Neil Barofsky was a career federal prosecutor who was appointed by George W. Bush at the end of 2008 as the Special Inspector General overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) that was a major part of the bailout program following the financial collapse, and he continued in that role under president Obama until he resigned in March 2011. [Read more…]
Last Saturday’s show was supposed to open with a sketch that parodied Chuck Hagel’s appearance before the Senate committee on his nomination to be the Secretary of Defense. But it was scrapped at the last minute, reportedly by the show’s executive producer. [Read more…]
I usually don’t follow closely stories about massive manhunts for killers and initially largely ignored the story of Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles Police Department policemen who killed three people all connected in some way to the LAPD and then went on the run. It seemed on the surface to be yet another case of a person snapping under the stresses of life and lashing out at those around him. [Read more…]
Once in a while a story comes along that reminds me to be careful about making sweeping generalizations about people. Take Appalachia, the rural and mountainous region that spans many states in the southeastern United States. While a place of great natural beauty, it has long been poor and rural. But ever since the hit 1972 film Deliverance came out, the people of that region have also suffered under the impression that they are uneducated, narrow-minded, inbred, hillbillies. Who can forget the famous dueling banjos scene from the film that cemented this impression?
Netflix has produced an original series of programs called House of Cards. It is a story of the seedy political wheeling and dealing and backstabbing that goes on at the highest levels of government, the The West Wing with all the feel-good, warm and fuzzy elements stripped out, and in which none of the principal characters end up looking good. In a new twist, rather than doling out episodes on a regular schedule, they released all 13 episodes of the first season simultaneously on Friday, February 1. [Read more…]
The Daily Show had two good segments on the US policy of using drones to kill people. It looks at the so-called legal rationale that the Obama administration created to justify its own actions and how the language in it is designed to deceive rather than clarify. The memo is a deliberate exercise in the cynical use of language and reveals the utter hypocrisy of the Obama administration on this issue. [Read more…]
I have never understood the appeal of golf as a spectator sport. It seems to take forever for the players to hit the ball, and even then you can’t even see the ball’s trajectory or where it lands. But the big tournaments draw big crowds, even though you can see only a tiny bit of what is going on. At least with other slow games like cricket and baseball, you can see the entire action. I also find it hilarious that there has to be pin drop silence when a golfer is about to hit a stationary ball, when in tennis or baseball the players have to hit a ball traveling at around 100 mph with crowds screaming in their ears. [Read more…]
NPR had an interesting story on the controversy in France as that country’s legislature moves ahead on its plans to legalize same-sex marriage and allow adoption by same-sex couples. While the changes have support in the urban areas, the rural areas are more hostile, especially to the adoption provision, which is an interesting reversal of the situation in the US where same-sex adoption has become accepted. [Read more…]
I watched a lot of Sesame Street with my children when they were young. I particularly loved their parodies because they work on two levels, teaching simple lessons to young children while at the same time entertaining their adult companions by riffing off adult films and TV shows and music. Now that my children are grown I no longer watch the show but once in a while come across a new good parody. [Read more…]
We already heard of the killing of people carrying out polio vaccinations in Pakistan because of alarmist fears raised by the Taliban that vaccination was part of a western plot, fears that were fuelled by the horrendous decision by the US government to use a fake vaccination scheme to try and unearth Osama bin Laden. [Read more…]