Poetry is Dangerous
Poetry is dangerous — be careful when you recycle! (Actually, this is a disappointing testament to the times we live in.) [via Paul J.]
Poetry is dangerous — be careful when you recycle! (Actually, this is a disappointing testament to the times we live in.) [via Paul J.]
Utah Republican blames Satan for immigration. Who does he blame for our invasion of Iraq? [via Dave]
Jim writes: "This is a bad path to go down." He's right: some U.K. schools are dropping the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims.
Baghdad: mapping the violence [via Dave]
Nick's always telling me how awful the Wikipedia is. Maybe he should try the Conservapedia instead. (This one's fun for Kris and Craig, etc.)
A Girl Like Me, a conversation about race. The clip with the kids and the dolls is heartbreaking. [via frykitty]
John Stewart's State of the Union preview [via josh]
For Kris, Paul J., and other like-minded folk: The Holy Blitz rolls on, an interview with the author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. (A NYT excerpt from the latter — login required.) This is thought-provoking stuff. [via this excellent Metafilter post — I encourage everyone to read it]
A conversation with Stephen Colbert — worth it for the first few minutes of clips alone
I am medium stupid [via rawdon]
Past wargames foresaw Iraq problems [via Dave]
A guide to the political herds — a NYT graphic that delineates the divisions with the political parties. Excellent. [via Paul J.]
For me and my friends, there's fantasy football. Now for Kris and her friends there's fantasy Congress. [via Lynn]
Local costs of the Iraq War [via Dave]
This is awesome. Hating America isn't really about hating America, but about the cultural adaptations one makes after spending a long time in a third-world country and then returning to the U.S. Why is it that everyone who comes back finds the U.S. more foreign than the country they're returning from? Excellent reading.
The 95 theses of geek activism. Great reading for geeks.
Uber-conservative William F. Buckley says: Bush is not a conservative. "There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. [...] I think his legacy is indecipherable." [via Dave]
A little flip, but useful nonetheless: The Middle East Buddy List. Everyone hates Israel, and Israel hates everyone.
Sarah McLachlan's World on Fire (lyrics)
Chilling prescience: Why We Fight — this is in our Netflix queue...
Roger Ebert's review of An Inconvenient Truth
My feelings about market economies are all kerfuffled. The Great Money Trick does nothing to help. Am I a capitalist or am I socialist? Maybe I'm both. And neither.
Video: Mister Rogers testifies before Congress — "In 1969 the US Senate had a hearing on funding the newly developed Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The proposed endowment was $20 million, but President Nixon wanted to cut it in half" in order to spend more on Vietnam. [via waxy]
One of the most evil men in Oregon is at it again: Lon Mabon comes out of the closet
Blue Nation [via Kris]
Every day, in every way, I'm amazed that you people voted for this man "The lessons of Katrina are important," Bush said. "We've learned a lot here at the federal level. We're much more ready this time than we were the last time." "Let's, first of all, pray there's no hurricanes," Bush said. "That would be, like, step one." That reads like some sort of joke, but it isn't. That's the President of the United States of America, and a total moron.
Congress readies broad new digital copyright bill, including jail periods of up to ten years for willful copyright infringement. Because, you know, it's a worse crime than driving under the influence. [via Dave]
Funny stuff: I'm the Decider!
Where should the U.S. attack next? Pardon me if this just re-inforces my already-held opinions...
Matt asks: Name a controversy in politics in the last five years where the outrage of Democrats affected real change. I can't think of one. Can you?
The economic costs of the Iraq war: an appraisal three years after the beginning of the conflict [via gates]
How to spot a baby conservative. This twenty-year study shows that children who were whiny and insecure tend to grow up to be conservatives and "confident, resilient, self-reliant" children tend to grow up to be liberals. [via kottke]
"The final word is hooray!" — remembering the Iraq Invasion's Pollyana pundits
Video: Sarah Vowell on The Daily Show. Vowell, regarding Bush's inauguration: "The failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind."
Parting the Red Sea — don't like your country? Make your own! Plans to take over South Carolina and convert it to a sovereign "goldy nation". [via Kris]
This article argues that bin Laden is achieving his objectives, that Bush and Blair do bin Laden's work for him
The Rights of the born, yet another excellent essay on abortion. [via frykitty]
Fuck the bastards: RIAA says ripping CDs to your iPod is NOT fair use. Here's the deal: if you comply with these greedy corporations, if you continually grant them greater power over the media and over the copyright laws, eventually they will be able to charge you for access whenever and whereever you want to use your media. It's time to take a stand, folks, it's time to tell Big Media to shove it.
Nicole on the easy way vs. the right way.
Your pregnancy is a punishment from God and sluts need to be taught a lesson: "It’s not about abortion, it’s about the sex. These people are absolutely crazed at the thought of women who have sex and like it. They want it to stop, and if young women have to bear unwanted children or even die as a result, then so be it." [via rw]
Study shows Republicans more likely to be racist. Shocking! [via Dave]
I don't know much about modern pop music, but I like the video for Pink's new song, Stupid Girl — it's a condemnation of the return to traditional sex roles and the vapidity of modern role-models for girls: "What happened to the dream of a girl President?" (And Kris would want me to ask: why, once again, are we calling these women girls?)
Joel Stein: "I don't support our troops." The conservatives are irate, of course, but praise his honesty. That doesn't stop them from sending hate mail. [via Kris, of all people]
Holy shit. Feds after google data. This is a Bad, Bad Thing. [via Dave, of course]
The myth of a Christian nation: "The Religious Right's prevailing myth that our country was founded as a Christian nation has always been just that a myth, a lie, a fable, a story in the same company as George Washington's cutting down the cherry tree." [via ml]
Inuit sue U.S. over climate change!! [via Dave]
Strange but funny comic strip: The rise of the pagan right
Video: political bloopers: "Fool me once, shame no you, fool me twice, won't get fooled again!"
Live with this, a chilling weblog entry about the US torturing of prisoners
Carter rips Bush's policies. I wanted to write an entire weblog entry on this, but I don't have the mental stamina to deal with politics right now. Suffice it to say that Carter is spot on. Excerpt: "I don't have any doubt that he is very sincere about his Christian faith," Carter said of Bush. "There are some differences in interpretation. ... I have a commitment to worship the Prince of Peace, not the prince of pre-emptive war." Amen.
A history of the Iraq war told entirely in lies. All text is verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers.
Republicans want to end birthright citizenship as a means to quell illegal immigration. [via Dave]
Schwarzenegger Street: "These are the people in my neighborhood..."
Why is marijuana illegal? A brief history of the criminalization of cannabis.
For Kris: the George W. Bush countdown. She keeps telling me, with real anxiety, "I can't believe we have three more years of this guy."