Immaculate Conception" refers to the claim that Mary herself was born without original sin. The writers of the ad got it wrong too, though maybe they did so purposely, knowing that so many Catholics get it wrong. And a new Pew survey shows that devout believers notoriously get the basic facts of their faith wrong (and see this DI post). This is phenomenal, given that so many believers claim that their faith is quite important to them.
Priorities
I spotted this quote by Tom Friedman on Daily Dish:
China is doing moon shots. Yes, that’s plural. When I say “moon shots” I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments. China has at least four going now: one is building a network of ultramodern airports; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities; a third is in bioscience...; and, finally, Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country’s leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry... Not to worry. America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan.The story doesn't end with this helpful and insightful quote. Perhaps, the above quote is an attempt by Friedman to attempt to redeem himself for his pro-war rhetoric from prior years. He has himself to thank for the fact that the U.S. warmongering mentality has caused us to fall so far behind China. And we continue to fall behind China because we can't wake up from our nightmare in which relatively few people armed with unsophisticated weapons such as box-cutters are deemed more dangerous than the Soviet Union at its height, armed with thousands of nuclear warheads. Thus, we will continue to spend more than half of our federal tax revenue on military pursuits. Our exuberant and delusional warmongering is killing our economy and our future.