February 2012
65 posts
January 2012
47 posts
“[T]he ongoing slump in Britain is now longer and deeper than the slump in the...”
– Paul Krugman, “The Greater Depression.”
See Krugman’s “Austerity Memories” for another good (and very short) comment on the failure of austerity measures in Britain.
(via ryking)
we have a century’s worth of depressions, recessions, and national responses from which to glean possible...
The SEC Mulls An Investigation Calls Grow For John... →
ryking:
John Boehner is heavily invested in Canadian oil companies which stand to profit handsomely if the Keystone XL pipeline were built.
oh noes… an unethical politician— unheard of. and a republican? never have I ever..
we need ALL THE REPUBLICANS to fuck ALL THE PLANETS!!! MORE REPUBLICANS, PLEASE!!!
—carlbgood
“It’s long past time to rip those blindfolds off of the Lady Justice statues....”
– Glenn Greenwald (via azspot)
“Last [September], Ron Paul was on The Daily Show, and under the gentlest of...”
– Ron Paul, Crazy Person (via ryking)
in a nutshell. - cbg
Cash From Marijuana Fuels Mexico's Drug War →
NPR (jason beaubien)
“Marijuana and cocaine are the two largest sources of revenue for the cartels, generating billions of dollars in illicit profits each year. But some analysts say marijuana may be the cartels’ greatest source of cash in part because the Mexican gangs control the production, trafficking and distribution of the drug.”
1/2. I’d imagine it’d hurt a...
“There was a study recently in which thirty of the largest companies in the...”
– Elizabeth Warren on the Daily Show tonight (via kateoplis)
how’s this possible?? how’s it possible that companies so burderned by taxation could actually outspend their tax bill in lobbying.
because they make so much fucking money off the government teet they could have a tax rate...
Watchdrwh0:
Prof. Reich lays out the case for a constitutional amendment to overrule Citizens United v. FEC and establish definitively that only people are people.
nipped one small fire in the bud (see sopa/pipa:dead), but this is the firestorm that sparks all others. don’t want to see round after round of assault on our basic rights and integrity of our democratic system, then do what you...
Out of the Mouths of Babes, or, Why is the Sky... →
So, the sky is blue because the incident light interacts with the gas molecules in the air in such as fashion that more of the light in the blue part of the spectrum is scattered, reaching our eyes on the surface of the planet. All the frequencies of the incident light can be scattered this way, but the high-frequency (short wavelength) blue is scattered more than the lower frequencies in a...
“The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its...”
– Andrew Sullivan absolutely kills this. He defends Obama’s first term as remarkably prolific, moderate and true to principle. Hear, hear. (via thecallup)
READ THIS!
Me: Am I free to assemble a protest of peaceful peers?
Government: Only with a permit.
Me: Am I free to travel?
Government: Only with a passport (or other I.D. only I can legally provide).
Me: Am I free to pursue my own ideas of happiness?
Government: Only within these constraints.
Me: Am I free to start a business?
Government: Only with a license.
Me: Am I free to marry who I wish?
Government: Only with my consent.
Me: Am I free?
Government: I'm legally obligated to say that you are.
Government: Stop asking so many questions.
carlbgood:
me: am I free to buy an island, move there, build a swiss-family robinson style tree-house where I and all my buddies can live where we grow our own food, raise our own livestock, and live off-grid like lord of the flies style, where we make our own rules and no grown-ups come and tell us what to do, and live completely free and independently of anybody else on the planet?
government: sure. good luck.
iow: you don't live on a fucking island. you live in communities in a state within a unified country. what happened after the first day in lord of the flies, the CHILDREN formed a fucking government. if you have more than one person living in a given area, you will have government--either tyrannical (one to rule them all), or democratic, but there's no such thing as "everyone just does as they please." cause it's impossible to avoid one person stepping on the toes of another. impossible. so what do you do about it? you establish boundaries, rules, and punishments. simple as that. we are all very sorry for you that you weren't born 10,000 years ago so that you could travel as you please without a passport--mostly sorry, cause we have to listen to you whine like children all the fucking time.
child: I want a puppy (freedom).
adult: no problem, but WHEN it shits and pisses everywhere you have to clean it up.
child: no, I just want a puppy, not shit and piss.
adult: sorry, puppies carry a little baggage. and you'll have to feed it and water it and care for it every day or it will die.
child: no, I don't want to tend to it, and I don't want a dead puppy, I just want a puppy. can I have a puppy ?
adult: NO.
