Ten Gallon Liberal
In the wake of Cheney
It’s remarkable how often one company shows up at the center of national-level controversy. From getting blamed for shoddy work that apparently electrocuted a soldier to receiving many allegations of tolerating sexual abuses, not to mention insanely inflating...Elephants remember
Robert Reich on health care reform 1993 versus 2010: To paraphrase Mark Twain, history doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme. As the White House and the House Democratic leadership try to line up 216 votes to pass health care reform — and as Republicans,...How about trying the free market?
Post-Exxon Valdez legislation makes companies liable for the damages from oil spills, but caps the liability at 75 million dollars–in the end, rather a paltry sum that then passes the rest of the bill on to taxpayers. Proposals are afoot to raise that amount....Democratic fortitude?
So the Democrats did the right thing politically. They passed the health care reform bill, the whole Frankensteined thing. I remain unconvinced that it’s the right bill to give us the health care system we really need, because I remain a supporter of many...Unchecked executive power, here we come!
Obama may madden the right for, well, just about everything, but in the one thing that matters most to me in our current political landscape–civil liberties, as opposed to the nearly undefinable political term “freedom”–he’s doing pretty...When Hawks Cry
The great tidal wave of conservative backlash against health care reform? David Frum, former Bush speechwriter, ain’t buying it. He’s written quite a screed (called “Waterloo”) about the failure of conservatives, so provocative that it appears...How can I roll when the wheels won't go?
Here’s the entire interview with Donald Simanek from this week’s Art in Paradise story about perpetual motion machines: 1) Is it safe to assume that nature will allow a machine that runs for an unusually long time without input of energy? Are the kinds of...New numbers; Zweibel lives
Polls are merely inexact and momentary snapshots, of course, but this is certainly interesting: More Americans now favor than oppose the health care overhaul that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds — a notable turnaround from...Giving Muppets a bad name
So that’s what Grover “I mean, [the estate tax on the wealthiest 2 percent] is the morality of the Holocaust” Norquist has been up to. Dude seems to get off on attempting to claim black is white. From a must-read at Think Progress: Net neutrality, a...Don't Think of An Elephant in a Gangster Hat
That’s gratitude for you–David Frum, the Bush speechwriter who coined the term “axis of evil,” offered a stark take on Republicans’ “just say no” health care reform approach.Three days later, the American Enterprise Institute...Not for the faint of heart
Don’t say you weren’t warned. Just a little Friday entertainment from Awkward Family Photos.ABeckalypse Now
I just rewatched Apocalypse Now for probably the fifth time, so it was with a heavy dose of Marlon Brando in my head that I listened to this passage from Glenn Beck’s radio program. It’s frightening to know there are people out there who take this...Your tax dollars at work
Intelligence reporter Jeff Stein delivers a collection of tidbits that makes you wonder just what’s in the water at the CIA. Exhibit 1 is a scrapped 2003 plan to make a gay sex video with a fake Saddam Hussein, for distribution in Iraq (I’m sure there...Alan Grayson does not mince words
From an article by John Nichols in The Nation: “What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the ‘military-industrial complex’ has come true,” [Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla.] argues. “War is...Reaping the Whirlwind
Turns out courting certain elements of the tea party movement comes back to bite you. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this kind of struggle, which will almost certainly become more common as tea party-supported candidates push out standard GOP...Of Pigeons and Men
It’s hard to know what’s crazier–India’s pigeon spy suspect detention policy (how’s the pigeon going to testify?), or Obama’s policy of “we can’t prove they’re a threat, so we won’t try them” Kafka...Rock you like a hurricane
This NOAA map of Gulf hurricane paths near the BP disaster is the most terrifying graphic I’ve seen lately. The site of the oil leak (not spill, by gum–this is a leaking oil deposit) is marked by a red star, and the hurricane paths are from the last 100...I guess he hangs out with his pals Superwizard and Okieman
It’s a bad run for BP these days. Besides the leaking undersea oil field, things haven’t been going so well at the Texas City refinery where an explosion killed 15 people in 2005: TEXAS CITY — At BP’s Texas City refinery, more than 400 pounds a...Spare a dime for BP?
Republican bigwig John Boehner (that’s “Baner” to you) floats an idea that can’t be helped by any amount of PR carefulness. How will tea partiers respond?: In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner backed Tom...Don't Even Look at It
This is what happened when a private seaplane operator attempted to get permission to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer over the Gulf to document oil plumes: “We were questioned extensively. Who was on the aircraft? Who did they work for?”...A Pantheon of Particles
The search for the elusive Higgs-Boson particle continues unabated, but a sidecar idea has arisen among phsyicists at the Tevatron, a lower energy U.S. particle accelerator that’s been eclipsed by the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. It’s a...Do they know it when they see it?
