August 2010
Heil, Glennster →
Mike Godwin had his tongue in his cheek when he first invoked his law in 1989: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” No matter what the subject—gardening, fashion, even tea parties—Hitler will raise his evil analogous head.
Godwin, an attorney and expert on Internet law, added that mention of Hitler stops the...
Glenn Beck’s History Lesson: Amnesia and... →
Beck’s history lesson is a rather confusing one. He states that he wants to restore America and return the nation to God. But when exactly did the United States abandon God? Was the abandonment present at the creation when the Bill of Rights provided for freedom of religion and a separation of church and state based upon colonial opposition to the established Church of England? Beck, of...
“Since when did “we the people” become synonymous with Socialism? How can we...”
– Me the People: A Day with the Tea Party
“When I studied economics years ago, I recall we were taught that banks serve as...”
– David Korten
Is a Dream a Lie If It Don't Come True, Or Is It... →
Smoother than G. W. Bush, slicker, and of course smarter, this lying president will not likely be goofed up in buckled and pocketed flight gear, and he will be accompanied by the mandatory American flag on a sturdy stand rather than a blatant Mission Accomplished banner. But the substance will be the same: we did it; don’t worry, don’t doubt, don’t question. The big lie will...
The Effect of Immigrants on U.S. Employment and... →
The effects of immigration on the total output and income of the U.S. economy can be studied by comparing output per worker and employment in states that have had large immigrant inflows with data from states that have few new foreign-born workers. Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that immigrants expand the economy’s productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting...
“Glenn Beck’s sidekick nowadays, Sarah Palin, is exactly the kind of corn...”
– James Howard Kunstler
Focus on Family says anti-bullying efforts in... →
As kids head back to school, conservative Christian media ministry Focus on the Family perceives a bully on the playground: national gay-advocacy groups.
School officials allow these outside groups to introduce policies, curriculum and library books under the guise of diversity, safety or bullying-prevention initiatives, said Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman.
“War and fear erode a country’s moral compass and distort its sense of just...”
– Jerry Lanson
Innocent Executioners: An Illustration of the... →
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday. … The soldier, who has only been identified as “Captain R”, was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman...
“This angry resentment is periodically a major force in American politics. It is...”
– slacktivist
THE AGE OF MAMMON →
The parallels between the period leading up to the Great Depression and our current situation leading to a Greater Depression are revealing. When you examine the facts without looking through the prism of party politics it becomes clear that when the wealth and power of the country are overly concentrated in the clutches of the top 1% wealthiest Americans, financial collapse and depression follow....
“So what will happen if, as expected, Republicans win control of the House? We...”
– Paul Krugman
Free market has turned us into 'Matrix' drones →
A leading economist has likened the nation’s acceptance of free-market capitalism to that of the brainwashed characters in the film The Matrix, unwitting pawns in a fake reality. In a controversial new book, the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang debunks received wisdom on everything from the importance of the internet to the idea that people in the United States enjoy the highest standard...
“Instead of taking social cues from people your age, take cues from people ten...”
– Donald Miller
Urban Legends →
Perhaps the most damaging misconception of all is the idea that concentration by its very nature creates wealth. Many writers, led by popular theorist Richard Florida, argue that centralized urban areas provide broader cultural opportunities and better access to technology, attracting more innovative, plugged-in people (Florida’s “creative class”) who will in the long term...
“The war against war has not been going very well lately, but we must take what...”
– The War on War
The nitty-gritty of whittling down your... →
About a year ago, I came to the conclusion that the most logical thing to be done was to rid myself of all (or most) of my possessions. After meticulously itemizing all of my stuff, I put almost all of it up for sale on a site I built in a weekend, Cult of Less. Yesterday, the BBC News ran an article about myself and a few other folks replacing their physical media with their digital analogs....
“It’s not hard to see what Beck has against “liberation...”
– Glenn Beck vs. Christ the Liberator
“A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls...”
– God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck
The Unmaking of a Company Man →
By the midpoint of the twentieth century, “the Pentagon” had ceased to be merely a gigantic five-sided building. Like “Wall Street” at the end of the nineteenth century, it had become Leviathan, its actions veiled in secrecy, its reach extending around the world. Yet while the concentration of power in Wall Street had once evoked deep fear and suspicion, Americans by and large saw the...
Nightmarish Hospital Visit Capped by Beating →
UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (CN) - A man who was hurt in a car crash but was misidentified as a cancer patient claims security guards at Prince George’s Hospital beat him up when he tried to leave the hospital to avoid chest surgery he didn’t need - “to have a potentially cancerous mass removed from his chest.” He adds that one guard repeatedly called him “bitch” as...
“Here come the Corn Pone Nazis! Fox News entertainer, former drug addict, and...”
– James Howard Kunstler
“Mr. Prince no longer lives in the United States. According to court documents...”
– Christopher Brauchli
“The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted...”
– Muhammed Ali
Clue: Faith-Based Organizations Ain’t Just... →
“There’s a reason farmers use chemicals and genetically modified grains. People...”
– Unrepentantcowboy
I am like you →
In March 2003 I boarded a plane at LAX and flew to the country where my father took his last breath. It was there at the marketplace in Hoi An that I met a Vietnamese fellow who said to me, “I am like you.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“I, too, lost my father to that war.”
Prior to that encounter, I had not allowed myself to think of the Vietnamese children and the sufferings they had endured....
“It’s about approaching our political leaders with the now indisputable truth:...”
– Revelations of Rot: Behind Baseball’s Corporate Crime Wave
Glenn Beck’s ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ →
This is the ‘I have a Dream Speech’ that Glenn Beck would give at the Lincoln Memorial if he were being completely honest.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from tax increases or increased regulation of your speculative financial instruments. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you...
“If Lt. Col. Kauzlrich, and others charged with handling the Tillman...”
– Karen Spears Zacharias
LA authorities plan to use heat-beam ray in jail →
A device designed to control unruly inmates by blasting them with a beam of intense energy that causes a burning sensation is drawing heat from civil rights groups who fear it could cause serious injury and is “tantamount to torture.”
The mechanism, known as an “Assault Intervention Device,” is a stripped-down version of a military gadget that sends highly focused beams...
“The Right of the 1980s was not obsessed with bigotry. What did happen, however,...”
– The Coming Era of Liberaltarianism
Through a glass, darkly: How the Christian right... →
We keep trying to explain away American fundamentalism. Those of us not engaged personally or emotionally in the biggest political and cultural movement of our times—those on the sidelines of history—keep trying to come up with theories with which to discredit the evident allure of this punishing yet oddly comforting idea of a deity, this strange god. His invisible hand is everywhere, say His...
“Other than that guy back back there selling flags, I’ve got to be the only...”
– Glenn Beck’s Great Whiteout
“Yet inexorably the Koch agenda is morphing into the G.O.P. agenda, as...”
– Frank Rich
“Movements — real movements that make a difference and stand the test of...”
– Steve Benen
“Death glorified Seneca and made one generation forget his poses and his...”
– Will Durant