September 2011
27 posts
11 tags
Economists: President Obama's jobs plan would... →
8 tags
A guy who has never held elective office and who... →
9 tags
Why Violence is Vanishing - Steven Pinker →
A superb article. Some highlights:
The rate of documented direct deaths from political violence (war, terrorism, genocide and warlord militias) in the past decade is an unprecedented few hundredths of a percentage point. Even if we multiplied that rate to account for unrecorded deaths and the victims of war-caused disease and famine, it would not exceed 1%.
Another contributor was the expansion...
11 tags
13 tags
4 tags
2 tags
11 tags
7 tags
A trend that needs to die: movies about nice white people going to Africa.
9 tags
16 tags
Mayor Bloomberg: Anarchy in the USA if We Don't...
A bold, almost threatening, statement from the Mayor:
We have a lot of kids graduating college, can’t find jobs.
That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.
The damage to a generation that can’t find jobs will go on for many, many years.
At least he [Obama] has got some ideas on the table, whether...
10 tags
Bunnies, babies and broads: What is TV trying to... →
This article has been floating around the past couple days. Given the female characters of some of the most heavily advertised upcoming TV shows (stewardess, Playboy bunny, waitress, lady who constantly jokes about her vagina), I’d say there’s much credence in the author’s argument.
None of these shows, I should add, look even remotely good, whether they be sexist or not. So...
12 tags
Majority of Americans Support Secularism, Gay...
Some recent polls from CNN:
15 tags
“You’ve got Governor Romney who called [social security] a fraud in his book No Apology, I don’t know if that was written by Kurt Cobain or not…”
- Jon Huntsman
—
Yes, that’s right. A Republican just made a fucking Kurt Cobain joke during a Presidential debate. Not a single person in the Tea Party crowd found it funny, but no matter. Jon Huntsman is...
16 tags
“We must never allow our differences to harden into divisions.
It may be tempting to think it doesn’t matter what happens to a villager in Afghanistan or a child in Africa, but the temptation of isolation is deadly wrong.”
- George W. Bush
—
Truer words are rarely spoken. I’d like to point out that with this statement, the former President seems far more moderate than any...
15 tags
18 tags
9/11, Liberalism, and War
I strongly agree and identify with this beautifully-phrased recollection of the post-9/11 mindset:
For me at any rate, the experience of engaging in the 9/11 politico-cultural wars was a vertiginous one in at least two ways. To begin with, I found myself for the first time in my life sharing the outlook of soldiers and cops, or at least of those soldiers and cops who had not (like George Tenet...
15 tags
8 tags
12 tags
“We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest...”
– Barack Obama
10 tags
“This is not a milque-toast speech or a milque-toast proposal. It’s a big...”
– Andrew Sullivan, conservative blogger
6 tags
I’m confused…does Obama want Congress to pass this bill or not?
10 tags
13 tags
5 tags
“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he...”
– Bertrand Russell
11 tags
“I find it useful to think in terms of three questions: What should we be doing...”
– Paul Krugman
8 tags
“One of the most idiotic jeers against animal lovers is the one about their...”
– Christopher Hitchens 