I just finished reading an excellent article in The New Yorker by Laura Secor, The Iran Show. Here’s the first paragraph: In the grotesque pageant of Iran’s show trials, former high officials—hollow-eyed, dressed in prison pajamas, and flanked by guards in uniform—sit in rows, listening to one another’s self-denunciations. Since the disputed Presidential elections of [...]
Posts under ‘Politics’
Idiocracy, idiocy, racism and responding
I wish I had this comic in my pocket last summer…
Things I don’t miss about Berkeley
University Fences In a Berkeley Protest, and a New One Arises – New York Times In Berkeley, Calif., a protest in the trees outside Memorial Stadium at the University of California has been business, and Berkeley, as usual.
liberal brains “are more responsive to informational complexity.”
UPDATE: An excellent tear-down in Slate: Rigging a study to make conservatives look stupid.. This is why I don’t blog much… because to say anything I can stick to takes more attention and mental energy than I have to spare for a blog. Sometimes that censor takes a break though. Human Nature is a great [...]
removing corruption
Blog for America » Front » Page 1 * Our strategy works. When we all work together and channel the power of the progressive grassroots – we win! But we aren’t done yet. We have more work ahead to remove all Republican corruption from Washington. Leaving the Democratic corruption behind? It’s kind of annoying how [...]
Dan Savage on the film “300″
City Pages – Savage Love With nothing but time on my hands this week, I slipped out of the office and went to the movies. Have you seen 300 yet? It’s about a handful of lightly armed ancient Greeks—the Spartans—who take on the mighty and massive Persian army. Some feel the film is homophobic; some [...]
Only in France
Economist.com – Cities Guide While helping the homeless has become a cause célèbre, one group managed to turn it into a controversial act. For the past few years Solidarity of the French, a far-right group, has run a soup kitchen offering pork soup to Paris’s homeless. Critics complain that the organisation chose pork as the [...]
Quebec “a nation within a united Canada”
Canada’s Parliament overwhelmingly gave its approval to a motion proposed by Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister, to recognise French-speaking Quebec as “a nation within a united Canada”. Canada (1) | Nation bidding | Economist.com In other news, I’m ending my e-mail subscription to The Economist. It’s part of my recent personal mandate to trim [...]
Farm subsidies for non-farmers
Check out this Washington Post article with an interactive map of farm subsidies. It’s a good thing, making this map. It helps people see where these pork subsidies are going. Unfortunately, it does a lousy job of representing the relative distribution. Look at Tulare County in Cental California. It’s received $27.9 million. Then look at [...]
Most truths are too naked
Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit. -Edward R. Murrow, journalist (1908-1965)
