Slouching Towards Oblivion

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Japan

What if all those horrible problems Japan has been dealing with over the last 20 years turn out not to be such big problems for the average Japanese citizen.  What if the "problems" have been all about the US FInancial Press needing to propagate certain articles of faith concerning American Capitalistic Exceptionalism.
Certainly anyone who visits Japan these days is struck by the obvious affluence even among average citizens. The cars on the roads, for instance, are generally much larger and better equipped than in the 1980s (indeed state of the art navigation devices, for instance, are more or less standard on many models). Overseas vacation travel has more than doubled since the 1980s. The Japanese boast the world's most advanced cell phones, and the biggest and best high-definition television screens. Japan's already long life expectancy has increased by nearly two years. Its Internet connections are some of the world's fastest -- something like ten times faster on average than American speeds.

Eammon Fingleton (via theatlantic.com) tells only the story of how Japanese business and government both have lots of leeway in how they can report their numbers, and he thinks that explains everything.  But am I to understand that nobody in the US (or in the rest of the whole fucking world) was smart enough to catch onto this?  Me thinks something else may be afoot.

Here's a coupla little tidbits that get tossed off as if they mean nothing - but could mean quite a bit:

True, not all of Japan’s indicators are equally impressive. The Tokyo stock market, for instance, has never recovered from its 1990s slump. Neither has the real estate market. (In the latter case, however, there is a silver lining in a major boost living standards, in that young home buyers now get far more space for their money. In any case the implosion since 1991 has merely restored some sanity to valuations that had previously become—very temporarily—outlandish).
On the negative side, there is also the fact that Japan’s economic growth rate, as least as calculated officially, has averaged little more than 1 percent a year in the last two decades. For those who propound the “stagnation” story, this is their strongest card. But it does not accord with the common observation— undeniable to those who have known the country since the 1980s—that the Japanese people have enjoyed one of the biggest improvements in living standards of any major First World nation in the interim…
So Japan has been cookin' along for 20 years, boosting their trade surplus by $194 Billion, and making a 65% gain in Yen vs Dollar; which means the standard of living for the average guy improves, plus life expectancy goes up by 2 years.  But somehow, life in Japan must really suck according to everything we hear from our Press Poodles because neither their stock market nor their real estate market is performing at a robust pace.  And there it is. "Little Guy makes out OK, Big Guy OK too" just doesn't fit the standard narrative here in the US.  We have to have "Ownership heroes defeat evil labor goons, our daughters are safe now".

This is such a crock of shit.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

A Librul Press?

Horseshit.  Study after study, they keep finding exactly the opposite.  There was a big study in 2001 or 2002 looking at press coverage of the 2000 election that showed the majority of stories about Gore were negative and that the majority of stories about Bush were positive.  Fact.

Now, we get a picture of what's happening as the attempt to dismantle healthcare reform moves through the courts.

Part of the difference can be explained - the rulings upholding the law are in favor of the status quo, so that's pretty boring,  But the rulings against it make for big splashy headlines.

Or maybe it's just that the Press Poodles need to sell advertising (by pushing a point of view that pleases their owners) and they really don't give a shit about explaining what anything actually means.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Some Early-Morning Paranoia

I really want the "rough men standing ready" to have whatever they need to keep the bad guys away - I count myself among those to be criticized for abjuring violence while people are committed to doing violence in my name.  I have some strongly conflicting thoughts about that, but for now, I'll just have to accept the situation as a paradox of life on this planet in the 21st century, and continue trying to do the small things I can do each day that should accrue over time towards real change.

Anyway, I think it's a really dismal prospect that some people in our military forces always seem ready (even eager) to pull some horrendously shitty things on us.

from Rolling Stone
The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.
American citizens and our representatives in Congress are being targeted as "enemy".  I'm still able to feel some confidence that the worst of these power drunk assholes will be rooted out eventually, but this is another great example of why we have to be a lot more careful about building and maintaining a professional military.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Gained In Translation

Every successful politician has a good handle on the concept of Coded Language.

