Political Briefs
April 15, 2012
- How The Banks Stole Medicare
- The Conventional Wisdom Is As Wrong On Tax "Reform" As It Was On Iraq
- George W. Bush's Deliberate And Successful Attack On America And Its Consumers
- How To Prevent Oil Spills (jail time)
- Republicans And NJ Republican Governor Chris Christie Lie To Cannibalize The Future
While failing to give credit where credit is due (to Republican Dwight David Eisenhower for calling attention to the source of the problem), Krugman has a valid point. "America used to be a country that thought big about the future. Major public projects, from the Erie Canal to the interstate highway system, used to be a well-understood component of our national greatness. Nowadays, however, the only big projects politicians are willing to undertake — with expense no object — seem to be wars. Funny how that works." - Afghan Highway 1
This is like the U.S. (and various state and local police forces) being unable to protect and control I-95 from Boston, Mass. to Washington, D.C.
The previous government was removed from power in 2001, over 10 years ago. The article indicates not only that the local army can not protect the main highway, they have little interest in doing so.
What is the current real (not a figment of the joint imaginations of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove) military or other threat to U.S. states and territories that requires U.S. forces to be there at this time? What was the real military or other threat to U.S. states and territories at any time after 2001 which required the U.S. to be there?
Aside from spending money in short supply at home to students, colleges, the sick, the hungry, local governments, state governments, those defrauded by Wall Street's mortgage fraud from about 2005 to the present, underwater homeowners, the Medicare program, the Social Security program, the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. Treasury's deficit reduction programs, the unemployed in need of retraining, small businesses whose capital needs are not being met by big banks more interested in giving billions in bonuses to the executives and fraud artists they employ than meeting the needs of the communities which supplied the money in 2008 and 2009 to keep these banks in business and out of bankruptcy, and small businesses whose access to legitimate capital is about to be obstructed by the newly signed fraudster protection act (otherwise known as the JOBS bill), what are we doing there?
Those wacky Swedes, Late with the meme, Dalton notes a future of journalism essay, Dan Grobstein File
April 15, 2012
Swedish gender pronoun neutrality; political correctness gone mad!
Apropos of last week's Hillary Clinton Tweets meme; you know you're late with a meme when you hear it on the CBS World News Roundup, a radio program whose average listener was born during the late Pleistocene era.
Richard Dalton says: "This is pretty heavy sledding, but it's the best discussion of the issues facing future journalists that I've read."
Dan Grobstein File
- OPINION | April 07, 2012
Op-Ed Columnist: The Right Flames the Volt
By JOE NOCERA
G.M.'s innovative hybrid has become quite the political lightning rod. - Octavia Nasr (@octavianasr) 4/7/12 3:05 PM How the Young Are Indoctrinated to Obey I would say its more about how the corporatization of education is screwing the country which makes the young indoctrinated to obey.
- Juan Cole (@jricole) 4/8/12 2:48 AM America’s new data center: The Biggest Big Brother of All (BIFJ): From the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
- Thug Life By John Cole April 9th, 2012 These Blackwater videos taken in Iraq are appalling. I’m not sure which one is the worst, but running over a women and just continuing on without so much as radioing for help has to be up there. Remember- they hate us for our freedom.
- Another Rising Republican Star with a Truth Deficit by John Cole on 4/10/12 Liar, liar: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey exaggerated when he declared that unforeseen costs to the state were forcing him to cancel the new train tunnel planned to relieve congested routes across the Hudson River, according to a long-awaited report by independent Congressional investigators.
- OPINION | April 13, 2012
Op-Ed Columnist: Cannibalize the Future
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Remember when America was a country that thought big about making things better for tomorrow? - OPINION | April 14, 2012
Op-Ed Columnist: How to Prevent Oil Spills
By JOE NOCERA
Two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it's clear that fines are meaningless. Only the threat of prison time can change behavior. - OPINION | April 14, 2012
Op-Ed Columnist: How to Prevent Oil Spills
By JOE NOCERA
Two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it's clear that fines are meaningless. Only the threat of prison time can change behavior. - WORLD | April 14, 2012
The Saturday Profile: Beneath That Beguiling Smile, Seeing What Leonardo Saw
By SUZANNE DALEY
A researcher at the Prado, using high-tech tools, discovered that a copy of the Mona Lisa was most likely painted by someone sitting next to Leonardo da Vinci as he produced his masterpiece.
End April 16 column
April 15, 2012
End of the Mali Journal
April 10, 2012
My older daughter has been evacuated from Mail in the middle of her term as a Peace Corps Volunteer because of the coup which topled the democratic government there. While it is possible the junta will quietly hand power back to a civilian government, it is also possible they won't, and the Peace Corps doesn't take chances, so 186 people got their time cut short. M has decided to return to the United States and should be back next week. She is reachable now by email and phone in Ghana.
