Y’all know how I feel about factory farming in general. Stuff like this really upsets me, and one of these days, Mother Nature is going to bite back. When she does, it’ll be pretty hard to feel sorry for those she bites. Those of you who eat meat should, at the very least, be sure it’s not commercially farmed and never saw the inside of a slaughterhouse. (In the words of Michael Pollan, “pay more, eat less.”) Video is here.
US Attorney General Michael Mukasey: “Torture, as you know, is now unlawful under American law. I can’t contemplate any situation in which this President would assert Article II authority to do something that the law forbids.”
Senator Arlen Specter: “Well, he did just that in violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; he did just that in disregarding the express mandate of the National Security Act to notify the intelligence committees.. didn’t he?”
Mukasey: “I think we are now in a situation where both of those issues have been brought within statutes and that’s the procedure going forward.”
Specter: “That’s not the point. The point is that he acted in violation of statutes, didn’t he?”
Mukasey: “I don’t know.”
[Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 1/30/08]
I love U2. But their manager, Paul McGuinness, is demonstrating that he not only has very little understanding about technology, but also that he’s quite ignorant about the forces actually responsible for killing the music industry – such as the industry’s own unwillingness to adapt to digital music and its obstructionist tactics over the past five years. If this is how the industry wants to behave, then good fucking riddance.
The Fed did not panic - “The move was imperative to prevent a grave financial crisis spiralling into disaster. The threat of a melt-down in the $2.4 trillion market for US municipal bonds had suddenly moved from possible to imminent. No monetary authority could ignore such risks… Calvinist monetary discipline at this point would wreak havoc, and possibly endanger the political stability of several countries (in Europe, if not in the US). The best we can hope to do is right the ship slowly, and turn a blind eye to moral hazard for now. It is not pretty. It means a lot of pin-stripe villains and leverage louts in the City will escape their condign punishment.”
US slides into dangerous 1930s ‘liquidity trap’ – Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz says “The Fed has finally got around to closing the stable door, but the after the horse has already bolted … the distress is going to be very severe.”
I sometimes ask myself rather naive questions: “is race really, honestly a big issue in this election?” It’s similar to wondering how on earth people could be dumb enough to change their mind about a Presidential candidate just because she fakes emotion at a diner. Unfortunately, a lot of this stuff comes down to – “are people really that dumb?”
A more complicated twist on that is, “is racism really still alive and well in America?” I mean, I know it’s dying off (literally) – but does it really, still, play enough of a role in the psychology of America to make it significant in a national election? Unfortunately yes it does – and it’s more common in some geographies than others. On that note, it was a bummer to hear this voicemail left at the State in Columbia, South Carolina after they endorsed Barack Obama.
I have a lot of bright, enlightened friends who live in South Carolina. This guy is not one of them.
“… I need to talk with someone to discuss the fact that y’all are supporting a black man for president of the United States. I am ASHAMED that we’ve got a newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, one of the best cities in America, and yet we’ve got a black operation supporting black candidates, that doesn’t have any more sense of being president of the United States than I do. He may be educated with a college degree, but let me tell you one thing: He has no common sense whatsoever, or you don’t either. And if you feel like calling me, go to it, girl [the message was left on the publisher’s assistant’s line]. I am disappointed and upset that we’ve got a black newspaper right here in the city of Columbia.”
Whew. I’m left wondering lots of things. Is this dude for real? He sounds it. Could there be other motivations? Is someone up to something, or are we just dealing with a colorful (pardon me) example of a good ol’ boy?
