Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Wow
I got my first ever comment. It's from somebody signing as "Snowball", posted yesterday, and I just noticed it this evening. Yay. Thanks, Snowball.
Ten Years Of Hell
Matt Taibbi does some great reporting. It's a long piece, and I had to circle back to read some of it more than twice, but the perspective is important.
"By the middle of the Bush years, the great investment banks like Bear and Lehman no longer made their money financing real businesses and creating jobs. Instead, Wall Street now serves, in the words of one former investment executive, as "Lucy to America's Charlie Brown," endlessly creating new products to lure the great herd of unwitting investors into whatever tawdry greed-bubble is being spun at the moment: Come kick the football again, only this time we'll call it the Internet, real estate, oil futures. Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class."
"By the middle of the Bush years, the great investment banks like Bear and Lehman no longer made their money financing real businesses and creating jobs. Instead, Wall Street now serves, in the words of one former investment executive, as "Lucy to America's Charlie Brown," endlessly creating new products to lure the great herd of unwitting investors into whatever tawdry greed-bubble is being spun at the moment: Come kick the football again, only this time we'll call it the Internet, real estate, oil futures. Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class."
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Rush Is Out
Rush LimpBalls has run the standard play (claim to be the victim and deny any ownership of your own actions) in his attempt to salvage something from his latest little dalliance at the edges of the NFL.
He also throws out the usual dodge of pointing at Al Sharpton (Tawana Brawley) and Jesse Jackson (HymieTown), and trying to say, "it's OK if I'm a racist asshole because those other guys are racist assholes too."
Rush is given space in (where else, right?) The Rupert Street Journal to plead his case.
The last full paragraph is my favorite. First, he whines about "the news business...contempt for conservatives". (Does this mean that Rush has a paricular soft spot for liberals that I'm just not seeing? And is he somehow working under an assumption that the tight little group of the NFL Ownership is just chock full of Democrats?) Then he seems to be saying that his poor humble self is being denied access to the American Dream just because he's a simple hardworking guy getting' beat up by those leftwing bullies.
Poor Rush - but guess what? The rubes are gonna eat it up. I'm bettin' his ad revenues get a nice bump outa this after all.
He also throws out the usual dodge of pointing at Al Sharpton (Tawana Brawley) and Jesse Jackson (HymieTown), and trying to say, "it's OK if I'm a racist asshole because those other guys are racist assholes too."
Rush is given space in (where else, right?) The Rupert Street Journal to plead his case.
The last full paragraph is my favorite. First, he whines about "the news business...contempt for conservatives". (Does this mean that Rush has a paricular soft spot for liberals that I'm just not seeing? And is he somehow working under an assumption that the tight little group of the NFL Ownership is just chock full of Democrats?) Then he seems to be saying that his poor humble self is being denied access to the American Dream just because he's a simple hardworking guy getting' beat up by those leftwing bullies.
Poor Rush - but guess what? The rubes are gonna eat it up. I'm bettin' his ad revenues get a nice bump outa this after all.
Too Rich To Care
If you don't have it, then (obviously) you don't deserve it.
This is why unregulated free enterprise always leads to bloody revolt.
NY Times Op-Ed by Paul Sullivan - can this guy get any more tone deaf?
Here's No More Mister Nice Guy taking it apart.
This is why unregulated free enterprise always leads to bloody revolt.
NY Times Op-Ed by Paul Sullivan - can this guy get any more tone deaf?
Here's No More Mister Nice Guy taking it apart.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
10 Years Of Hell
From Lance Mannion:
"We’re experiencing a jobless recovery right now. That’s a problem. But my fear is that we’re on our way to a jobless economy"
-and-
"It’s a good bet that company execs rarely think of their companies as making something or doing something special at all. All big businesses are in the business of selling stock."
"We’re experiencing a jobless recovery right now. That’s a problem. But my fear is that we’re on our way to a jobless economy"
-and-
"It’s a good bet that company execs rarely think of their companies as making something or doing something special at all. All big businesses are in the business of selling stock."
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Larry Summers Speaks
Sounds a lot like he's warming up to do battle with Wall Street. Should be interesting to see if he calls for any specifics.
From The Agonist.
From The Agonist.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Creationism vs Evolution (cont'd) Updated 10-17-09 1110 EST
We're a nation of laws, and law requires factual evidence.
Creationists claim that their faith (ie: absence of evidence) is the same as the presence of the factual evidence of science.
If I'm in a position of authority, and I've established my Belief as The Law, then I should be able to drag anyone into court and convict them of the worst crimes imaginable simply by saying I believe them to be guilty.
UPDATE:
Kansas decided a couple of years ago that science courses in public schools would deal with teaching Evolution and not Creationism. The full force of law is now behind Science - meaning that the use of deadly force can be brought to bear on anyone teaching anything else in a science class in Kansas.
Logical Extreme: If I teach Creationism in my science class when Creationism has been banned, I can be fired. If I refuse to leave the building, then I can be forcibly removed. If I resist being removed, then the authorities have the option to escalate all the way to the point where they can kill me if they deem it necessary. It's not good straight-line logic, but the net effect is that I've been killed for trying to do what I tho't was right. Is this something of a Logical Fallacy?
One point remains clear: The law is not a trifling thing.
Creationists claim that their faith (ie: absence of evidence) is the same as the presence of the factual evidence of science.
If I'm in a position of authority, and I've established my Belief as The Law, then I should be able to drag anyone into court and convict them of the worst crimes imaginable simply by saying I believe them to be guilty.
UPDATE:
Kansas decided a couple of years ago that science courses in public schools would deal with teaching Evolution and not Creationism. The full force of law is now behind Science - meaning that the use of deadly force can be brought to bear on anyone teaching anything else in a science class in Kansas.
Logical Extreme: If I teach Creationism in my science class when Creationism has been banned, I can be fired. If I refuse to leave the building, then I can be forcibly removed. If I resist being removed, then the authorities have the option to escalate all the way to the point where they can kill me if they deem it necessary. It's not good straight-line logic, but the net effect is that I've been killed for trying to do what I tho't was right. Is this something of a Logical Fallacy?
One point remains clear: The law is not a trifling thing.
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