Weekend in Bodega
April 10, 2012
My wife, younger daughter and I spent a delightful three-day weekend in
Bodega Bay, at the rental house 7th Heaven in the Bodega Harbour
development. We have been renting rental houses there for 30 years. It
is a lovely weekend getaway. I suppose it might be nicer if we golfed
(since the development is built around, and the houses back onto, a
golf course), but the long, white-sand beach is perfect for a walk of
an hour or more, and that's good enough exercise for us. There is also
a fine restaurant just 30 minutes away in Jenner, called River's End
(about the same distance as the almost-as-good Cape Fear in Duncans
Mills), where we ate a great lunch on Sunday. There is another pretty
good restaurant closer, Terrapin Creek in Bodega Bay itself.
The best thing about getting away is that you can't do any of the
things that normally fill your time, so you are forced to relax. Of
course, that means you fall behind, but so be it. I love our weekends
there; always have. So we walked on the beach, we read (a lot; I love
to read), we made popcorn, we watched foreign movies on Itunes and
Netflix, we lit a fire in the fireplace. I was reading the new book New Republic, which
is shaping up to be as good a journalism novel as Scoop.
Political Briefs
April 10, 2012
- Republicans' Fraudulent Budget
- Is AG Eric Holder Effectively Using Your Money To Protect His Once And Future Clients?
- The Ownership Society: Billionaires Own Your Money
- Goldman Sachs Promotes Alleged Fraud Artist . Gee whiz, do you think maybe Goldman Sachs just increased its ability to do what it does best - allegedly defraud customers?
- Financial Regulation Threatens Muppets
- Federal Judge Disqualifies Himself
- Cooling Out The Mark
- Because no one else has made a prediction: who's going to win in 2012.
- Republican Thugs Continue Class Warfare Attack On Workers And Unemployed
Texts from Hillary, Dern on John Carter, Peterman on Sad State of Education, Research from Nilsson, Dalton: We're Reading Less
April 10, 2012
Hilarious! Or perhaps Hillaryiarious: Texts from Hillary
Did you think that the new movie John Carter was awful just because most reviewers hated it? Daniel Dern begs to differ.
Kent Peterman writes: Another fine product of American education. God help us all. Would that it were an April Fool's joke. [Actually, I suspect it is. Really, could anyone not answer that?]
Bob Nilsson saw this in the Boston Globe: Researchers found that simply holding a gun yourself can make you think others have a gun, too. and (same link) … “Note to the Republican Party: You might want to serve alcohol and give prizes for fast voting at the polls. Psychologists at the universities of Arkansas, Kansas, and Wisconsin found that people instructed to multitask, go fast, or go with their gut adopted more conservative attitudes. Moreover, people leaving a bar were more conservative the higher their blood-alcohol level…”
Also, Bob has a Nissan Leaf: "I’m loving my LEAF. It’s a great car and I no longer waste any time or money at gas stations."
Speaking of belated April Fools: "We Made A Huge Mistake" . Also, Why Some People Attended MIT
Richard Dalton sent me this Pew study, which, I think USA Today would headline, We're Reading Less.
Borowitz Report: Citing Safety Concerns, Somali Pirates Refuse to Board Cruise Ships: Fire, Capsizing Top Pirates’ Concerns, Spokesman Says
End April 9 Column
April 10, 2012
Mali Journal
April 03, 2012
M older daughter, M, is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali, where they just had a coup. She checks in on March 26:
So, we remain consolidated. The borders opened up this morning, so I hear, and the airport is opening up today with the first commercial flights going out this evening. There's some big meeting in Abidjan where regional leaders are going to make some demands of the junta as preconditions to normalized relations. The AU (African Union) has condemned the coup along with everyone else.
Everything here in Sikasso remains calm. It sounds like things have calmed down in Bamako as well. No gunfire anymore, and the cars that were earlier taken by marauding soldiers have actually been returned to their owners. The banks and post office are open today.
We've only been in Sikasso for three days, but there's a lot of people and not much space. As long as the power stays good (it did go off for about 8 hours last night) people can retreat into their personal laptops, but when it goes off people have to look up.
We've had two very nice team dinners though. The night before last was pad Thai and spring rolls, and last night it was breakfast for dinner (eggs, pancakes, and hash browns).
At least since we're allowed to leave the house, everyone tends to go out at least once a day for a walk down to the market. Yesterday I ended up buying fabric (alarm clocks, military, and education themed). We also watched Beauty and the Beast together after the power went out, but M's computer's battery died right as the Beast was transforming into a ... what? Now I'll never know. I spent all morning yesterday here in the back bedroom typing up my journal and watching episodes of Mob Wives while eating granola (surprisingly good) from the Tubab [foreigners'] store. In the afternoon we played Boggle. Today will probably look exactly the same.
[Consolidation has been lifted, but for security reasons, Peace Corps has asked that posted details be left vague. And so they shall, for now]
One good thing is that it rained last night, which cooled everything off. It actually rained well into this morning, and it is still cloudy now. It pretty much has to burn off this afternoon though, because two cloudy days would be unprecedented for this time of year. Normally the mango rains are just quick bursts of storms, not lingering affairs.
Maybe we'll play Trivial Pursuit today instead of Boggle. Or maybe both. We'll see what happens with the power.
Basically, I'm fine. I'm still anxious, but I have media to watch, books to read, friends to play games with, plenty of food and soda, and even recreational shopping if I don't spend too much time thinking about the fact that I might not get to bring what I buy back with me.