Tuesday Reads

Posted: January 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Democratic Politics, executive orders, Gitmo, indefinite detention, investment banking, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , | 34 Comments
Good Morning!

The first week of the New Year continues to bring College Football bowls and weird news.

The BBC thinks that Arkansas bird mystery may be solved. You may have heard that thousands of birds fell out of the sky on New Year’s Eve in the small town of Beebe.  Poison was ruled out since many of them wound up as midnight snacks for local cats and dogs that didn’t get sick. Now, investigators believe that fireworks may have caused the birds to panic and fly into each other and other things.

Initial laboratory reports said the birds had died from trauma, the AGFC said.

Residents reported hearing loud fireworks just before the birds started raining from the sky.

“They started going crazy, flying into one another,” said AGFC spokesman Keith Stephens.

The birds also hit homes, cars, trees and other objects, and some could have flown hard into the ground.

“The blackbirds were flying at rooftop level instead of treetop level” to avoid explosions above, said Ms Rowe, an ornithologist.

“Blackbirds have poor eyesight, and they started colliding with things.”

Here’s an interesting thing at The Economist on the PornoScans used by the TSA.    Evidently, they efficiently humiliate us, but terrorist find them pushovers.  They’re expensive, offensive, and they don’t work.

BOINGBOING’s brilliant Cory Doctorow has dug up a paper (published in the Journal of Transportation Security) outlining how easy it would be for terrorists to beat the new backscatter “full-body” imaging scanners that are being installed at major airports worldwide. Leon Kaufman and Joseph W. Carlson, two professors at the University of California, San Francisco, submitted their paper, “An evaluation of airport x-ray backscatter units based on image characteristics” ( PDF) on October 27, way before the John Tyner/”Don’t touch my junk” incident pushed the controversy over airport security rules into the cultural mainstream. The findings are pretty clear-cut: a smart terrorist could defeat backscatter units (or “pornoscanners,” as Mr Doctorow dubs them) with relative ease …

Here’s a story from NPR that should bring more shame to the Texas justice system that imprisons and kills people at an unbelievably high rate. Where’s the DOJ when you need them to investigate violations of civil rights on things like this?

Prosecutors declared a Texas man innocent Monday of a rape and robbery that put him in prison for 30 years, more than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.

DNA test results that came back barely a week after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was paroled in July excluded him as the person who attacked a Dallas woman in 1979, prosecutors said Monday. Dupree was just 20 when he was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980.

Now 51, he has spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any DNA exoneree in Texas, which has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001   more than any other state.

“Our Conviction Integrity Unit thoroughly reinvestigated this case, tested the biological evidence and based on the results, concluded Cornelius Dupree did not commit this crime,” Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said.

Dupree is expected to have his aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon conviction overturned Tuesday at an exoneration hearing in a Dallas court.

There have been 21 DNA exonerations in Dallas since 2001, more than any other county in the nation. Only two states — Illinois and New York — have freed more of the wrongly convicted through DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center representing Dupree that specializes in wrongful conviction cases.

I’ve been posting some links down thread on some of the names floating around for the people on the probable list to replace Rahm and Summers at the White House.  Their main qualifications appear to be working for Investment Banking firms.  Leading contender for Rahm’s replacement as White House Chief of Staff is J.P Morgan’s William Daley.  Former Economic Adviser Larry Summer may be replaced by a Goldman Sach’s  beneficiary Lawyer Gene Sperling whose been an adviser to Timothy Geithner. Yes, that’s right; a lawyer for an economic adviser.  You’d think our economics-disabled POTUS would want an actual economist.  It seems, however, that Obama is highly worried that Big Business and Wall Street don’t like him.  Oh dear, we wouldn’t want any donations to dry up to the re-election campaign, would we?  Daley is close to Axelrod and Chicago’s Mayor Daley.  Feel all better now?

Antonin Scalia provided yet another reason why we need to reconsider resurrecting the ERA.  He just gave an interview and said women don’t have constitutional protection under the 14th amendment. He said this last September also.  There are lots of feminist blogs writing on this and you can find their links on Memeorandum.

Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, called the justice’s comments “shocking” and said he was essentially saying that if the government sanctions discrimination against women, the judiciary offers no recourse.

