February, 2013 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Everybody Must Get Fracked, Silently 0
Sanford, New York, tells its citizens to keep quiet and just take it.
The board in the small town in eastern Broome passed a resolution in September saying there had already been hours of public comment for and against gas drilling and no further discussion would be allowed.
Cantor’s Cant 0
Paul Krugman dissects Eric Cantor’s recent paean to the stupid. A nugget:
Do actions like this have important effects? Well, consider the agonized discussions of gun policy that followed the Newtown massacre. It would be helpful to these discussions if we had a good grasp of the facts about firearms and violence. But we don’t, because back in the 1990s conservative politicians, acting on behalf of the National Rifle Association, bullied federal agencies into ceasing just about all research into the issue. Willful ignorance matters.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” (Updated, Kicked to the Top)) 0
Be polite in Family Court.
According to Wilmington police, the gunman opened fire, killing two women and injuring two Capitol police officers. At least one of those women is believed to have been targeted.
In other news of the courteous, there’s this.
Addendum:
Heed the sounds of politeness:
“I’m scared,” she told him. “I heard gunshots.”
Twits on Twitter 0
Retiring twits, who manage cover-up–oh, never mind.
Classic Arts Showcase 0
We stumbled over this a couple of weeks ago. It airs on our cable provider on Sundays, eight hours of a pot-potpourri of songs, shorts, excerpts, and the like. One of the items this week included Nat “King” Cole and Ella Fitzgerald in a duet.
It airs on one of the “public access” channels (channel 47 on Virginia Beach’s Cox Cable), so it’s not listed in the “listings” on the cable company’s DVR–the listing provides no information about what’s on the three “public access” channels.
Those channels are normally a rather boring collection of local miscellany, but the Classic Arts Showcase is a fascinating variety of excellent viewing and listening.
Follow the link to find out where you can view it in your area.
Droning On 5
James Carroll starts with the murder of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and ends with robotic death raining from the skies. A nugget:
Death out of nowhere, inflicted by unthreatened operators, upon designated enemies, who may or may not pose lethal threats and who may or may not be as guilty as the joystick judges decide. America has become a sniper nation.
(Link fixed.)
The Insecurity State 0
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Tom Engelhart considers the costs of circling the wagons by the overreactionaries:
Given the enemy at hand – not a giant empire, but scattered jihadis and minority insurgencies in distant lands – all of these institutions, which make up the post-9/11 National Security Complex, expanded in ways that would have boggled the minds of previous generations (as would that most un-American of all words, “homeland”). All of this, in turn, happened in a poisonously paranoid atmosphere in Washington, and much of the rest of the country.
Read the whole thing.
Gunnuttery, the Smokescreen 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Gordon Livingston skewers the NRA’s red herring that better mental illness care will end the bloodshed. A nugget:
Read the rest.
Obligatory Grammys Thread 0
Who cares?
The Name Game 0
Friday night, we tried checking on the New England snowmageddon on the Weather Channel, but, the third time the announcers referred to the storm as “Nemo,” we signed off in disgust.
Too stupid for words.
Have Cake, Eat It Too 1
In the Tampa Bay Times, Robyn Blumner ruminates on the contradiction of Republican Economic Theory. Follow the link for details:
That’s the only conclusion I can draw from years of listening to business-oriented groups meeting with the Tampa Bay Times editorial board with the same conflicting agenda: demands for lower taxes and fewer government protections for workers, consumers and the environment while calling for a more educated workforce, modern infrastructure and cities that attract the creative class.
We have an entire political movement dedicated to the belief that those who have the most deserve a free lunch.
All about the Trigger Finger 0
F. T. Rea thinks that mass shooters would rather shoot than switch. (Click to read.)
I think he’s onto something there.
Gunnuttery is the Dirty Harry fantasy for men with smal–oh, never mind.
Enemies of the State 0
Daniel Ellsberg speaks:
The Maybelline Party 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., on the Republican Party’s vaunted attempts to “rebrand” itself:
Because you know what you call a pig with lipstick on? A pig with lipstick on.
Read the rest.