According to this website, a new "study found that through “purposeful distortion or genuine ignorance,” hardcore criminals often co-opt religious doctrine to justify or further their crimes." Further, "criminals will often employ “elaborate and creative rationalizations” to reconcile their belief in God and their serial offending."
I caught this series of piano performances by a four year old boy on Facebook tonight. I'm stunned. Yes, I keep hearing the word "prodigy" in my head. I'm speechless . . .
[t]hink tank "scholars" don't get invited to important meetings by "national security professionals" in DC if they point out that the US is committing war crimes and that the US president is a war criminal. They don't get invited to those meetings if they argue that the US should be bound by the same rules and laws it imposes on others when it comes to the use of force. They don't get invited if they ask US political officials to imagine how they would react if some other country were routinely bombing US soil with drones and cruise missiles and assassinating whatever Americans they wanted to in secret and without trial. As the reaction to Cornel West shows, making those arguments triggers nothing but ridicule and exclusion. One gets invited to those meetings only if one blindly affirms the right of the US to do whatever it wants, and then devotes oneself to the pragmatic question of how that unfettered license can best be exploited to promote national interests. The culture of DC think tanks, "international relations" professionals, and foreign policy commenters breeds allegiance to these American prerogatives and US power centers - incentivizes reflexive defenses of US government actions - because, as Gelb says, that is the only way to advance one's careerist goals as a "national security professional". If you see a 20-something aspiring "foreign policy expert" or "international relations professional" in DC, what you'll view, with some rare exceptions, is a mindlessly loyal defender of US force and prerogatives. It's what that culture, by design, breeds and demands.
This article analyzes statistics regarding 10,000 porn stars, and the author arrives at some surprising conclusions based on the data alone.
I'm reading Evan Sharboneau's new Ebook on "Trick Photography" and having a blast trying out some of his hundreds of ideas for having fun with your DSLR (he stresses that it's not important to have anything more than an entry level DSLR). Many of his suggestions don't require any version of Photoshop (for instance, "light painting"). Other tricks he offers (like layer masks--see the attached photos I took today) use Photoshop, but they most don't require anything more than the $70 version --Photoshop Elements. Pretty cool stuff. Evan is an excellent teacher--he looks like he's only in his 20's, but he is bursting with creative ideas. Check out "PhotoExtremist" on YouTube for many of his ideas. Here's his site if you're interested his Ebook.