“In these comments, Justice Scalia says if Congress wants to protect laws that prohibit sex discrimination, that’s up to them,” she said. “But what if they want to pass laws that discriminate? Then he says that there’s nothing the court will do to protect women from government-sanctioned discrimination against them. And that’s a pretty shocking position to take in 2011. It’s especially shocking in light of the decades of precedents and the numbers of justices who have agreed that there is protection in the 14th Amendment against sex discrimination, and struck down many, many laws in many, many areas on the basis of that protection.”

Greenberger added that under Scalia’s doctrine, women could be legally barred from juries, paid less by the government, receive fewer benefits in the armed forces, and be excluded from state-run schools — all things that have happened in the past, before their rights to equal protection were enforced.

Republicans are once again using Islamphobic slams to motivate the base and set ground for their continuing radical assault on constitutional rights.  We should be so lucky to have Shari’a compliant finance and banking.  Think no usurious interest and fees.   Also, the aim of investing in Shari’a compliant finance is ethical and moral investing and hoarding is prohibited.  Money must be used for the good of the community.   Plus some revenues must be set aside to take care of widows and orphans.  The most outrageous thing about some of these lies is that Orthodox Jews in places like New York have similar laws and practices already in place.  You don’t hear complaints about that though, do you?

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a newly-elected member who has loudly scapegoated Muslims and campaigned on a promise to oppose religious diversity, appeared on Frank Gaffney’s radio program last week. Gaffney, who routinely says that Obama is both a secret Muslim and a member of the “Muslim Brotherhood,” asked West about how the new Republican Congress plans to “take on Sharia as the enemy threat doctrine?” West said that, although he has not spoken with all of the new members, he hoped that Congress would focus on the “infiltration of the Sharia practice into all of our operating systems in our country as well as across Western civilization.” He explained that targeting Sharia should be part of America’s “national security strategy” and that a response to Sharia would somehow include “tailor[ing]” American “security systems, our political systems, economic systems, our cultural and educational systems, so that we can thwart this”

Propublica reports that Obama is trying to expand his options on Guantanamo.  The problem is that they also expand executive power in a way that would give a pretty good hard on to Dick Cheney.  Obama may use a signing statement.

Obama has issued a number of signing statements taking issue with more than a dozen legislative provisions and has come under some criticism for it from both Republicans and Democrats. Shortly after he took office, Obama promised to use them with less frequency than former President Bush, noting in a presidential memorandum in March 2009: “I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded.”Bush established Guantanamo through executive order and issued over 150 signing statements, more than any other president. The practice was especially controversial when Bush applied it to legislation dealing with detainee treatment.

The American Bar Association issued a report in 2006 that called signing statements “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers.” The report was signed by a number of legal scholars including Harold Koh, who was then dean at Yale Law School and is today the top lawyer at the State Department and one of several advisers involved in the administration’s Guantanamo policy.

It seems that deceit webs–once woven–keep entangling the rule of law.

Robert Reich calls Obama and the Democrats enablers of Republicans and Their BIG Lie on his latest blog thread.

Republicans are telling Americans a Big Lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is our economic problems are due to a government that’s too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.

The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The result: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity. Since the debt bubble burst, most Americans have had to reduce their spending; they need to repay their debts, can’t borrow as before, and must save for retirement.

The short-term solution is for government to counteract this shortfall by spending more, not less. The long-term solution is to spread the benefits of economic growth more widely (for example, through a more progressive income tax, a larger EITC, an exemption on the first $20K of income from payroll taxes and application of payroll taxes to incomes over $250K, stronger unions, and more and better investments in education and infrastructure.)

But instead of telling the truth, Obama has legitimized the Big Lie by freezing non-defense discretionary spending, freezing federal pay, touting his deficit commission co-chairs’ recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase, and agreeing to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Will Obama stand up to the Big Lie? Will he use his State of the Union address to rebut it and tell the truth?

No and No.  Robert, you should know by now that Obama believes The Big Lie and that Democrats won’t stop him.  Raise your hand if you think The Big Question will be how long into the State of the Union Adress will it take before Obama tries to sell us The Big Lie and tells us we need to hand over and cut our Social Security?

We don’t appear to be the only group of liberals worried about Obama betraying the Democratic position on Social Security according to The Hill.

Maria Freese of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare said she thinks Social Security is “more at risk than it was in 2005,” when President George W. Bush proposed far-reaching changes to the program, including personal accounts. The plan was vigorously opposed by Democrats and liberal groups and never came up for a vote in Congress.