The tea party movement is taking it to the arts. Just got a press release about an artist who calls herself “Megrit” and has created a work dubbed “The Tea Party,” a still life of a teapot, cup and saucer and (I think) a box of sugar. It is,...E-I-E-I-O
Big bad jihadists or petting zoo fans? The Atlantic shares some surprising info about the reality of our terrorist enemies: Nowhere is the gap between sinister stereotype and ridiculous reality more apparent than in Afghanistan, where it’s fair to say that the...Ne touchez pas mon vuvuzela, s'il vous plait
I love when unusual words enter the English language, inveterate devourer of words that it is. But it’s truly a shame that the producer of an incessant buzzing sound that drives people to insane rage gets a cool moniker like “vuvuzela.” I’m no...(18th-century) London Calling; BP Oil Leak Aerial Footage
These computational contraptions we stare into by the hour seem remarkable in that they are customizable tools that can do anything you dream up within certain parameters. One of the most interesting things yet dreamed up for perusing and using on the Internet is...Post-Fourth (Red White and) Blues
Ah, nationalism! Pass me a heap of the greatest jello the world has ever seen, oh ye huddled masses in your amber waves of grain. Forget counter-insurgency–one cold and jiggly slurp of Aunt Ethel’s ambrosia salad and the Taliban would come whimpering into...Ice, Ice Shoji
One of the biggest poisoners of Merkin politics is Some. Some are always getting in the way of the rest of us. And now Some are saying that jello, the Ramones and double-can hats are somehow anti-Merkin, just because leftward fellow travellers enjoy them together on a...Tonight I'm Gonna Party Like It's 1989
From the “Nobody could have predicted” department: The gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle- and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past three decades, according to a June 25 report by the Center on Budget and Policy...The worst comic of all time; did BP seek the release of the Lockerbie bomber to help a drilling deal?
The worst comic of all time has finally been discovered. Witness the scintillating action as the ISG consults with the NCO and the SJA to explain the ramifications of the word “reliable” in assessing those who’ve witnessed homosexual conduct! Thrill...A Headscratcher
GOP crazy has been all the rage for some time, with mad stars like Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle. And that is some really good crazy, the kind of crazy that leaves you wide-eyed. If Palin said the moon was full of communists, she’d get equal...Perverted Spartans: Proving that Jesus Wore Pants
I’ve seen egotistical leaders of Sunday School empires gone wild-eyed with the certainty of Rapture based on numerology and too much caffeine, heard many a nutball prediction of when the world will end. All par for the course growing up in the Southern Baptist...Misery loves… is that Meathead?
Beyond “rad,” “def” or even “cool”: here are the owners of the worst band name in history. I mean, this is worse than Broken Social Scene, Forest for the Trees, or even Heavy Young Heathens (what–Fine Young Cannibals and...Tea and No Tea
Glad I saved all my Confederate money. Zach Wamp, Republican from Tennessee, says change health care or we quit: “I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this...More Tea and No Tea
You picked a fine time to lead me, Lucille–the current Republican dilemma illustrated: KUSA – U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck refers to members of the Tea Party who question the President’s citizenship as “dumbasses” in an audio recording...Stateless
Jay Rosen, in a disjointed bunch of notes about the Wikileaks bombshell, brings up some intriguing points. Beyond the usual questions of American politics raised by the release, Wikileaks, he argues, is something truly new: a stateless news organization. It’s a...Things That Are Not Good
Just because it’s sunny outside doesn’t mean we can’t find a few things to darken it all up! 1) Bottom of food chain going away: Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world’s oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are...Science gets all Star Trek on us
Been a good few days of Spock fever in Northampton, courtesy of Leonard Nimoy’s show at the Michelson Galleries. So it’s just that much cooler to see science catching up to Star Trek. Yep, teleportation! Finally… Well, okay,...How to Kill Literature
Vladimir Nabokov is among my favorite writers. I love his complex word games, his layers wrapped in layers of self-reference, all of it delivered in gorgeous prose. He was better at writing in his second language than, I think, any of us could be at Russian. But that...The Helsinki Virago
I would like to join Laura Ingraham in registering a complaint against Stephen Colbert. My great-grandma was part-Cherokee, and I too cannot believe that Colbert would demean Native American culture so terribly in calling Ingraham “Ichabod Crane’s banshee...They, Robot
I think the smartest move is to start working on weapons with which to destroy our impending robot overlords. I’m not sure if this is cool, excellent, or terrifying. ALSO: Check out this limited, if still fascinating, discussion of the word “fair”...All Your Tea Party Are Belong to Us
