2011 archive
The New Crusaders, Just like the Old Crusaders 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., expresses his feelings of foreboding in his column at the Chicago Trib.
Maybe it makes you want to scream the obvious to those who have grown besotted with conflating extremism and Islam: Extremism has no faith. But they probably won’t hear you.
For the dogs are howling for holy war, an apocalyptic clash of culture and faith. Yet as troubling as it is to watch extremists bicker over which religion has the better god, what’s most troubling is not the bickering, but the extremism, which is now ubiquitous.
Read the whole thing, so you can appreciate the eloquent desperation expressed in the closing line.
They’ll Keep a Light on for Ya 0
The BBC explores the new home of the homeless: cheap motels.
Jeremy Reynalds, an expat Brit who runs the place, tells me frankly that the mainstay of the place are people with drug, alcohol and domestic violence issues. But as the years of crisis have dragged on, there is a new phenomenon – the homeless middle-class.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Under 400k:
(snip)
The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, fell to 413,750 last week from 422,250.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits dropped by 17,000 in the week ended July 16 to 3.7 million.
I’m putting on my “analyst” hat (I’m clearly as qualified as the next guy) and predict the number will be up next week.
If I get it wrong, maybe someone will offer me a job as a forecaster. Getting it wrong seems to be the main qualification.
QOTD 0
Tom Robbins, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Something has got to hold it together. I’m saying my prayers
to Elmer, the Greek god of glue.
Break Time 0
Off to drink liberally.
Peace Love Endless War (Updated) 0
In the Guardian, Michael Shank considers the militarization of American foreign policy.
He sees three depressing and dangerous trends:
(snip)
Second, we have blindly paid the incredible costs our wars have entailed, which a Brown University study released last month, estimates at $3.7tn for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
(snip)
Third, it is now the norm for defence and development contractors to profit mightily off these wars. In war after US war, cases abound regarding fraud, corruption, kickback schemes and bribery, and, more generally . . . .
Read the whole thing.
C&L points out how war has become the overriding Republican priority, using this video clip as part of their evidence (follow the link for the full post).
One of the bozos in the clip has to gall to claim that President George the Worst “paid (in budgetary terms–ed.) for what he did.” And we wonder why Fox viewers are ill-informed:
This graphic is currently making the rounds. I’ve been wondering where to work it into a post. This seems like a good spot.
I still think one of the best and easiest things we could do to clarify discourse is to give the Department of Defense its original name back: Department of War.
Addendum, the Next Day:
Dick Destiny points out that Never having to declare victory has its perks.
Down in Florida – two state Prosecutors – Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson – uncovered rampant foreclosure fraud perpetrated by big banks using robo-signers to kick thousands of families out of their homes illegally. But as the prosecutors were preparing their cases against the banksters – they were inexplicably fired by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Why? Because, as they allege, they were going after banksters TOO aggressively.Orange Teabags 0
That’s orange as in jumpsuit, not orange as in pekoe.
You can see them modeling their new jumpsuits at the link.
Why am I not surprised they would be agin’ guvmint regulations?
Rick Perry’s Prayer Partners 0
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Galt and the Lamers 2
At the Progressive Populist, which is biweekly printed aggregator of opinion and analysis pieces, Hal Crowther examines the right-wing’s fascination with Ayn Rand and finds it irrational. He includes an anecdote of meeting her when she was invited to speak at his school way long ago.
Here’s a snippet:
Much of the rest, alas, will never fly in Alabama. Pundits have been delighted to note that the heroine of the new Republicans was a pacifist who opposed the Vietnam War, a feminist who supported abortion, an adulteress who preached free love, a bohemian who mocked family life and child-bearing, an elitist who sneered at the common man, and, after all her “nanny state” rhetoric, a recipient of Social Security and Medicare and a late, sick convert to the benefits of socialized medicine.
Worst of all, for tea-stained Christian Republicans, she was a militant atheist. In Rand’s ideology religious faith was the most abject form of weakness, a sniveling retreat from the hardheaded, self-centered “objectivism” her heroes impose on the world. She not only would have rejected Jesus and his gospels, she actually did—-repeatedly.
Voodoo Economics 0
Thom Hartmann explains how Truman was correct (Truman is at the very end) as he dicusses “the question Republicans can’t answer”:
No, It Hasn’t Gone Away 0
When my Jim Crow school system started to proceed towards complying with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Lq! all those years ago, they canceled the prom because they were afraid some little white boy would ask some little black girl to dance of (much worse) some little black boy would ask some little white girl to dance.
That was over four decades ago.
But they didn’t go as far as an Arkansas school district did just this spring. They gave the award to those who earned it; within a couple of years, a black girl earned valedictorian (in fact, I think she may have been in my brother’s class):
Follow the link for details and citations.
Life inside Republi-Bubble 0
Oberman interviews Markos. The first minute and a half are worthwhile. After that, it’s back to horse race coverage:
Excerpt:
Capitalism in its rawest form is the terrible fear that somewhere someone is getting a dollar that a rich person might be sitting on.
WWJD (Updated) (Updated Again) 0
At DelawareLiberal.
Addendum, Early That Evening:
Bob Cesca reports that the twit has deleted the tweet.
He can’t delete all the screenshots.
Addendum-Dee-Dum-Dum:
Atrios has the twit parade.
Doubling Down 0
It’s a way for losers to lose more while taking everyone else with them.