I keep hearing about this great "freedom" that everyone is currently denied. "if only we were free." I have asked repeatedly, cause I feel I must have missed something, for someone to explain to me how this freedom works, what this free land actually looks like in reality. what does this libertarian xanadu actually look like, and not one person can paint me a picture of this idyllic land that's just a few repealed laws beyond our grasp.
that's because not one person screaming about freedom has ever stopped for a single second to consider the fact that this is planet fucking earth--not planet todd, or johnny, or jill. not everyone is going to get along and agree to not impose on others cause the planet earth is not composed of just jills. just jills would respect the sanctity of private property and life, and would not think of coveting her neighbor jill's new prada handbag--at least not to the degree that she would actually plot to illegally take it. jill you are a very special human and all the good people on earth applaud your consideration and your maturity of character, however, jill you are a fucking moron if you really believe you don't need a lock on your door (and by 'lock' I mean laws protecting you from others meaning you harm, such as business licenses that suggest you didn't wake up this morning and decide you wanted to be a structural engineer, or id cards that ensure you are who you say you are and are accountable to others as yourself--cause they know who the fuck you are-- or marriage licenses so that you prove you are married so that you can enjoy tax breaks and make end-of-life decisions for your formal partner, in addition to meaning just a 'lock').
cause guess what? on planet earth, your neighbor is not jill, it is ted. and unfortunately ted doesn't abide by your principles, he has his own, and ted will rape and kill you in the middle of the night and take your prada handbag cause ted really likes prada handbags too, but he can't afford one on his salary they pay him down at the rape and kill expo where he works (fortunately one of the benefits of his job is he's allowed to plunder any home where he's raped and killed the occupants--huge plus). the benefits aren't bad at all, but the job can be tough sometimes, particularly all the traveling that's involved. once you've got your hands on that handbag then it's time to skip town and keep on keeping on. but since ted has no license no one's really sure who he is, he just keeps traveling state to state raping and killing and collecting his prada purses and no one is any wiser. sometimes he runs into problems when he's traveling, cause though there are no formal speed limits, as that would be an impediment on ted's freedom, he does occasionally break the informal limits placed at the entrance of small communities while fleeing. and since the roads are difficult to traverse since there are no signs, no guarantees of paving and no guarantees the road won't actually just stop in the middle of fucking nowhere, cause it has run into old man howard's property and he's an ornery old bastard who won't allow the road to continue through his property as he's free to choose to do. therefore ted is occasionally caught and stopped by local residents for his excess speed and beaten within an inch of his life for endangering their lives. sorry ted, that's the price you pay for your freedom, you are free to endure a bunch of other people with their own notions of freedom. good for freedom, not good for ted in this case. if they had any inkling that ted was a mass murderer they probably would have just lynched him right then and there, as they are free to do, but since ted said his name was sven, sven the traveling prada bag salesman they had no way of knowing so they just let him go with a stern warning not to "drive too fest thru dis neighberhud" and to probably stay off old man howard's property cause that old codger will shoot you dead rather than beat you as a warning...
and I could go on all day, actually it's kind of fun, and ted is such a free spirit what a great character. could write a book, call it 'liberty, and the adventures of mr. t.f. dumb (mr. theodore free dumb).'
child: can I have a puppy?
adults: NO.
US to Start ‘Trade Wars’ with Nations Opposed to... →
jonathan-cunningham:
The United States is threatening nations who oppose Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) crops with military-style trade wars, according to information obtained and released by the organization WikiLeaks. Nations like France, which have moved to ban one of Monsanto’s GM corn varieties, were requested to be ‘penalized’ by the United States for opposing Monsanto and...
“Mitt Romney is now blaming Barack Obama for not fixing an economy wrecked by the...”
– John Fugelsang (via kateoplis)
German Hackers Are Building a DIY Space Program to... →
highsee:
betweeneverythingandtwo:
Big slap in the face to SOPA & Chinese-Style restrictions.
Ve must ensure das scheiße porn vill still have a home!
functionally, a diy low-earth orbit satellite-based internet is probably as robust and viable as an italian sportscar, but the message is very clear — if you can’t help but get your dirty paws all over the the single greatest...
Chevron Must Pay $18 Billion to Indigenous... →
brodypost:
AmazonWatch: Yesterday, an Ecuadorian appellate court upheld a historic $18 billion award against Chevron for the company’s deliberate contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The decision is the largest environmental award ever handed down and the result of an 18-year legal battle brought by some 30,000 indigenous peoples and farmers seeking a clean up of contaminated sites,...
I hate people. →
“The world judges religion not by what the Bible says, but by how Christians...”
– - E.M. Bounds (via rachelnickels)
I think Gandhi said it best when he said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
(via mohandasgandhi)
“I think gandhi said it best.” indeed.
