Cognitive dissonance, they name is America:
M.S., in response, writes that “the idea that a major tea-party figure can turn around and make a bog-standard argument for defense spending on Keynesian grounds testifies to a startling capacity for cognitive dissonance.”
via The Rise of Tea Party Keynesianism – How the World Works – Salon.com.
Is Britain about to move transition into a higher gear? One can only hope.
The uproar over The News of the World and its ramifications for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, as well as for rival newspapers that have been implicated in the phone hacking and other abuses, have changed much in Britain. The scandal has also raised difficult, career-threatening questions for Prime Minister David Cameron and has led to a stunning reversal in fortunes for the 41-year-old Mr. Miliband, who as recently as last spring appeared to be sinking fast as Labour’s new helmsman.
via Labour Leader Ed Miliband Rebounds Amid Turmoil – NYTimes.com.
“I still don’t understand why industry should be allowed to hide problems when public safety is at stake,” said Carla Greathouse, the author of the E.P.A. report that documents a case of drinking water contamination from fracking. “If it’s so safe, let the public review all the cases.”
via Tainted Water Well Challenges Claim of Fracking’s Safety – NYTimes.com.
It’s not going to look pretty when millions upn millions of gallons or crude start spilling out over the ice and snow. And it will happen, you know it will.
Opponents say the harsh conditions there heighten the dangers of drilling and make cleaning up any potential spill vastly more complicated than in the comparatively benign waters of the gulf.
Administration officials cautioned that the company must win a number of additional permits before it can begin punching holes in the seabed. The plan approved on Thursday contains detailed information on how the company would respond to any blowout and spill.
“We base our decisions regarding energy exploration and development in the Arctic on the best scientific information available,” said Michael R. Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which oversees offshore drilling. “We will closely review and monitor Shell’s proposed activities to ensure that any activities that take place under this plan will be conducted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.”
via Shell Gets Tentative Approval to Drill in Arctic – NYTimes.com.
Who’s the Tomás de Torquemada of the California prison system? Has the US Prison system passed the Inquisition in cruelty? Has it reached the gulag level?
Once used occasionally as a short-term punishment for violating prison rules, solitary confinement’s prevalent use as a long-term prison management strategy is a fairly recent development, Colin Dayan, a professor at Vanderbilt University, said in a recent Op-Ed article in The Times. Nationally, more than 20,000 inmates are confined in “supermax” facilities in horrid conditions.
Fascinating images from the Good Olde Days (But the Best Days are Yet to Come).
Above and below are some samples from The Diggers Archive, a group of radical thinkers from 1960s San Francisco that used food (free healthy food!) as part of their art and political message. These pieces are from their newspaper FREE CITY NEWS, that showcased some pretty cool hippie graphic design.
via The intersection of food, design and politics – Imprint – Salon.com.
Been thinkin’ about you, Ralph. You gotta’ run, you really do. For the frogs, yes, and for the kids.
Let me tell you about some kids. I’ve only met them once, only talked to one of them. But I know they’re resilient because I’ve seen what they’ve built. Though they’re probably not old enough to vote for anyone, and they know the world’s stacked against them, I figure they’d vote for someone like you because they know you’ve done something to change the country, to make it safer—though they can be a bit reckless, these kids.
So, anyhow, they like to skateboard (they spell it sk8, fewer characters, you know?) and to ride BMX bikes. But there’s no place for them to do it. The city’s too busy handing out construction contracts to friends and friends of friends so they can build high-rise apartment complexes for wannabe bankers and gofers to bankers, because, YOU know Ralph, that those bankers are swimming in so much cash that even the gofers and wannabes can afford to live in luxury. Continue reading
The super-rich: have got it figured out: How to keep their part of the economy, that part that feeds their bank accounts, growing. The neat thing is they can keep things growing in their back yard even when the overall economy is stagnant. Which means that,for the rest of us, the economy is shrinking. Back in the old days, the economy grew for everybody: win-win. Now it grows for the rich, but not for us: win-lose.
And the rich don’t care. Why should they, they hardly even notice. Because it just doesn’t affect them.
“The basic issue is that the U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal track,” says Dean Maki, the chief United States economist at Barclays Capital. “From that point, none of the choices are fun.” The most obvious choices, Mr. Maki says, are to reduce spending (ouch), raise taxes (yuck), let inflation run (gasp) or default (thud).
We wouldn’t need any of that if we could restore economic growth. If that happened, Americans would become richer and pay more taxes. Et voilà! — we’d pay down the debt painlessly.
via Sure Cure for Debt Problems Is Economic Growth – NYTimes.com.
Truth and Traditions 