Sometimes, the links get pretty broad - Family Values can mean just about everything from Abstinence Only and Creationism to bombing the shit outa brown people to make the world safe for Americans at home.  You get to fill in the blanks on that one any way you want.

Other terms and phrases can be a little more specific:
Real Americans = dumbass rednecks
Service to America = Cops, Firefighters and Military ONLY - no bureaucrats allowed

You get the idea.  Anyway, continuing on my premise that no issue is ever really about what the politician says it's about, here's the basic idea behind the phrase "it's about jobs" when sleazoids like Scott Walker and John Kasich use it.  Plainly put, it means they intend to take one fairly decent job (teacher, building inspector, project manager, etc) and turn it into 2 or more really crappy jobs.  This is a huge push to reorganize and redefine public sector jobs.  And we might as well be outsourcing City Hall's HR Dept to Wal-Mart.

Springtime In Detroit?

General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) today announced its calendar year 2010 results marked by $4.7 billion of net income attributable to common stockholders for its first full year of operations.
Revenue for the calendar year was $135.6 billion. Automotive cash flow from operating activities was $6.6 billion and automotive free cash flow was $2.4 billion, both reflecting the impact of a $4.0 billion voluntary cash contribution to the company's U.S. pension plans.
"Last year was one of foundation building," said Dan Akerson, chairman and chief executive officer. "Particularly pleasing was that we demonstrated GM's ability to achieve sustainable profitability near the bottom of the U.S. industry cycle, with four consecutive profitable quarters."

Wait just a dang minute.  This is Gummint Motors; this is where all them commie unionist bastards are suckin' the federal teat dry; this is totally against what DumFux News says is even possible.

Barron's

BTW: all this good news was left over after GM paid back $700 MILLION in US Treasuries.  Still a long way to go, but they should at least get an Atta Boy once in a while.

Say What?`

This is what passed for "thinking" in the Jr Bush administration.
"We were not there in Afghanistan to eradicate corruption, or to end poppy cultivation. We were not there to take ownership of Afghanistan’s problems, tempting though it was for Americans of goodwill. If, as some have contended, we never had a plan for full-fledged nation building, or that we under-resourced such a plan, they were certainly correct. We did not go there to bring prosperity to every corner of Afghanistan. Our more modest goal was to rid Afghanistan of al Qaeda, and replace their Taliban hosts with a government that would not harbor terrorists... " - Donald Rumsfeld; pg 682 of his memoir.
Look, Don - you really can't accomplish the 2 things you say we went there to do, without doing the things you say we didn't go there to do.

I think you should continue your service to this great country of ours by scheduling a nice long trip to Spain as soon as you can manage it.  They'll take really good care of you.

fuckin' putz

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

About Wisconsin - update

I still haven't heard anybody on the union side say they're expecting more, or asking more, or demanding anything more.  Walker and DumFux News and East Blogistan keep trying to paint the unions as greedy bastards out to fleece the innocent taxpayer.  Bullshit.

Here it is, straight up:
What the protesters and the unions and the Wisconsin Dems are fighting for is pretty simply their rights (and ours, btw) under the First Amendment.
The right of association
The right to peaceable assembly

A Saving Grace?

We know that outfits like US Chamber of Commerce and the Koch Boys are working hard to get a certain control over politics here in the US.  It's just too obvious not to be the case.  We also know that they're willing to spend gi-normous amounts of cash buying people like Clarence Thomas to help them keep it "legal".  We know all that, and we've (I've) been assuming they intend to concentrate on owning the process here in the US - but what about the rest of the world?  There's way too much going on in way too many places where big American Companies have big deal interests at stake.

How much will these Corporations have to spend, in how many different countries, to ensure their interests are looked after?

Maybe I'm just hoping for rescue here, but isn't there something happening right now that will eventually make it impossible for a global oligarchy to consolidate power?  And isn't there some probability that it could all change without the kind of apocalyptic collapse that so many keep telling us is inevitable no matter what we do?

What if this scenario of economic implosion is the Big Lie that keeps us in thrall either to the Bosses who tell us to ignore the man behind the curtain and get back to work;  or to the Anti-Bosses who tell us the whole thing blows up if we do as the Bosses tell us?

