Category History
Does the Tea Party WANT a default?
(warning–conspiracy theory ahead) I’ve been watching the clownies in DC dance the debt ceiling dance. What supposedly started as a fight over Obamacare (which more properly should be called ‘Romneycare‘ or even ‘Heritage Foundation care‘) has now morphed into a battle over government size. The Tea Party types, spurred on by ideologues with lots of […]
You will never retire
One of the things that happens with FaceBook (besides the fact that they don’t pay taxes) is that the people you choose as friends act as a sort of filter for your news. You might know this by accidentally logging onto FB as someone else. I was at a cybercafe recently, and the person using the […]
General Petraeus, War Crimes and culpability
We had a lively discussion (code for ‘I seriously lost my temper’) a few weeks ago on Sex and Politics. I thought we’d be discussing the proposed bombing of Syria, but the topic was General David Petraeus. For those of you not keeping up, he has been hired to teach at CUNY, and there are significant […]
What is really at stake in Syria? Natural gas or Sarin?
Fair warning–the links on chemical weapons include some graphic photographs. I’ve always suspected that our moral outrage about Syria’s alleged use of poison gas against its own people was not the real reason the US is spoiling for a fight in that part of the world. Let’s face it, the US has very little justification […]
The August Jobs Report and S17
Last month, the US added a net 169,000 jobs. There was also some downward revision for the employment stats of the month of July. Once the revisions are added in, the actual average job creation over the past three months has been at 148,000 a month–that’s a rounding error away from covering simple population growth, […]
Calling out Hobby Lobby!
So David Green, the CEO and founder of Hobby Lobby published a notice last month announcing that we would rather put himself out of business than comply with the mandates of the ACA (‘Obamacare’) that involve birth control. You can read the entirety of his comments here. The relevant passage: A new government healthcare mandate […]
Bradley Manning Gets his sentence today-UPDATE
Today, some time around 10 AM, we will know Bradley Manning’s sentence for letting the world know about the collateral murder of Reuters reporters. You can argue a slew of other issues (that he revealed secrets, he violated his military oath, etc.), but it comes down to the same issue as was present in a […]
Glenn Greenwald’s partner detained;
So in case you haven’t heard this already, Glenn Greenwald (who broke the Edward Snowden case through The Guardian) reported that his partner David Miranda was detained for nine hours in the UK under Britain’s Terrorism Act. Miranda was in flight from Berlin back to his home in Brazil and not even staying in Britain–and […]
Cultu-ah on da way! This Friday!
There was once this great church in Greenwich Village called WASHINGTON SQUARE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. It drew me back to believing at a time when I had no use for religion, and it gave me access to an amazing and loving community. Alas, it is gone. It opened its doors before the Civil War and […]
The Brooklyn Culture Jam 