January, 2012 archive
Breaktime 0
Off to drink liberally.
Voyeur Politicians 0
At the Guardian, Lizz Winstead explores the Republican candidates’ skeevy preoccupation with the sex lives of others simply by quoting them.
Hoo, boy.
I Finally Made Them Cheesestraws 0
I used this recipe, doubling the amount of cayenne and sprinkling them with hot Hungarian paprika. I also grated my own block of extra sharp cheddar, rather than getting that shredded newsprinty stuff from the store.
I rather surprised myself. I did not eat them all the first day.
As Old As Jamestown 1
Marc Lamont explains why racist stereotypes persist as part of U. S. politics. A nugget:
Of course, this works only against the backdrop of white supremacy, a system that makes whiteness a coveted piece of social, cultural and emotional property. Within this system, even the most socially desperate white citizen finds pride in being white or, more importantly, not being black.
As a result, rather than aligning themselves with other poor people, these individuals instead elect to close ranks around race.
Empty Teabags? 0
Bob Cesca wonders where the yellers went:
Anyone paying attention realized that teabaggery was an astroturf movement funded and promoted by (you will pardon the expression) the 1%, destined to be discounted when it was no longer a useful diversion.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
According to the fee marketers, there is nothing like letting the market winnow the winners from the losers.
The “framework should be in place for domestically systemically important banks by the end of the year,” Mark Carney, chairman of the Financial Stability Board, said yesterday after a meeting of the group in Basel, Switzerland.
This is nothing like letting the market winnow the winners from the losers.
Incompetence, the new route to financier financial success.
Twits on Twitter 0
OhMyGov! runs down the five most common political Twitter mistwits.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., cuts through the smokescreen:
Granted, race is nowhere mentioned in the voter ID bills. It was not mentioned in bills imposing grandfather clauses, poll taxes and literacy tests either. All were officially race-neutral, yet the intention and effect was to bar blacks from voting.
As Richard Nixon once said of his War on Drugs, another “race-neutral” policy that somehow victimizes mostly blacks, the idea is to target African Americans while appearing not to.
Note: I think Mr. Pitts left out “other minorities, students, and poor people.”
TSA Security Theatre, Spinning the Top Ten 0
Not one suspected terrorist.
Trademark Madness 1
Apparently, Texas A & M has trademarked a common phrase.
This definitely puts the “amateur” in semi-pro college football.
This is like Apple’s trying to trademark the letter “i,” but succeeding.
“My Theocracy Is Better than Your Theocracy” 0
Little Ricky: Absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever..
Mitt the Anointed 0
At the Guardian, Jason Farago argues that Mitt the Flip’s nomination is a done deal. He points to the one issue on which Mitt has not flipped: his unwavering loyalty to and identification with the corporate masters of the Republican Party and his belief in plutocracy uber alles.
(snip)
The fiction that Romney doesn’t believe in anything shows just how successfully the business absolutism he espouses has positioned itself outside ideological terms – beyond question, self-evident.
Follow the link for the rest.
Meanwhile, Field, who did part of his growing up in Michigan, remembers Mitt’s father:
To measure how far fell the apple from the tree, remember that George Romney made his pile by building a company. Mitt made his by destroying companies.