World conquest has been tried for as long as there's been a world to conquer.  And somehow, the world remains undefeated.

Random Question

If evolution is "just a theory" and nobody can actually prove it's for real, how do we explain selective breeding?

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

About Wisconsin - update

Oh look.  Here's something else it's not supposed to be about.

From Democratic Underground - with an embedded link to the HuffPo article.
While there has been significant attention devoted to the fact that Walker's 144-page budget repair bill would strip away collective bargaining rights for public employees, the site "Rortybomb" points out a less noticed provision that would allow the state to sell or contract out any state-owned energy asset in no-bid deals with private corporations.

About That Wisconsin Thing

To be clear, I don't much like unions.  I also don't dislike them.  My thing is always about the balance of power.  I don't like anything that gets too big or too powerful.  So it's about trying to make sure there's always something to act as a counterweight to whoever holds the majority position in the power struggle du jour.

For whatever reason, Gov Walker has picked this fight.  There is, to be sure, a problem with all or most governments' budgets in that they're not taking in enough revenue to cover all the outlays - again, for whatever reason(s).

My point is that the real fight in Wisconsin has practically nothing to do with the current condition of the state's budget.  It's important to remember that almost nothing is ever really about what a politician says it's about.

Walker has proposed a budget that asks public employees either to take a hit on salaries and bennies, and/or to do without any increases - and it appears there's not much push back on any of that.  So we can kinda put aside all of this deflecting nonsense about how the unions are busting the budget with outrageous demands, or killing the chances of the noble politicians to get things back on track, or whatever the consultants have told them say.

What we're left with is another baldfaced attempt to chip away at everybody's rights.  Plain and simple.

Something else to remember:  we're deep into the Supply Side Economy.  It's a fairly simple notion.  If you flood the market with a huge supply of anything, you force the price down.  That goes for Labor too.  The greater the number of people trying to get a given job, the less you have to pay whoever you hire for that job.

Monday, February 21, 2011

We Are All Madisonians Now

It should prob'ly say "We are all Wisconsinites", but then I couldn't draw an allusion to James Madison.

So anyway,  Gov Walker is really under the gun here.  It's fun to watch him try to sell his pseudo-populist bullshit while being so obviously on the payroll of the Privatizing Looters.

I'll try to explain myself in a minute, but first, I want to point to something.  Look at this, by way of Democratic Underground, and then ask yourself, "isn't this what Free Market Capitalism should actually look like"?  Seems to me we've been buying a phoney-baloney substitute for a good long time.

As a hardcore Randian Zealot, I'm not in favor of "the collective", but that's not what's going on here - our understanding of 'evil collective' vs 'righteous competitor' has undergone a polar reversal.  Ayn Rand's big thing was always that power would be balanced naturally thru straight up competition; and that collectives would always usurp power thru the stifling of competition by force of arms.  Guess which 'side' is willing to use the government's monopoly on deadly force to coerce our cooperation with its plans to take, use and maintain power.

I'm not talkin' Dems vs Repubs here, but I have to say (for right now anyway), the Dems are starting to wake up a little; and that I think there're more of them who are a bit more willing to hew a little more closely to principles of honor and public service.  I realize there was a lot of equivocation in that last sentence, but I think it's even more important now than ever that we look for whatever slight differences we can find - and then throw as much support as we can muster behind any politician who's willing to dispense with the usual bullshit and talk to us about real policy choices, and the effects of those choices on real people in the real world.

This is likely to be pretty brutal for a while.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Keep Workin'

Continuing bad news for Boomers.

Be sure to check out the comments - seems to be split among the big 3.
1) Blame the victim
2) Soc Sec is a ponzi scheme anyway
3) We're being robbed

From The Rupert Street Journal:














This analysis uses estimates of 401(k) balances from the end of 2010 and of salaries from 2009. It assumes people need 85% of their working income after they retire in order to maintain their standard of living, a common yardstick.
Facing shortfalls, many people are postponing retirement, moving to cheaper housing, buying less-expensive food, cutting back on travel, taking bigger risks with their investments and making other sacrifices they never imagined.
"Inevitably, we find that, for the average person, there is not enough there," says financial adviser Paul Merritt of NTrust Wealth Management in Virginia Beach, Va., who has found himself advising many retirement-age people with too little savings. "The discussion turns out to be: What kind of part-time work do you want to do after you retire?"

