As you may recall, I have been planting evil plants back in the strippings. And I rather stupidly forgot to take into account a local Pennsylvania custom: the beer-addled ATV-ride through other people’s property, prior to going and setting off fireworks.
Rumsfeld was, simultaneously, a “company man” who saw himself as an enabling gear in the vast power-system of the US empire, and an independent-minded strategist; all in all a recipe for an asshole.
Boingboing published a piece [boing] looking at US police budgets.
The United Nations needs to quit, and reconstitute itself without its structural flaws – namely the US, Russian, and Chinese veto. That’s an embarrassment and the veto reveals that the nature of the body to be a puppet, always trumpeting the interests of the rulers of the world.
I mentioned this in the comments of my last posting, but I think it’s worth going into a bit more detail.
It’s the hot topic, so I must weigh in upon it. No; that’s not true. It’s the hot topic and I’m relentlessly interested in the evolution of ideas and philosophy, and so, when I encounter something new, I do something a republican congressman or governor is incapable of: I do my research and try to learn. You’ve probably already figured out that a great deal of the topics I go into here are things I’ve become interested in, and I’m using the expedient of writing about them (once I’ve done my research and thinking) in order to cement the high points into my less and less reliable memory.
One thing you have to say for the Republicans is that they present a unified front. They’re horrible, but they know how to “politics” – though, perhaps, they find it easier because many of them don’t seem to actually believe in anything except power and its application.
I know that’s a kind of selfish question. I’m one of the descendants of the people that the USA was pretty good to, and I’ve done well. Unlike lots of people, I don’t have a relative who has been blown up, lynched, driven into wage-slavery, beaten, arrested, etc. Maybe a feel a bit bad about that. I feel like every decent person should be thinking about how to destroy and rebuild this motherfucker before it kills us all.
I’m pretty sure there are people out there who’d say that Fox News isn’t racist. But it’s pretty obvious, when you look at how they report things.
I used to enjoy Mehdi Hasan’s work at The Intercept. He’s incredibly articulate, he does his research and all that thinky stuff, and he does not tolerate “both sides”-ism or bullshit. He’s climbing his way up the ladder of the media heirarchy, so he’s moved on from The Intercept to his own show on MSNBC.