Now, with Social Security coming to the forefront once again, liberal groups are preparing a campaign to oppose any “backroom” deals on retirement benefits.

“What I am really afraid of is another deal behind closed doors,” said Nancy Altman, the co-director of Social Security Works. “At least with President Bush, he went around the country on a tour and presented his plan, and people didn’t like it.”

This is such a true statement.  We saw that Obama was more than willing to sell us out–behind close doors–to big Pharma interests during health care reform.  We witnessed Obama dropping a public option so  quickly–despite campaign promises–that it must  been prearranged.   There’s got to be a connection to all these Investment Banker people showing up in the West Wing and that big pool of  money and investments in Treasury Bills out there that are pledged to those of us that have paid into the program since our first day of work.

Whats on your reading and blogging list today?

Ross Douthat is a Religionist Poet Quoting Hack

Posted: January 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Reproductive Rights, The Media SUCKS, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: , | 26 Comments

If ever there was a need for some genetically manipulated critter requiring maudlin, self-serving millennial look-at-me-effete-snob-and-intellectual-dilettante-that-I am qualities and the actual sense of an eggplant, Ross Douthat could provide the DNA.  I had to hold down a little bit of throw-up in the back of my throat while reading THIS spurious drivel. From under WHICH nasty critter-filled rock does the NYT find its op ed writers?

This is the paradox of America’s unborn. No life is so desperately sought after, so hungrily desired, so carefully nurtured. And yet no life is so legally unprotected, and so frequently destroyed.

How many stupid diatribes do we have to endure from people that confuse scrambled eggs with fried chicken in the name of a mythological angry sky god before we move on to the living breathing BABIES that are treated abominably in this country?

Prior to his own personal religionist conclusion, he dribbles this:

Some of this shift reflects the growing acceptance of single parenting. But some of it reflects the impact of Roe v. Wade. Since 1973, countless lives that might have been welcomed into families like Thernstrom’s — which looked into adoption, and gave it up as hopeless — have been cut short in utero instead.

And lives are what they are. On the MTV special, the people around Durham swaddle abortion in euphemism. The being inside her is just “pregnancy tissue.” After the abortion, she recalls being warned not to humanize it: “If you think of it like [a person], you’re going to make yourself depressed.” Instead, “think of it as what it is: nothing but a little ball of cells.”

He needs to look at the anti-abortion ‘swaddling’ in his own pathetic euphemisms before he gets all 3rd century on any one that actually CAN get pregnant.  Let me just clear this one up for him.

THIS is a fertilized egg e.g. clump of cells e.g. pregnancy tissue

This is a new born baby needing food, shelter, clothing, education and healthy mother

It takes around nine months of gestation to get from picture on the left to the picture on the right. Picture on the right shows  a living, breathing human being.  At some point during the third trimester, the protohuman might become something that can be sustained on its own. It may live. It may eventually breathe. There’s a lot of stuff before that picture, however.  A few fluttering heartbeats do not make a sentient human being.   A few little buds that may become arms or hands do not make up a fully sentient, breathing human being.  It is not up to you to figure out when it becomes a sentient being for every one, Ross.  Science–at this point–can’t even do it.  Science is the germane thing here for law; not your personal mythology.

But, more importantly, let’s keep this in mind:

One in four children are on food stamps in this country.

There is limited access to prenatal care in this country. Our rates for infant mortality are comparable to third world countries because access to prenatal care is restricted.

While extraordinary progress has been made in the last half century in infant survival and health, the decline in infant mortality rates in the United States has not kept up with progress in other industrialized countries. According to the most recent data from UNICEF, the U.S. infant mortality rate ranked 27th among 30 industrialized countries.  In fact, in 2002 our nation’s infant mortality rate rose for the first time in more than 40 years; after declines in 2003 and 2004, the rate rose again in 2005, then declined again in 2006.

There are lots of uninsured children and babies who are at risk every day of dying from very simple, curable diseases in this country.

There are more than 8 million uninsured children in the United States. Millions more are underinsured. As a result, millions of children lack timely access to comprehensive health and mental health services, and must delay or forgo preventive care and treatment due to cost or other barriers.

