It’s time once again for news and views that you can peruse. It’s time once again for your Weekly Reader! As always, if you have something to share, drop by the comments and leave a link or two. Sharing is caring!
Elon Musk says ‘civilization is going to crumble’ if people don’t have more children (from CNBC): “”It’s completely the opposite,” Musk said, urging people to look at the data. “If people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words.””
The FAA accidentally disclosed more than 2,000 flight records associated with Jeffrey Epstein’s private jets (from Business Insider): “While Epstein’s jets flew extravagantly over the last 24 years of his life, they traveled most prolifically in the early aughts, making 906 flights — more than a third of the flights compiled by Insider — between 2001 and 2006.”
Venomous sharks found in London’s Thames river (from CNN): “Spurdogs can be found in deep water, and the spines in front of the shark’s two dorsal fins secrete a venom that can cause pain and swelling in humans.”
Costco is offering a new perk to club members (from CNN): “The retailer hopes discounts on goods online will give customers another reason to renew their memberships and signal to shoppers that Costco is more than just a physical store.”
Torrance police traded racist, homophobic texts. It could jeopardize hundreds of cases (from the Los Angeles Times): “The officers’ comments spared no color or creed: They joked about “gassing” Jewish people, assaulting members of the LGBTQ community, using violence against suspects and lying during an investigation into a police shooting, according to district attorney’s office records reviewed by The Times.”
Amazon’s bestselling LGBTQ book is a hateful picture book comparing being trans to pretending to be a walrus (from Media Matters): “During the December 7 edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Walsh promoted his book and stated that Amazon “did this on their own. They listed it as an LGBT book.” He also noted that his book is “the top-selling LGBT book. So I’m an LGBT author” and “one of the leading LGBT voices in the country right now according to Amazon, and I embrace that.”
3 Myths About Pearl Harbor, According to a Military Historian (from Time): “Here, Citino highlights, in his own words, a few common misconceptions about how, and where, Pearl Harbor fits in World War II history—and shares what they say about what America chooses to remember about the war.”
Sam Harris Is Wrong About Science And Morality (from Practical Ethics): “In his new book (the one about lying) Harris says, in effect, you should never, ever, do it — yet his pretense in The Moral Landscape to be revolutionizing moral philosophy seems to me the very height of dishonesty. What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — as non-religious philosophers have been doing for a very long time — but he claims that he’s using science to decide right from wrong. That Harris could be naive enough to think he’s really bridged the famous “is/ought” chasm seems unlikely (Harris is a very smart writer and researcher, and I tend to like a lot of what he publishes), and so I submit that he’s exaggerating* to sell books. Shame on him (or his publisher).”
Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right (from Salon): “New Atheism appeared to offer moral clarity, it emphasized intellectual honesty and it embraced scientific truths about the nature and workings of reality. It gave me immense hope to know that in a world overflowing with irrationality, there were clear-thinking individuals with sizable public platforms willing to stand up for what’s right and true — to stand up for sanity in the face of stupidity.”
This is what abortion politics is for (from Slacktivist): “Back in the 1970s, white evangelicalism was mired in the disgrace of having been epically, utterly, spectacularly wrong about the Civil Rights movement. They hadn’t just picked the wrong side in a political battle. It was far worse than that. By defending injustice, they had disgraced themselves, surrendered all claims of moral competence, and become disgraced pariahs.”
That’s all for this week. Drop by again when I’ll have more links and articles that you might find fascinating. Until then, have a great rest of your week, stay safe and happy reading!
Iacon East 