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Thanks, Professor

...that was loads of fun.

Bloomberg won't allow the embedding, so here's the link on YouTube.

How Interesting

The revolt is spreading faster and farther than could have been dreamed.  We've seen the glorious uprising of ordinary people against one bullying despot after another - Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria and now even The GOP.  Wait; uh, what?

A day or so ago, Mitch Daniels told a rather skittish crowd at CPAC that Repubs need to reach voters who don't care what Rush Limbaugh says (not quite what Daniels said, but words to that effect).  We've heard grumblings along those lines for years from some pretty big-deal Republicans like Christy Todd-Whitman and David Eisenhower and Mike Steele, et al; and practically all of them were thoroughly dismissed, spanked or otherwise quickly dispatched very loudly and very publicly - most of whom either knelt before His High Rushness to beg forgiveness or just limped away and disappeared.  Now, we have Little Mikey Medved feelin' his oats; and in The Rupert Street Journal, no less.
In short, the White House record of more than 200 years shows plenty of bad decisions but no bad men. For all their foibles, every president attempted to rise to the challenges of leadership and never displayed disloyal or treasonous intent.
This history makes some of the current charges about Barack Obama especially distasteful—and destructive to the conservative cause.
He goes on to take aim directly at Limbaugh, calling attempts to paint Obama as a willing destroyer of Mother America "almost perfectly imbecilic".

So how long before we hear from Limbaugh about Rupert Murdoch's vicious campaign against poor humble Rush?  How long before we hear mention of it on DumFux News itself?

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

SCOTUS Update

I just got off the phone with somebody in the public info office - the message on the main number listed on the website says to call 202-579-3000 and ask them to page a representative.  The lady was nice enough, but she said they have no intention of issuing a statement on Thomas's problems, and that there's no press availability scheduled either; and that if I want to ask questions, I have to call during business hours and ask for a regular PIO (Public Information Officer).

I have no idea what kind of protocol might be in place for this.  I do think it would be cool in the extreme if huge numbers of regular US citizens started making personal calls to SCOTUS to ask them to explain themselves to us.

SCOTUS

Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have both been implicated in some "minor" scandals the last few years.  Now we may have a major problem because ol' Clarence did quite a bit more than drop by a little get-together with the Koch Brothers in California.  ("a quick drop-by" is how the SCOTUS spokesmodel put it when asked by Common Cause).

Read it and weep.

Herald-Gazette (Knox County, ME)

Here's the full text of an article that seems to have mysteriously disappeared from NewsVine: (I got to it thru Google's cache archive - yay Google!)

What more does the Justice Department need to launch an investigation into the possible conflict of interests surrounding Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and their votes in the Citizens United case?
Maybe they need to hear from you.
We've asked Attorney General Eric Holder to meet with us to discuss all that's been uncovered in recent weeks, but we haven't gotten an answer yet.
Please call Holder's office today at (202) 514-2001 and ask that he meet with Common Cause! Click here after you've made the call.
We are simply asking for a brief meeting to discuss whether Justices Scalia and Thomas should have recused themselves from ruling on the Citizens Unitedcase, which opened the floodgates to corporate spending on election campaigns when it was decided in January 2010.
We already know that:
• Both justices attended secretive political strategy sessions sponsored by Koch Industries, a major beneficiary of the Citizens United ruling. Koch is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that has invested millions of dollars in political campaigns and causes.
• Justice Thomas failed to disclose more than $600,000 of his wife Virginia's income from the Heritage Foundation (he has recently amended his filings to reflect this income), or any of her unknown salary from Liberty Central, a political action group that was actively involved in the 2010 midterms.
• Justice Scalia recently met behind closed doors with the head of the House Tea Party Caucus, and Virginia Thomas is now promoting herself as an "ambassador to the Tea Party movement."
All these facts create a troubling appearance of bias. Attorney General Holder, as the head of the Justice Department, has a duty to review these issues and to make a decision regarding the launch of an investigation.
And we want a chance to lay out our case to him. Please call the Attorney General's office today at (202) 514-2001 and ask that he meet with Common Cause. 
Then, click here after you've made the call.
 (the link goes to Common Cause)

