media

On the latest episode of his StarTalk Radio Show, Neil DeGrasse Tyson spoke to former CNN science journalist Miles O’Brien about the failures of modern news reporting — particularly at CNN. As the interview began, O’Brien joked that CNN fired…

Islam

Anti-Muslim Gadfly to run DC Bus ads linking Hitler to Islam (+Russell Brand video against Islam Hatred)

contributors

An organization run by an anti-Mulsim blogger has purchased billboards on the sides of twenty Washington DC Metro buses featuring Adolph Hitler and calling for an end to ‘all aid to Islamic countries.’ The ads are paid for by American Freedom Defense…

Dissent

FCC Votes To “Fast Track” Death Of Net Neutrality

Juan Cole

There’s good news: the nationwide outcry against the Federal Communications Commission’s troublesome proposal for new Open Internet rules is clearly having an impact. At a public meeting this morning, commissioners were factoring in questions that…

Domestic Surveillance

When Greenwald met Snowden: “Spark a … movement against the dangers of state surveillance”

Juan Cole

(By Glenn Greenwald via Tomdispatch) [This essay is a shortened and adapted version of Chapter 1 of Glenn Greenwald’s new book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Security State, and appears at TomDispatch.com with the kind permission of Metropolitan Books.] On December 1, 2012, I received my first communication from […]

Climate Change

John Oliver: What if TV Climate Debates were 97 to 3 as in Real Science?

Juan Cole

“John Oliver hosts a mathematically representative climate change debate, with the help of special guest Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course.” John Oliver LastWeekTonight: “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): Climate Change Debate”

Barack Obama

Obama Quips at White House Correspondents Dinner: ‘Orange is the New Black’

Juan Cole

CBSNews.com Web Extras: “President Obama skewers the press, pols, and Obamacare at correspondents dinner” AFP reports: Obama yuks it up with Washington reporters (via AFP) President Barack Obama cracked jokes about the government’s disastrous health care policy rollout and mocked political opponents at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The annual event, known informally as the […]

media

On how the Death of Turkish Democracy this Year wasn’t exactly Clickbait

Juan Cole

(By Ola Claësson) I can’t help being surprised of how little that has been reported in the foreign media about the development in Turkey after the local elections. Before the Gezi protests less than one year ago, Turkey was perceived as a promising, developing democracy. But now, the country has embarked on a path in […]