  • Uninsured children are 10 times more likely than insured children to have unmet medical needs, such as untreated asthma, diabetes or obesity, and are 5 times as likely as an insured child to go more than 2 years without seeing a doctor. Regular health screenings help doctors identify and treat problems preventively and are crucial to a child’s healthy development.An estimated two-thirds of children and youth with mental health needs are not getting the help they need. In fact, unmet need is as high today as it was 20 years ago.
  • Uninsured children are more than 4 times as likely as an insured child to have an unmet dental health need. In 2000, children missed more than 51 million hours of school because of dental-related illness.
  • Uninsured children are more likely than insured children to perform poorly in school; in contrast, enrolling children in health coverage has been associated with greatly improved school performance.
  • Uninsurance disproportionately affects minority children. While 1 in 14 White children is uninsured, the statistic jumps to nearly 1 in 9 for Black children and 1 in 5 for Latino children.

Hell, we can’t even vaccinate our living, breathing, children.

Despite these improvements, one out of four Black two year olds—and one out of five Latino two year olds—have not been fully immunized.

Now, can we talk about access to Birth Control, sex education and Family planning that very might well prevent the little MTV “mishaps’ about which your sanctimonious white male ass is in such a bunchy about?

•Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia explicitly allow all minors to consent to contraceptive services without a parent’s involvement (as of January 2010). Two states (Texas and Utah) require parental consent for contraceptive services in state-funded family planning programs.[5]

•Ninety percent of publicly funded family planning clinics counsel clients younger than 18 about abstinence and the importance of communicating with parents about sex.[6]

•Sixty percent of teens younger than 18 who use a clinic for sexual health services say their parents know they are there.[7]

•Among those whose parents do not know, 70% would not use the clinic to obtain prescription contraceptives if the law required that their parents be notified.[7]

•One in five teens whose parents do not know they obtain contraceptive services would continue to have sex but would either rely on withdrawal or not use any contraceptives if the law required that their parents be notified of their visit.[7]

•Only 1% of all minor adolescents who use sexual health services indicate that their only reaction to a law requiring their parents’ involvement in obtaining prescription contraceptives would be to stop having sex.[7]

•Teens are waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. Some 13% of never-married females and 15% of never-married males aged 15–19 in 2002 had had sex before age 15, compared with 19% and 21%, respectively, in 1995.[1]

•The majority (59%) of sexually experienced teen females had a first sexual partner who was 1–3 years their senior. Only 8% had first partners who were six or more years older.[1]

•More than three-quarters of teen females report that their first sexual experience was with a steady boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband or a cohabiting partner.[1]

I would now like to suggest that Ross Douthart is an irrelevant voice on the topic and he should STFU.

(Recent unplanned-pregnancy movies like “Juno” and “Knocked Up” made abortion seem not only unnecessary but repellent.)

Here’s hoping his angry sky god forces him to a hell realm where he’s perpetually dealing with his own pregnancy under all the worst conditions imaginable.  I would gladly offer up the few I had as an example trying to bring youngest daughter to term.  Yes.  Abortion can be THE moral choice.  Also, it’s none of Douthart’s damned business under ANY circumstances.  Maybe that’s his issue and that’s why he thinks it’s a paradox of all things.

The Republican Agenda

Posted: January 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: John Birch Society in Charge, Surreality, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, We are so F'd | Tags: , | 45 Comments

Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table.  That was our first sign that a Democratic Congress was coming in on midterm election wins, but as geldings and steers.

Can you Feel the Crazy Tonight?

Not so with incoming Republicans.  Get ready for congressional hearings worthy of coverage by Jesse Ventura and Conspiracy Theory.  The Republican Party has clearly continued its path down into the Valley of B&gF$ck crazy.

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

Well, make that the Issa Zone where every whack-a-do conspiracy theory from the right will get a subpoena and an airing on C-SPAN.  All on your dime.  Here’s a choice few nutty items as reported by Politico today.

According to an outline of the committee’s hearing topics obtained by POLITICO, the House Oversight and Government Reform is also planning to investigate how regulation impacts job creation, the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis; recalls at the Food and Drug Administration and the failure of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to agree on the causes of the market meltdown.

Issa’s even went as far as calling the Obama administration the most corrupt in history.  He’s walked that one back already.  You know, I’m not fond of the current POTUS but any one remember Nixon and the Watergate break-in?  Reagan/Bush and Iran-Contra? How about the Tea Pot Dome scandal?   I’m not seeing corruption right now in the White House; just incompetence and cave-ins.

