mjh wonders how many sides a tarragon has. One, at least: everything has an outside. As in: Outside of tarragon, I like herbs, especially Herb Alpert.
Feel Safer Standing In Line to Take Off Your Shoes?
I’ve always hated the way we responded to 9/11. It’s a bunch of nonsense and, like searching student lockers in high school, conditions us all to be sheep in order to “stay safe.” This is DUHbya and BushCo’s enduring legacy, along with two wars that have killed many times more than 9/11 did. Idiots.
Fahreed Zakaria: Why America Overreacted to 9/11 – Newsweek 9/4/10
Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has created or reconfigured at least 263 organizations to tackle some aspect of the war on terror. The amount of money spent on intelligence has risen by 250 percent, to $75 billion (and that’s the public number, which is a gross underestimate). That’s more than the rest of the world spends put together. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet—the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons. Five miles southeast of the White House, the largest government site in 50 years is being built—at a cost of $3.4 billion—to house the largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs: the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.
This new system produces 50,000 reports a year—136 a day!—which of course means few ever get read. Those senior officials who have read them describe most as banal; one tells me, “Many could be produced in an hour using Google.” Fifty-one separate bureaucracies operating in 15 states track the flow of money to and from terrorist organizations, with little information-sharing.
Zakaria: Why America Overreacted to 9/11 – Newsweek
See mjh’s blog — There is no end to our misdirection
Ted Koppel: Nine years after 9/11, let’s stop playing into bin Laden’s hands
By Ted Koppel
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Contract on America Renewed
They gotta get this Pledge to fit on a baseball cap if they really want to reach Joe the Plumber.
Think Progress » GOP ‘Pledge’ Embraces Radical ‘Tenther’ View of Constitution
Today’s release of the Republican “Pledge to America,” however, eliminates any doubt regarding the GOP’s stance on tentherism. As two passages from the Pledge make clear, the constitutional lunatics are now in charge of the GOP’s asylum. The first passage is a pledge to read the Constitution as a tenther document:
We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
This notion that the framers had some special understanding of the Tenth Amendment which is being “consistently ignored” is classic tentherism.
Think Progress » GOP ‘Pledge’ Embraces Radical ‘Tenther’ View of Constitution
Here, I don’t just tip my hat, I doff it and say ‘bravo’ to Garrett:
”An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many.” Are they talking about Congress during the Bush years? If they’re apologizing, I’m listening.
As the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports, the GOP’s new “Pledge to America” was directed by a staffer named Brian Wild, who until early this year, was a lobbyist at a prominent DC firm that lobbied on behalf of corporate giants like Exxon. Moreover, the insurance industry is the leading contributor to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the Republican who led the effort. Consistent with its desire to placate lobbyists, the 21-page “Pledge” omits any mention of a key Republican mantra: a ban on earmarks.
Eugene Robinson – The GOP’s Hooey to America
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Republicans were doing pretty well as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?
All right, I’m being slightly disingenuous. Inquiring minds demanded to know just what the GOP proposed to do if voters entrusted it with control of one or both houses of Congress. But if the "Pledge to America" unveiled Thursday is the best that House Republicans can come up with, they’d have been better off continuing to froth and foam about "creeping socialism" while stonewalling on specifics.
The problem with the pledge is that the numbers don’t remotely add up. The
document is such a jumble of contradictions that it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly pass muster with anyone who survived eighth-grade arithmetic — unless, perhaps, the Republicans have something in mind that they’re not prepared to talk about quite yet.
An Unhappy Anniversary
Let me tell you the story that goes with this picture, if you don’t know it already. Seven years ago tonight, Merri and I were walking our dog Lucky around our neighborhood after dark as we did every night. On this occasion, a car sped up behind us. We heard two small explosions and each instantly felt searing pain in our backs. As awful as that pain was — and it was intense — it was nothing compared to seeing the expression on Merri’s face when she cried “I’ve been shot!” while grappling with my own overwhelming fear and pain. It was horrible and I wish a comparable misery on the shooter and his gang. The shooter who cackled wickedly as the car sped by.
Remember, guns don’t shoot people, idiots shoot people. And cowardly, brutal idiots shoot strangers in the back. peace, mjh
[originally posted 9/22/09]
but that was a long time ago
"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society," said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago. [*]
“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes
Of course, society isn’t very civilized anymore.
Op-Ed Columnist – The Angry Rich and Taxes – NYTimes.com
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 19, 2010
[A]mong the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.
The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.
You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. …
And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.
But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.
Op-Ed Columnist – The Angry Rich and Taxes – NYTimes.com
After showing a quote from Newsweek where Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman had the nerve to say this:
"It’s a war," Schwarzman said on the struggle with the administration over increasing taxes on private-equity firms. "It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939."
Obama responded.
Well I don’t know where that comes from. That’s my point… I guess. It is a two way street. …
[T]he notion that somehow me saying maybe you should be taxed more like your secretary when you’re pulling home a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars a year, I don’t think is me being extremist or being anti-business. [mjh: Or Hitlerian.]
Jupiter at its brightest in 47 years [hat tip to Walking Raven]
Jupiter was quite bright on the western horizon at 6am this morning, so early risers may also get to see it.
Jupiter at its brightest in 47 years – Wikinews, the free news source
The planet Jupiter will be at its closest to the Earth since 1963 [Monday] and Tuesday, scientists say. This will cause the planet’s appearance to peak at a brightness and size not seen since then. The planet Uranus will also make a close approach, but will be more difficult to spot, as it is much farther away.
Scientists say that Jupiter will rise at about the time of sunset and will be nearly directly overhead at midnight. The only brighter object that will be in the sky at that time will be the moon. NASA scientist Tony Phillips said "Jupiter is so bright right now, you don’t need a sky map to find it." It will not appear this bright again until 2022.
Jupiter will pass within 368 million miles of Earth at the time of closest approach. Although this will occur on Monday and Tuesday, it will remain large and bright for approximately another month.
During this event, the planet will be located in the sky not far from the moon. Some of the planet’s own moons will be visible with the aid of a telescope or binoculars.
According to NASA scientists, Earth-Jupiter encounters occur about every 13 months. Since both planets’ orbits are slightly elliptical, meaning they are not perfect circles around the Sun, the distance varies in each encounter.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, is the fifth planet from the Sun and is more massive than all of the other planets combined, about 318 times as massive as the Earth.
Jupiter at its brightest in 47 years – Wikinews, the free news source