Today’s game of what’s weirder: a) The Fresh Prince or b) Maine tea party taken over via parking lot threat. Or hey, maybe the Fresh Prince did the threatening? He looks like a tea hater to me. I’d certainly drop my tea party and run if he approached...Hogging All the Terrorism
Josh Marshall, currently a New Yorker himself, nails the dynamic of conservatives trying to own 9/11: Last week John McCain announced that he too was opposed to the Community Center and Mosque to be built a couple blocks from Ground Zero. To his credit, unlike many...Bye-bye, Google
So Google and Verizon have decided that there are going to be two Internets. As one wag puts it, the Internet and the Schminternet. The Internet will be unregulated, as it now is, and include anything old. The Schminternet, where ISPs can do whatever they want, will...And bringing up the rear…
Perhaps it should be considered perfectly normal to pay unnaturally huge humans obscene amounts of money to bolster the image of a metropolis near you by competing with other unnaturally huge humans who take obscene amounts of money in other metropolises. The...And they say minimalism is too heady
An old friend of mine teaches Art History, and this is what happened when one of his students combined minimalism a la Donald Judd and Double Rainbow Guy. I almost hurt myself: Untitled from VJ Peter Rand on Vimeo.Chicken, meet Gator
I haven’t weighed in on the Ground Zero Muslim community center “controversy” because I find it painfully stupid. It’s the same thing that always happens in August: The Republican drool machine gins up, working the lower end of the GOP...When Giants Roamed the Earth
Like a kid’s imagination come to life–an award-winning, if unbuilt, design: AND: Every politician’s dream? Brazil bans political satire. And competition from Illinois: An attempt to ban eye-rolling. An idea which will probably induce some rolling of...Pythagoras would be proud
This is what happens when you do the Clinton triangle dance: On health care, the new law remains unpopular, partly because of the new mandate that all Americans must have health insurance (56 percent oppose the mandate). Other provisions in the new bill are popular,...Enjoying My Coffee
Here’s another reason to be angry with the amoral subhumans who are ginning up the “mosque” business to fire up the right wing bigot demographic. That “debate” is pointless unless you’re a Republican tapping into the directionless...What's That Sound?
Interestingly enough, it apparently isn’t Grover Norquist who’s ginning up “mosque” madness. Glenn Greenwald went digging and turned up Norquist sort-of nemesis Frank Gaffney. He’s the nutty nutball who TPM editor Josh Mashall says he...Martin Luther King and Glenn Beck–who's crying now?
Somehow I don’t think Martin Luther King would be into having his movement “reclaimed” by a maniac and a simpleton, one of whom called Obama a racist and the other who’s fueled anti-Islamic sentiment with her absurdist anti-Ground Zero...A Ground Zero Gaudi?
How about we put Hotel Attraction, designed by Antoni Gaudi, wonderfully strange sort-of Art Nouveau architect of Barcelona, at Ground Zero? That ought to please enough folks. It was in fact in contention as a replacement for the Twin Towers some years ago and,...Now we know: trolls eat raw Onion
Granted, every good recipe starts with The Onion: SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world....Is that a bomb in your trunk?
Nothing says comedy like fake bombs and threats of execution! Either something got lost in translation, or Iraqi humor is pretty strange. Although the end of this article says the new Iraqi reality show in which celebrities are stopped by “soldiers,” who...“Dude, you have no Koran”
So said a skateboarder who scuttled an Amarillo, Texas preacher’s plan to burn a Koran by boosting said Koran just before the match was struck and giving it to the local Muslim contingent. Not sure what’s more tawdry–that this guy wanted to burn a...Instant coffee explained at last!
Yep, the Grand Band Slam issue is out the door, so now things like blogs can be examined. And speaking of, my friend Ron Egatz just posted at his blog the only thing I’ve seen yet that made me consider that I might eventually want an iPad–he dubs it the...Fundies, no Undies
A whole new kind of fundamentalist terrorist emerges in “Naked City,” France: A long-simmering war between two tribes of the unclothed – “traditional” nudists and so-called “libertines” or exponents of free sex –...It's not the heat so much as the insanity
If I had a penny for every high school history textbook embracing Mohammed… My fellow Texans have gone loopy yet again: The Texas State Board of Education today passed a resolution warning textbook publishers to scrub their books of “gross pro-Islamic,...Sometimes proud to be an American?
Some conservatives enjoy branding the leftward the “blame America first” crowd. Of course, there’s kneejerk nationalism, then there’s a mature love of country that requires looking at faults and remedying them–in short, taking...E-Edition
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