2022 archive
Democracy Plutocracy
0
A member of the European Parliament argues that the United States is a failing state.
His arguments are difficult to counter, as one of our two major political parties has dedicated itself, not to democracy, but to minority rule at any cost.
Craven Imagers 0
Mrs. Betty Bowers lampoons the Christofascists’ claim that “America is a Christian nation.”
Aside:
Religious fervor has waxed and waned over the course of America’s history, but seldom has America’s religious fervor seemed so poisonous and hate-full as it is today.
Video via C&L.
Crass Roots Organizations 0
Maurice T. Cunningham looks at the “grass roots’ of the right-wing “Moms for Liberty” and finds that those roots are anything but what they are claimed to be. A snippet:
Follow the link for the evidence.
The Medicine Show 0
At The American Scholar, Colin Dickey reports on the fantastically lucrative patent medicine industry. It is a fascinating read. Here’s bit:
The dietary supplement industry, of which Moon Juice is just one small portion, sells (according to one estimate) some $35 billion in products per year to consumers in the United States alone. Brands with names like Nature’s Bounty and Purity Products advertise everything from squid oil to chromium to the monkey head mushroom, and all of it is made possible by those two sentences—repeated over and over again, printed on millions of labels in tiny fonts, ritually intoned until their meaning has been obliterated.
Barnum was wrong.
There’s more than one born every minute.
(Spellink erorrs correxted.)
Bumper Sticker Shock 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear decodes de code.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Once more, politeness becomes child’s play.
Aside:
If you have taken driver refresher classes, I have (to get a break on my insurance rates), you may have noticed that the instructors do not refer to automobile “accidents.” They refer to “crashes.” One instructor told me that this was a purposeful change in terms, to emphasis that almost all vehicle “accidents” could have been prevented if the driver or drivers, depending on how many vehicles were involved, had done something differently.
I hold that the same applies to shootings. A shooting may be intentional or it may be negligent, but it cannot be “accidental.”
Real Big Men 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., runs the numbers.
Immunity Impunity
0
The Graham cracker refuses to crumble.
Extra-Special Bonus QOTD 0
I think that the quote below from a television sitcom that aired over two decades ago succinctly summarizes the philosophy of today’s Republican Party.
The Realization 0
Joe Patrice explains at Above the Law.
The Common Denominator 0
The Arizona Republic’s E. J. Montini notes what it’s not.
It wasn’t a covert CIA operation.
It wasn’t pornography.
It wasn’t video games.
It wasn’t anti-depressants pushed by “Big Pharma” or the “lecturing” of dominant women or the influence social media.
Follow the link to see what it is.