2013 archive
“Soak the Poor” 0
Elizabeth Warren evicerates the myth of the “entitlement crisis.”
The “entitlement crisis” is a pretext to allow the rich to take from the rest.
Via Raw Story.
Remediation 0
Dahlia Lithwick suggests that, in the light of Republicans’ deciding that they need special training to talk to women, perhaps turnabout is fair play. A nugget:
“I Get To Play WoW at Work, and Get Paid for It” 4
That was my first thought on reading about the NSA’s infiltrating MUDs and MMOGs.
Robyn Blumner takes down the gamers at the NSA:
But there it was on the front page last week as yet another spying revelation from former NSA contractor turned whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The secret documents showed that America’s masters of spycraft thought it possible that terrorists were training and communicating while hiding behind avatars in popular virtual games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft. This prompted spies with the CIA, FBI and Pentagon to infiltrate the world of online gaming in such ridiculous numbers that a group had to be assigned to make sure the spooks weren’t colliding with one another.
The effort was a bust. Nothing came of it except to underscore the bloated surveillance state the United States has created.
Follow the link. After the snark, she gets serious, and her thoughts are worth the three minutes it takes to read them.
Rebranding 0
Tony Norman is stunned by the speed with which some Republicans–he specifically quotes Rush Limbaugh–are moving to claim Nelson Mandela as one of their own, even as others deride him as a Marxist.* He finds precedent:
It used to take a few decades for this kind of ideological revisionism to surface. Though former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and the right-wingers of his day were convinced Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist, he was retrieved from the dust bin of history by a younger generation of Republicans. These days, you can’t invoke King’s name in passing without a chorus of conservatives shouting, “He was a Republican, you know.”
While they’re at it, party elders would like to convince us that King practically delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech from the floor of the 1964 Republican convention just before Barry Goldwater was nominated for president. When it comes to redeeming King and making him safe for public consumption, the level of opportunism and cynicism on the part of those who once hated him is boundless.
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*Follow the link. Just do it.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Because, if you are not able to hold it, you must be politely taught.
On the way home, he stopped at the basketball court at South Holly Park Drive and South Othello Street and got out of his car to pee in the bushes, reports indicate.
The teen told police he then heard an engine accelerate behind him. He saw a black four-door car. Someone fired a gun from the rear left window two or three times and hit his left leg.
While You Watch Television . . . 0
. . . your television may be watching you.
I think we’ll be keeping our “dumb” TV a little longer.
Afterthought:
The NSA are pikers compared to marketeers.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
I missed the unemployment figures the last two weeks, being distracted by distractions.
I didn’t miss much, more of the almost same. But now ’tis the season.
The data reflect seasonal adjustment volatility around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, a Labor Department spokesman said as the figures were released. A report last week showed the unemployment rate fell to a five-year low and companies added more workers than forecast, pointing to further labor-market progress.
Secret Lives 0
The Booman views the cesspool and is not surprised.
Wars and Rumors of War 0
Ed Kilgore thinks that reports of a struggle between Republican extremists and “moderates” are, at best, delusional. He believes that the extremists won a long time ago. A nugget:
If One Picture Is Worth . . . 0
. . . what the price of four?
Via Bartcop.