Linky Dinks

"Six months into Obama's term, most Americans told pollsters they preferred socialism to capitalism. In early 2010 one in five Republicans said they have a positive view of socialism." - Ted Rall

This is kind of like the U.S. Marines claiming the peace symbol is theirs.

Keep an eye on the sky 'cause the gubment is watching you, and maybe not even your own gubment.

Birther deserter gets a mere 6 months in prison.  During WWII he would have been shot. 

"By the way, I have chosen Sarah Palin Person of the Year. And the year is 1641." - Andy Borowitz

What we need is more guns.

Ever wonder why wingnuts still doubt climate change? Thought it might just be the "mainstream media's" tendency to put one legitimate scientist up against a doubter as if that was an even match (It should be nine and a half scientists and one doubter)? Yeah, that's part of it, but this is probably much more a cause.

Top 5 problems with the tax deal: 1. The deal is a stealth attack on Social Security. 2. For nearly one in three workers, it's a tax increase. 3. The deal has not one but TWO millionaire bailouts. 4. Unemployment help is insufficient and inadequate. 5. Tax giveaways to the rich are a terrible way to create jobs.

Atheists don't commit as much crime as the religious.  Only the religious are surprised.

Full transcript of the complete 8 hour filibuster here.

Surprise.  Fox News deliberately slanted news coverage of health care.

The Week in Ogre-oids

Afghanistan - June was the deadliest month yet for coalition troops in our endless, stupid war in Afghanistan.  I can find no mention of how many civilians were killed but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it was a fucking lot of people.

The deaths of 102 servicemembers included a record 59 Americans. Nine of the 46 nations in the U.S.-led coalition suffered fatalities, the most countries to lose troops since the conflict began nearly nine years ago.  via

GOP Blocks Extension of Unemployment Benefits - After more than a decade of spending like drunken sailors with a pocket full of stolen credit cards, GOP Congress members have blocked an extension of unemployment benefits because it would add to the deficit.  War is fine with them, tax cuts for the ultra-megas are fine with them, but helping people out whose jobs have been lost thanks to the Republicans' reckless behavior?  Not a chance.  I think I'm going to print myself a bumper sticker that says, "Fuck the Poor! vote GOP."  more


Proof Our Newspapers Are Too Chickenshit to Call Torture Torture - Worst offender?  The NY Times which virtually stopped referring to waterboarding by Americans as torture after Bush/Cheney decided it was hunky dory while still calling it torture if other countries do it according to a new study by Harvard’s Kennedy School (pdf).

Examining the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country, we found a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding. From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002‐2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture. In addition, the newspapers are much more likely to call waterboarding torture if a country other than the United States is the perpetrator. In The New York Times, 85.8% of articles (28 of 33) that dealt with a country other than the United States using waterboarding called it torture or implied it was torture while only 7.69% (16 of 208) did so when the United States was responsible. The Los Angeles Times characterized the practice as torture in 91.3% of articles (21 of 23) when another country was the violator, but in only 11.4% of articles (9 of 79) when the United States was the perpetrator. via

NPR's Continued Practice of Allowing It's Correspondents to Also Work For Fox News - Fox News is not a news organization.  They follow no rules of journalistic ethics.  They are a propaganda service for the far right of American politics and anyone in their employ is damaged goods.  NPR and Fox's Mara Liasson manages to insert some Fox bullshit into every article aired on NPR and she once again managed it by noting, for absolutely no reason other than to sound the fascist dog whistle, that President Obama was "reading from a teleprompter" during a speech in Louisiana.  It's utterly disgusting that any organization that claims to report facts would allow these hacks to sully its broadcasts.

Here's an exchange I had with the ombudsman's office.

War's monopoly on America's social identity

The April 17, 2010 NY Times article "Detroit seeks exit from doom highway" reveals a great deal about America and its denial of its own social existence. The article is another bit of American kitsch that sugar-coats an obviously dreary situation. But the cultural problem that underlies the article is the assumption that social problems do not require social solutions--only individual ones. The article reports that there are individuals, some "celebrities" and others "ordinary" (notice the reinforcement of class here) who are doing great things like growing vegetables and restoring ghettos to try and bring Detroit out of its apparent state of collapse. The article ends with the author, N. Genzlinger, predictably giving the state of Detroit a typically sappy, American twist: even though Detroit may be doomed, it's "inspiring" to see individuals doing something to make things better. May I ask what is "inspiring" about a city doomed to fail? Again, the social--city--is ignored and the individual--"I (and the reader) find this inspiring" is all that matters. An entire city can go to shit but as long as the indivdual reading about it finds inspiration, all is well. The plight of Detroit reminds me of post-Katrina New Orleans, and the typical American response that society, e.g. the government, had no responsibility to do anything about it. But the reality is that America does have a social identity and an awareness that as a nation we act collectively, socially, not just as individuals. Slogans like "Country First" (from the McCain-Palin campaign), "Freedom Isn't Free" (Persian Gulf War), and "The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts" (pro sports cliche) can't exist in a society that does not have a social awareness. The problem is not the lack of social awareness but the sad reality that fighting wars has a monopoly on that social awareness and the social identity it fosters. There are no social solutions to social problems of poverty, health care, education, racism, or urban decay--but there is when it comes to terrorism and crime: war. The answer: war on terror and war on drugs. Leave it to "individuals" to deal with the doom of American cities.

The Vicious War and Media Cycle

Remember how a few days ago we heard that the top two al-Qaeda leaders had been killed in Iraq? Ah, the nostaglic memories of Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay being killed and their corpses being circulated on the internet! Such inspiraiton and excitement! Well, just as the deaths of Hussein and his son amounted to nothing in terms of making progress in the Iraq conflict--now in its third decade--the deaths of these top two al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq resulted in at least 58 civilian deaths in Baghdad just days later (see NY Times, April 24, 2010). The media, though, pretends never to catch on to the pattern: the military reports a so-called "success," then a few days later body parts are flying. Can you imagine what it would be like if a bomb went off in your boring, zombie hole-in-the-ground U. S. A. town and you were left to carry your charred and bloodied loved one around in a daze of smoke and burnt flesh while more bombs were going off? But since that's not as bad as abortion or medical marijuana, then who cares? The American people of the 21st century have to be the sickest, most unfeeling creatures ever to walk this planet. I swear, people are under some kind of spell. How this cycle can keep repeating is as puzzling to me as it is repugnant.