Archive for the ‘Shermer’ tag
From here and from there - 11
Today’s links have no connecting theme aside from the fact that I found them worth reading, or watching.
The first link is to a debate about religious, atheism and moral. The debate was between Dinesh D’Souza, which I’m developing great dislike to, and Michael Shermer:
In this debate on what are arguably two of the most important questions in the culture wars today — Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil? and Can you be Good without God? — the conservative Christian author and cultural scholar Dinesh D’Souza and the libertarian skeptic writer and social scientist Michael Shermer, square off to resolve these and related issues, such as the relationship between science and religion and the nature and existence of God. This event was one of the liveliest ever hosted by the Skeptics Society at Caltech, mixing science, religion, politics, and culture.
The FCC, which its roll should had been - at most, a coordinator of technical use of airways, become the moral police. This government agency, in the name of protecting our “children”, not only fail to protect our human rights but rather become a major threat for at least one of them:
Despite recent setbacks in court, the Federal Communications Commission late Friday threw the indecency book at 51 ABC TV stations—citing them for a February 2003 episode of NYPD Blue that showed portions of a naked woman’s derrière.
"Our action today should serve as a reminder to all broadcasters that Congress and American families continue to be concerned about protecting children from harmful material and that the FCC will enforce the laws of the land vigilantly," FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate told the press after the agency made the announcement.
The last link is the chilling 2001 Emmy award documentary - Welcome to North Korea:
This film, shot mostly covertly, shows the irony of a regime where 20 million people lived in poverty, some on the brink of starvation, while former dictator Kim II Sung built extravagant monuments to reflect his power. He fostered a grotesque personality cult, which his son and successor Kim Jong Il perpetuates. All around the capital, Pyongyang, an endless stream of propaganda glorifies the leaders. Monuments and museums pay homage to them, but they are strangely empty.