This is a personal journal--a collection of thoughts from a student of philosophy.
The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”
I’m sorry but I just can’t stop laughing.
Using the largest extant database on the status of women in the world today, which I created with three colleagues, we found that there is a strong and highly significant link between state security and women’s security. In fact, the very best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not its level of wealth, its level of democracy, or its ethno-religious identity; the best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is how well its women are treated. What’s more, democracies with higher levels of violence against women are as insecure and unstable as nondemocracies.
Our findings, detailed in our new book out this month, Sex and World Peace, echo those of other scholars, who have found that the larger the gender gap between the treatment of men and women in a society, the more likely a country is to be involved in intra- and interstate conflict, to be the first to resort to force in such conflicts, and to resort to higher levels of violence. On issues of national health, economic growth, corruption, and social welfare, the best predictors are also those that reflect the situation of women. What happens to women affects the security, stability, prosperity, bellicosity, corruption, health, regime type, and (yes) the power of the state. The days when one could claim that the situation of women had nothing to do with matters of national or international security are, frankly, over. The empirical results to the contrary are just too numerous and too robust to ignore.
I would also argue that when religious institutions go beyond the ministry and enter into the realms of education, hospitals, and other businesses then they are obligated to follow the rules of those areas. A church can hardly accuse the state of trying to violate the separation of church and state when the church insists on entering areas that are legitimately regulated by the state, such as education, hospitals and business. By entering into those areas, the church has voluntarily placed itself under the same rules as the other players-to claim a special exemption because they have some connection to religion would be rather unfair and also absurd.
A Political Opinion I’m Not Qualified to Offer:
As a follow-up on this article I shared last night, I’d like to throw something out there that I’ve been considering for the past few months. I’m not a political science person at all and I don’t follow these trends (or any of the Republican candidates) closely in any respect. I’m not qualified to make these statements, but that is why the internet is here.
From what I understand and what I’ve heard of Mitt Romney in the past, he seems to have been a pretty moderate Republican at one point. He did that healthcare thing when he was governor of Massachucetts and he was pro-choice a while back. Now that he is running for president and will eventually be the official Republican nominee, he has been trying to broaden his appeal to conservative America. Because he has made attempts to appear (or actually become) more conservative, he has been accused of flip-flopping on such important issues.
Now, in order to get votes, Romney has tried to show America how truly conservative he is and, while doing so, he has distanced himself from the moderate and independent voters. With this election, Republicans had a real chance of challenging the Obama presidency. The Republicans could have won this election. Obama’s approval ratings are in the pits and everyone is so up-in-arms about the economy that Republicans would have been a shoe-in. Unfortunately, because their politics have shifted so far to the right, they simply cannot get the vote of those moderates and independents. The very thing that would have distinguished Romney from the rest of the Republican candidates and made him appealing to those voters, is the thing he tried to sweep under the rug.
Of course, we still have months until the election. It is certainly possible for Romney to switch tactics—anything could happen. I’m really not trying to predict the results of the election, but if the election were to be today, I am pretty confident what the results would be.
“We hope the new constitution will highlight freedoms. We want a constitution that accepts and embraces everyone like a mother. We don’t have expectations different from those of Muslim Turks. As Syriacs that have been living on this land for 4,500 years, we expect to receive the same rights as Muslim Turks.”
Sean Hannity just quoted this study as evidence for Fox News being the most trusted news source and then continued to criticize MSNBC as if they were a network which was trusted by the Left. When, in fact, the study does say Fox News is the most trusted news source (due to the 63% of Republicans which listed it as such), it is ALSO the LEAST trusted. Not to mention that Democrats (the ‘Left’ which Hannity was criticizing) actually trust MSNBC as a news source even LESS than they trust Fox News. TLDR: Hannity should have just found a different study to base his anti-news-that-doesn’t-agree-with-his-beliefs rant on.
The tally of white-supremacist hate groups reached a record high in 2010, a spike stoked by the supremacists’ anti-immigrant fervor, rage against a White House occupied by a black president and the continuing uptick in the nation’s count of nonwhite residents, researchers said last week.
“There’s no question that Obama’s election drew people into the hate world. These groups’ [online] servers were crashing on the night of the election from all the traffic,” said Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Its spring 2011 Intelligence Report, released Thursday, lists 1,002 hate groups, a 7.5 percent increase since 2009 and a surge of 66 percent since 2000.
People make me sick.
If I were going to describe the perfect contraceptive, it would go something like this: no babies, no latex, no daily pill to remember, no hormones to interfere with mood or sex drive, no negative health effects whatsoever, and 100 percent effectiveness. The funny thing is, something like that currently exists.
But will insurance cover it???
