With the holiday behind us and the New Year fast approaching, I suppose it is time to get back to the business of blogging.
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53 comments (Latest Comment: 12/27/2013 00:50:31 by livingonli)

Good Morning.

As we prepare for our 14th consecutive Wartime Christmas, let us all pause and ponder what the future might bring.

Of course, we'll start the same way we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing war, courtesy of Antiwar.com. It's been a long time since I included the Iraq numbers, but I will today...for each of these totals represents a family torn apart by war for every holiday.
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107 comments (Latest Comment: 12/25/2013 04:03:27 by Scoopster)

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the manse
Not a creature was stirring, they'd been shot at first glance
The shotguns were hung by the chimney with glee,
With dreams of killin' animals on a long shootin' spree.
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6 comments (Latest Comment: 12/23/2013 01:03:55 by BobR)

It's a sad day in America. At least - it's sad for me. I am sad because I feel compelled to write a blog about an ignorant racist and bigot that people who should know better are holding up as some sort of martyr to "free speech". I don't watch any of those mind-numbing reality shows. Reality for me is my life. I don't need to vicariously live someone else's life. I am not that much of a voyeur that I need to see how other people live their lives (knowing full well they are being filmed for TV). I don't get it.

But some people do watch these shows, and get so attached to the people on them, they start to feel for them like they are part of their own family. Who doesn't have a redneck uncle that spouts off about the gays and sinners and other nonsense? Of course, the reality is that these are NOT our family members - they are employees of A&E, and are being paid to bring ratings and sponsors to A&E. If A&E feels someone on the show has damaged that relationship, then they have to go where their wallets tell them to go. Plenty of TV shows get cancelled all the time for the simple reason of poor ratings and/or the inability to sell commercial time.
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116 comments (Latest Comment: 12/20/2013 22:31:45 by Will in Chicago)

Back at the beginning of this year, the news cycles were exploding with the exploits of a then-unknown government contractor who stole a bunch of documentation that purported to show extensive illegal data collection by the NSA and/or CIA. The charge was that the government was collecting the metadata (send/receive address and subject) of every email sent by everyone in the United States, as well as phone records. There was initially false reporting that the government was listening to calls or reading emails or other deeper intrusions, but these turned out not to be true.

The man behind these leaks was revealed to be Edward Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong with documents in tow. As the pieces started to come together, it became clear that he was working with self-styled journalist Glenn Greenwald before he ever took the job. It became apparent that he took the job for the singular purpose of stealing the documents.
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81 comments (Latest Comment: 12/19/2013 02:46:08 by Raine)