Curveball Lied

It's not exactly news, but at least somebody is trying to dig out some of the truth for us.  Unfortunately, it didn't matter to enough of us then, and it prob'ly won't matter much now either.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.
My biggest fear right now is that we're allowing the system to lose its capacity for self-correction.  There are glimmers and flickers once in a while - Dick Cheney got heckled with shouts of "war criminal" at his speech to a CPAC session, and there's the tiny fraction of Tea Partiers who actually aren't stupid bigoted assholes - but for the most part, the big power players know they can pull some pretty horrendous shit and still count on getting cover.  The Hard-Right Radicals in particular know that DumFux News will polish their turds no matter what.  So once in a while we get a public hanging (Mark Foley, Chris Lee, William Jefferson, et al), and that helps us believe the lie that the Koch Bros and Wall Street - The American Aristocracy - aren't really running the joint and that we don't have any thing to say about it at all.

And Jesus wept.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Hoping For Egypt

The final outcome (if there is such a thing) in Egypt is something we won't know for a while, but here's a thought: Egyptians booted out a quasi-dictator with 18 days of protests that were mostly pretty relaxed and groovey.  There was no armed resistance; no guerilla tactics; no bombings; no terrorism - just growing numbers of everyday people gathering in different places to tell their government they weren't going to get pushed around any more.  The only real violence came when somebody (probably on Mubarak's side, if not at Mubarak's behest) decided to start a fight in the hopes of scoring some propaganda points.  People got hurt, and some hundreds killed, but it didn't work.  The people were unarmed; they defended themselves just enough to keep the crowd together, but they didn't counterattack and so far, I haven't heard anything about retaliation.  And most importantly, the military leadership was smart enough to know they couldn't win anything by ordering Egyptians to shoot Egyptians.

Here's my main take-away:  The notion that an armed citizenry is what ensures freedom is proven again to be a lie.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Stupid Arguments

I don't know how to tell you how dumb it is to be arguing about Obama's "faith".  Here's the main reason:
US Constitution, article VI, 3rd paragraph:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.


So we have the Constitution telling us that according to the law, it can't be an issue, but that just leads us to the real stupidity of Obama defenders who feel the need to dispute the assertion.  The really stupid part is that by arguing the point of Obama's religion, you legitimize the assertion itself.  You're saying first that it was OK for some short-necked bigot to a raise the question of Obama's faith, and then by refuting his Muslim-ness, you're tacitly agreeing that it would be a problem if he actually is a Muslim.


Here's a thought:  How 'bout we just keep all that religion shit to ourselves for a change?

A Trend?

Check this out at Daily Beast.
There are a lot of program directors whose radio ‘spider-sense’ is tingling,” says Randall Bloomquist, a long-time radio executive and president of Talk Frontier Media. “They're thinking ‘this conservative thing is kind of running its course. We're saying the same things from morning 'til night and yes, we've got a very loyal core audience—but if we ever want to grow, if we want to expand, we've got to be doing more than 18 hours a day of ‘Obama is a socialist.’”
This could be pretty interesting.  Though I think if their ratings continue to drop, they'll just get even more rabid.  When the marketing dweebs are consulted, they're likely to tell these guys to stick with the formula.  Radical Clown Radio doesn't differ much from the GOP.  In fact, the business of wingnut radio and politics are practically the same thing.  So when you start to lose market share, the instinctive reaction is to "rediscover your core competency" and concentrate on solidifying your base.  This is all well and good, but eventually, you have to widen things out a bit.  Unfortunately, the effect is usually the opposite - you can easily end up narrowing your appeal to the point where your market niche is no longer a real factor.

