Category: Reading List

Snowden Thanks ACLU

Edward Snowden thanks the ACLU, and so should you by making a donation.

Edward Snowden thanks the ACLU, and so should you by making a donation.

To commemorate the one year anniversary of The Guardian’s explosive revelations about NSA surveillance, Edward Snowden, who handed over that evidence, penned a letter to the ACLU thanking them for their support. In his letter Snowden cautions that new technology and America’s Bill of Rights must coexist for they both serve as forces of liberation. He warns that the government right now can still…

easily monitor whom you call, whom you associate with, what you read, what you buy, and where you go online and offline, and they do it to all of us, all the time.

Snowden says the “most intimate” information of innocent Americans suspected of absolutely nothing is still being grabbed by the NSA. What is the end result of such a power grab? A society he says,

that fears free expression and dissent, the very values that make America strong.

Snowden, who was working for the private security firm of Booz-Allen when he decided to release the files, also takes claim for both Congress and President Obama pushing for an end to the indisriminate “dragnet collection” of our e-mails and phone conversation. Progress has been made in the past year but Snowden says more must be done.

Read the rest of the letter here…

 

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For GOP Senate Candidates, Banning Same-Sex Marriage In The Constitution Has Lost Its Appeal

For GOP Senate Candidates, Banning Same-Sex Marriage In The Constitution Has Lost Its Appeal

CREDIT: Shutterstock In 2004, many pundits credited the advent of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts (and 13 ballot initiatives banning marriage equality) with prompting conservative Christian voters to turn out in droves and help re-elect President George W. Bush. That same year, and again in 2006, Republicans in Congress were so rattled by the looming threat of marriage equality that they overwhelmingly voted to amend the Constitution to forbid same-sex unions. (The amendments failed.) Yet eight years later, in a testament to the rapid advance of LGBT rights, just a tiny fraction of this year’s GOP Senate candidates are explicitly […]

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7 Reasons America Should Succeed On Climate Change

7 Reasons America Should Succeed On Climate Change

One of the country’s best wonks, Vox’s Ezra Klein, has gone defeatist on climate change with his piece, “ 7 reasons America will fail on climate change .” He invites a reply, and this is mine. I have praised Vox’s recent climate coverage . But to see how pessimistic this story is, look at a few of the large-type, all caps, pull-out quotes: STAND BACK AND WATCH THE WORLD BURN CLIMATE CHANGE HAS A “GAME OVER” QUALITY TO IT I COULD MAKE UP A MORE OPTIMISTIC STORY. I JUST DON’T BELIEVE IT. KMN ? I asked one of the […]

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Playboy Interview: Paul Krugman

How can winning a Nobel Prize in economics seem like it’s no big deal? Well, if you’ve already won the John Bates Clark Medal—an honor bestowed biennially on the American economist under 40 who has made major contributions to his profession—you’ve already taken home a piece of hardware considered by many economists to be slightly harder to win than a Nobel. Only 12 people have won both, including Paul Krugman, who collected the 1991 Clark and then snagged the Nobel (and its $1.4 million check) in 2008. While Krugman’s elite status within the economics profession rests on his groundbreaking […]

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‘Calvin and Hobbes’ Creator Makes Secret Return to Comics Page

'Calvin and Hobbes' Creator Makes Secret Return to Comics Page

Nearly two decades after the final strip of Calvin and Hobbes marked creator Bill Watterson’s retirement, the beloved cartoonist made a secret return to the newspaper comics page. Stephan Pastis, the cartoonist behind the syndicated strip Pearls Before Swine , revealed on Saturday that Watterson had collaborated with him on several Pearls installments that were published over the past week. Pastis explained in his blog that the collaboration was sparked by a strip he published last year in which he mocked his own drawing abilities with a joke about picking up women by pretending to be the Calvin and […]

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Being Happy With Sugar

Being Happy With Sugar

“Over the past few months, I’ve become increasingly concerned about a sweetener that I’ve recommended on my show in the past,” Mehmet Oz lamented in an apology earlier this year. Oz, the practicing cardiac surgeon and professor at Columbia University who hosts an eponymous daytime-television extravaganza, is given to emphatic food recommendations. Either run and buy something, or throw it away. Throw it as far from you as possible. “After careful consideration of the available research, today I’m asking you to eliminate agave from your kitchen and your diet.” That’s a stark difference from 2011, when fans of Oz’s […]

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