Monthly Archives: March 2009
A different perspective on Iran
Part of what makes war politically palatable in a democracy, despite the large human toll, are campaigns to dehumanize the enemy. Thus Hussein and Ahmadinejad become Hitler, and dead civilians are erroneously labeled Al Qaeda terrorists. It’s rarely mentioned that most of the people who die in wars are innocent people, guilty of nothing but [...]
Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer: The Interview
You should try to watch this in its entirety. If you have limited time, at least check out the second part.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Apple screws up with the new Shuffle
The new Apple iPod Shuffle is remarkably small and has the cool ability to tell you – through the earphones – what song or artist your listening to. That feature solves one of the long standing problems with the Shuffle, which was the lack of a display.
Unfortunately, the new Shuffle has no play/pause next/previous controls [...]
Quote of the Week: Controlling the debate over Israel
Does anyone doubt that it’s far more permissible in American political culture to criticize actions of the American government than it is the actions of the Israeli Government? Isn’t that rather odd, and quite self-evidently destructive? – Glenn Greenwald
This was not in the mainstream news this week (and you have to wonder why), but Charles [...]
Scary chart gets updated
In case you weren’t worried enough, the job loss chart I posted a while back has been updated. And the picture looks worse, not better (the green line is what we’re experiencing now):
I don’t get the feeling we’ve seen the worst this economic downturn. Many of the gigantic banks are still teetering on the edge [...]
Still at war
With seemingly all of the news focused on our economic free fall, I wouldn’t blame you forgetting that we’re still at war in/with Iraq.
Despite the relative calm since the ‘Surge,’ atrocities like this one noted by Juan Cole happen all too frequently:
The security challenges remaining in Iraq were demonstrated by the nine bombings over the [...]
Roundup for Friday 3/6/2009
Andrew Sullivan continues the fight against legal discrimination based on sexual orientation:
… gay adults have fewer rights in their relationships than 13-year old straights. Inmates on death row have more rights – they have an inviolable right to marry even if they will never be able to live with or even have sex with their [...]
Does the milk gravy help?
I have to agree that this may in fact be the worst food product ever:
I still can hardly believe this is real. Who eats this? Why? Why! Why!
If this isn’t the worst food product ever, what is?
And please, excuse me while I go throw up.
Pasta and Palestine's right to exist
While our own Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the Middle East proclaiming “vigorous” support for a Palestinian state, there are serious doubts that Israel’s new leaders (Benjamin Netanyahu primarily) will even pretend to support the Palestinians right to self determination. In fact, they seem determined to undermine it.
Matthew Yglesias had two thought-provoking posts [...]
What's left of the conservative movement
You can’t make this stuff up:
You couldn’t make this up either.
Or this.
Not even this.
And this is stuff from just yesterday…