Anyway, we've been alarmed at the growing bombast from guys like Beck and Limbaugh, thinking it means they're getting more powerful (or feeling more powerful).  But it could easily mean just the opposite.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

More Bio Mimicry

One of the problems we continue to have is that we've allowed some not very honest people to convince us that there's friction between our economic interests and our need for a clean and healthy environment to live in.

We end up talking past each other. Here's a guy who can talk about "saving the environment" by linking the need to take good care of the biosphere directly to huge business opportunities.

Bio Mimicry And Closed-Loop Sustainability

This kinda shit just amazes me.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Hoping (update)

A few days late, but it's still a good thing.

Hoping (update)

Mubarak has resigned, but he hasn't split the country.  No idea what that means, but I'm thinking he's not quite done yet.  Governments and financial houses are busily freezing his assets, so that should make it harder for him to fuck with things, at least 'til they get all that sorted out.  So anybody who tries to tell me it's all gonna be swell needs to get called a moron.

The Press Poodles are still gushing about Freedom Fever while DumFux News is flacking the threat of The Muslim Brotherhood.  Meanwhile, nobody (either in The Kennel or at Fox) has said thing one about any efforts by anybody's diplomatic services - zero, zip, zilch.  The only thing I've heard so far is the standard meme about how Obama got caught flat-footed.  Are you fucking kidding?  Am I really supposed to believe we've spent something like 1/3 of a TRILLION dollars on intel and counter-intel, and anti-terrorism shit - aimed specifically at the middle east and that we got nothing out of it!?!  We didn't see any of this as any kind of possibility at all!?!

Anyway, for now it's all a big smiley-face celebration - I'm bettin' a lot of happy protesters  are gettin' laid tonite - and tomorrow or Sunday we might start to see if we get any clues as to how the Egyptian military intends to spend its political capital.  This ain't anywhere near over.  The really dangerous part starts soon.

Hoping

I just get a bad feeling about Egypt.  Mubarak is in a tough spot, and unfortunately, when guys like him start to feel cornered, they tend to listen to the kind of advice from some of the assholes they surround themselves with, who almost always advocate a get-tough-show-'em-who's-boss approach.  We saw some of that earlier when the Camel Goons attacked.

Anyway, here's hoping it doesn't come to this.

Cartman Speaks


















The Press Poodles in the US are finally starting to look at who the protesters actually are.  It's been a nice little narrative so far, about a genuine grassroots uprising; that there are no real leaders; that the whole thing is spontaneous - as if to say, "The noble Egyptian people are just trying to express their Inner American".  It's a big steaming pile of Newsie bullshit.

Just Make Shit Up

It's not like we didn't know this already, but I think it's important to make an effort to keep score, and to remind ourselves that an outfit like DumFux News is not a news organization at all.  So while this article is from the "terminally librul" MediaMatters, and the source is anonymous, we can at least see that it's consistent with practically all the other reports of how DumFux News operates.  Have we ever heard anything from any former DumFux'er that didn't sound a lot like this?
...a former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch’s cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking. 
“It is their M.O. to undermine the administration and to undermine Democrats,” says the source. “They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news.”

And don't forget these little gems:
Leaked Memo
Climate Science

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Monday, February 07, 2011

Socialism On The March

I'm hoping certain people will be reminded of what happened yesterday in Super Bowl 45  whenever they start waxing rhapsodic about the wonders and the majesty and the supremacy of free-market capitalism.  I don't know exactly what our 'system' should be called, but whatever name you come up with, it sure as hell ain't free-market capitalism - not when the biggest annual Celebration-Of-All-Things-Totally-Awesome-About-America ends with a team owned collectively by the good folks of Green Bay being crowned champions of a business consortium which has thrived since adopting some very 'socialistic' principles.

Saturday, February 05, 2011

The Reagan Myth(s)

The big 5 as per Will Bunch at The Washington Post:

1) Reagan is our most popular president
2) Reagan cut taxes
3) Reagan was a hawk
4) Reagan decreased the size of the federal government
5) Reagan was a conservative culture warrior

Tuesday, February 01, 2011