2013 archive
Legacy!, Reprise 0
Apparently, there is now a “Zimmerman defense.”
Legacy! 0
The noxious notion that politicians (and others) must leave behind a single signature Legacy! generally motivates great harms.
It encourages grand(standing) gestures, often poorly thought out and sometimes inimical. The Regent’s plan to outsource this region’s transportation for short-term gain comes to mind.
Belle Rose, though, envisions a constructive legacy! for The Regent.
Loan Sharpers 0
In the Bangor Daily News, Eric Collins reflects on the recent student load bill in Congress and why it included so many bad ideas.
It’s all about ROI, folks, and not ROI on educaton–ROI on the loans.
Yet how is college supposed to become affordable?
There are plenty of solutions. When we have the greatest concentration of wealth in our nation’s history in the hands of a few and a bloated military budget used to fund the destructive atrocities of violence and war in the name of U.S. global hegemony, then it is clear we have the money to fund higher education. What prevents us from doing that is our priorities.
Prioritizing the interests of the wealthy over those of the masses is reflective of deeper, structural and ideological problems in our society.
Homefront 2
At Asia Times, Peter van Buren is not optimistic about happenings in the US, anticipating a security dystopia
Consider, for instance, the rise of the warrior cop, of increasingly armored-up police departments across the country often filled with former military personnel encouraged to use the sort of rough tactics they once wielded in combat zones. Supporting them are the kinds of weaponry that once would have been inconceivable in police departments, including armored vehicles, typically bought with Department of Homeland Security grants.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to young entrepreneurs.
In more news of the polite, courtesy is important to local governance.
All seriousness aside, you do realize that, in the term “gun nut,” the operative word is “nut.”
The Return of Little Ricky 0
He’s baaaaaaack!
And he’s still a one-note samba.
Dick Polman:
Politicizing terror? Gee, I never saw that one coming.
State Rape 0
Bringing new meaning to the term “copping a feel.”
In two separate cases last year, four women said that they were humiliated with illegal cavity searches on the side of Texas highways. Angel Dobbs, 38, and her 24-year-old niece, Ashley Dobbs were searched after a trooper saw them throw a cigarette butt out the car window. And Brandy Hamilton, 27, and Alexandria Randle, 26, were searched after a trooper claimed he smelled marijuana.
Official police dashboard XXX video at the link.
Via TWIB.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Friends don’t let friends be impolite.
(snip)
Java Bowling III, 43, said he got in an argument with 40-year-old Scott A. Campbell because he was trying to take away his friend’s keys to prevent him from driving while intoxicated.
Allowing concealed-carry in bars will prevent this from happening again.
Droning On 0
Der Spiegel reports on the paparazzi and the paragliders.
The lengths that folks go to provide pablum for the celeb-crazy is stunning.
Here’s a snippet.
Really, now, why does anyone care about these people and the victims they photogragh?
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” (Updated) 0
Diaper politely.
Danville police say a 2-year-old child is being treated in Roanoke for a gunshot wound to the back.
Addendum, the Next Day:
It was another case of child-on-child crime.
Charlie Rangel Is Right 3
Let Chauncey Devega explain. A nugget:
In the most obvious and public examples, Tea Party rallies have featured signs depicting Barack Obama as an African “witchdoctor” or “savage”. Tea Party supporters have also carried signs emblazoned with the Confederate flag, or used monkey and ape imagery to describe the country’s first black president at their rallies.
Matters of Size 0
Since when did a women’s 10 or 12 become a “larger size”?
Probably since models could get Photoshopped into looking like emaciated aliens.
The “Precariot”–The New Proletariat 0
Robyn Blumner:
(snip)
The industry’s excuse on wages is to claim that it provides a stepping stone to upward mobility — a whopper as big as a CEO compensation package.
Read it.
And, while you’re at it, read this too.
The Republican War on Women 0
Dick Polman cuts through the phony PR of Republican pearl-clutching over Anthony Weiner and San Diego Mayor “All Hand on Deck” Filner:
No matter how many times Weiner tweets his crotch, here’s what a war on women really looks like:
In North Carolina, on the eve of the July 4 break, Republican state senators brought up the new abortion restrictions without any public notice in the dead of night. (At the time, the restrictions were attached to a bill banning the invocation of Sharia law in family courts – Sharia law being such an epidemic in North Carolina.) Women with an abding interest in making choices for their own lives rushed to the chamber, hoping to give testimony. But the Republican lieutenant governor, presiding over the chamber, told them: “The senators are your voice here on all matters. They are the only ones we’ll be hearing from today.”