The FBI has some new crime-fighting technology in its collective utility belt. FBI-employed hackers can now infect suspects’ computers with malware that will allow investigators to download whatever they might find. This process, which still requires a court order, takes wiretapping to a new level.
Time Magazine announced its Person of the Year for 2013: Pope Francis. That’s a good and fitting choice. But it is the custom of this blog for you the readers to nominate who you think should be Person of the Year. So who else should
Canada is asserting its sovereignty over the North Pole. It is claiming that the Canadian continental shelf that extends under the Arctic Ocean goes that far and more. Canada will be bringing in scientists to testify at the UN to make its case. This would
Apparently terrorists, military operatives, and spies in real life also like to pretend that they are terrorists, military operatives, and spies. So the National Security Administration (NSA) and the British equivalent (GCHQ) have been monitoring online games and spying on gamers. (more…)
Daniel A. Siedell relates the Sabbath, the Gospel, and Vocation: Amazon has just announced that the United States Postal Service will now be making deliveries for the retail giant on Sundays. This has spawned much hand-wringing in the media about the “excesses of consumer demand”
He knows when you’ve been sleeping. He knows when you’re away. He knows if you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake. Apparently, Santa Clause works for the NSA. He also knows who you associate with. And where you are. This story
Here are five bits of social science research that would indicate a person is unlikely to get a divorce. The post completely leaves out more important factors, such as not believing in divorce and the role of Christian faith. Still, the list of factors, while
Sociologist of religion Peter Berger (an ELCA Lutheran) discusses the phenomenon of the Sunday Assembly, which we blogged about yesterday. He said the fact that atheists too are gathering together following the pattern of religious activities demonstrates the almost universal human need to worship (or
One of the banes of contemporary literature, in my opinion, is the obligatory sex scene, in which the aesthetic pleasure of fiction is interrupted with a blow-by-blow description of its characters’ sexual experience. Setting aside the moral issues of a work aspiring to pornography, these
Republicans in Congress tried to cut the deficit by letting the government shut down, being willing to dive over the fiscal cliff, and sequestering expenditures, but those measures didn’t go over very well politically. So now Congressional Republicans are going along with the Democrats, and
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