The Pew Forum on Religion and Public life released a report today on America\’s religious knowledge, and the findings were…pretty surprising? Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions. On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do...
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Moody's "double agent" ratings: How the game is rigged
RJ Eskow: Despite all the evidence, Moody\’s is still treated as a credible player … and one that\’s powerful enough to send a warning shot across the bow of the United States government. It threatened to downgrade the US government\’s debt last March if more wasn\’t done to reduce the government\’s debt. That\’s the kind of rigged game we\’re facing: One of the biggest sources of the government\’s debt is the economic collapse. That collapse was enabled in large measure by the bad ratings issuing by rating franchises like Moody\’s. Now Moody\’s wants to hamstring the government\’s...
Continue reading...Florida and Gay Adoption Laws
Kudos to Florida\’s Third District Court of Appeal, which last week overturned the state\’s thirty-year-old blanket ban on gay adoption. According to NYT, Florida was the last state in the country to have such a law, and Newly Progressive Gov. Charlie Crist came out in support of the decision, saying it was \”a great day for children.\” It was an especially great day for plaintiff Martin Gill and the two boys (biological brothers) who he had been trying for years to adopt. Ironically, the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) strongly urged Gill to take in...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week
At the National Book Festival, in addition to snagging the awesome commemorative poster (which, seriously, I\’m pretty excited about), I also got a copy of the Poetry Out Loud Anthology, a collection of poems high schoolers can memorize for the National Recitation Contest. Among a lot of familiar classics, here\’s one I hadn\’t seen before: How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson It was like soul-kissing, the way the words filled my mouth as Mrs. Purdy read from her desk. All the other kids zoned an hour ahead to 3:15, but Mrs. Purdy and I wandered lonely...
Continue reading...Nevada Republican nominee for Senate Sharron Angle makes fun of autism
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqxCCLr3Fa4&w=560&h=340] It\’s been awhile since we checked in with Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle. In the video above, taken at a tea party rally last year, she openly mocks a Nevada law that mandates health insurance coverage for \”autism\” (air quotes hers). She says: “Take off the mandates for coverage in the state of Nevada and all over the United States. But here you know what I’m talking about. You’re paying for things you don’t even need. They just passed the latest one, is everything that they want to throw at us now is covered under...
Continue reading...On Teresa Lewis and the Problem of Capital Punishment
Last night, Teresa Lewis was executed in Virginia. The news stories I\’ve seen all lead with the rarety of the death penalty being applied to a woman: Lewis was the first woman executed since 2005, and only the 12th in the 34 years since the death penalty was reinstated. There are questions about whether Lewis\’ execution will lead the way to more women on death row being executed, but that\’s not the most salient piece of the story. What matters more are the circumstances of her case and whether they merited the sentence received. There is no...
Continue reading...Who wrote the Republican's "Pledge to America?"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640 Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Well, it turns out that if you open the PDF version of the Republican\’s \”A Pledge to America,\” their follow-up to the 1994 \”Contract With America,\” you learn that the author of the document was not, actually, some staffer in House Minority Leader John Boehner\’s office,* but none other than Brian Wild. The Hill: Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that Wild, as a lobbyist at the Nickels Group, “was paid $740,000 in lobbying contracts from AIG, the former insurance company at the heart of...
Continue reading...Colbert on the Hill
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640 Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Stephen Colbert (yes, that Stephen Colbert) was on Capitol Hill this morning testifying about immigration and jobs before a House Judiciary subcommittee. I just watched the hearing, and it was rather amazing. Above is a video of his opening statement.
Continue reading...The emotional and financial toll of the Hyde Amendment
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=15141054&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0 Hyde: The Status Quo Is Not OK from Center for Reproductive Rights on Vimeo.
Continue reading...Delaware Republican nominee for Senate Christine O'Donnell not so much a fan of birth control (surprisingly)
So, we’ve learned that Christine believes in abstinence, and definitely thinks that masturbation is immoral, so, it’s of no surprise, then, I guess, that she’s also no big fan of birth control. In fact, she calls condoms “anti-human.” What? In a 2006 interview on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” the devout Catholic contended that condom use is “anti-human.” “And what … if the population is increasing, so what?” O’Donnell said. “People aren’t bad. When did humans become a bad thing? Why is it that we have to, you know, stop people from getting pregnant?” Priceless. Wait, there’s...
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