Asked on “Fox News Sunday” about reports that the White House is staffing up on lawyers to prepare for his oversight hearings, Issa said: “They’re going to need more accountants.

“It’s more of an accounting function than legal function,” Issa said. “It’s more about the inspector generals than it is about lawyers in the White House. And the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we’ll be.”

We have exactly two days before the patients are in charge of the asylum. Mike Allen of Politico has Issa’s little list. It seems like we’re about reading to return to the McCarthy era.

Issa’s list: “1. Impact of regulation on job creation … 2. Fannie/Freddie & the Foreclosure Crisis … 3. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the failure to identify origins of the financial crisis … 4. Combating corruption in Afghanistan … 5. WikiLeaks … 6. FDA/Food & Drug Safety.”

Regulation’s impact on job creation?  Why the Financial Crisis Committee can’t agree?  Why doesn’t he just create a panel called ‘Bircher Memes We love and Wish to cram down the public’s throat on their dime’ ?

If you want my conspiracy theory it’s that the Republicans are trying to create an atmosphere by which we do take a hit on the National Credit Score.  That’s going to lead to a call to wreck Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  They’re manufacturing a crisis and we have a cave-in leader.   The bond market problems won’t be a result of problems because we don’t have the ability to honor our debt or print more money.  It will be because the rest of the world is going to start thinking that we’re going to default because of ideologues intent on crashing the economy and defaulting.  Plus, they have enough evidence-to-date that our economics-ignorant President will most likely go along with it.  Even Lindsay Graham joined the lalala-fingers-in-ears Republicans who wish to shut down all rational debate.  If this is any indication of what will go on in two years, then Obama should be re-elected easily. What rational American would vote for a group of people intent on ruining the country?

Sometime in the next few months, the U.S. will reach its debt limit and Congress will, once again, have a choice: Raise the limit or let the U.S. default on its obligations. For a while now, Tea Party Republicans like Senator Mike Lee, who unseated the insufficiently conservative Robert Bennett in Utah, have been threatening to vote against the debt ceiling increase unless they win substantial reductions in government spending. Idle threats about refusing to raise the debt ceiling are nothing new, but the Tea Party crowd seems quite serious about it–in part because they’ve promised their base they’re going to do it.

This kind of thing–willfully refusing to pay our bills–is what throws individuals in jail. It’s called FRAUD.  These guys empowered Bush and his war spending spree as well as providing irrational tax cuts for the entire decade.  Now they want to play a dine and dash on the bill?

As many others have noted, the demand of going back to 2008 spending levels is radical and, not coincidentally, highly unrealistic: According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, it’d amount to a one-fifth cut in discretionary spending–forcing cuts that could damage the fragile recovery and starve programs like Pell Grants that most Americans value.

And the alternative—failing to increase the debt ceiling? What precise effects would that have? This isn’t my area of expertise, but my colleague Alex Hart knows a thing or two about it. Here’s what he wrote last week:

Recent history provides a sense of just how scary this would be. “The reason the markets calmed down [during the financial crisis] is that we took [the banks’] toxic assets and handed the financial institutions Treasurys,” says Kevin Hassett, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “If we’re in a default situation, the Treasurys themselves are the toxic assets, and it’s not clear what we can hand anybody to calm them down.”The sad thing is, Graham seems to grasp this: In the same interview, he notes that default could be catastrophic. But that’s not stopping him from making his demands. And that’s particularly disheartening, since he is supposed to be one of the more reasonable members of the Republican Senate caucus.

I can’t imagine this is what most people in the country voted for during the midterm elections.  If so, we’re in a lot bigger trouble than even I imagined and it’s time to stock up on bullets and barrels of food.  What’s worse, is we have an entire group of really insane media cheerleaders that will be egging on the revolution.  It’s just a damned shame.

An Authentic New Year’s Resolution for our Economy

Posted: January 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, U.S. Economy | Tags: , | 43 Comments

Joseph Stiglitz is one economist whose research influences mine and whose grasp of the big questions and answers that the discipline of economics can provide causes me constant amazement.   He’s won just about all the prizes you can possibly win from your peers and the powers that be in recognition of his contributions to the field.  Stiglitz has also consulted for almost all the institutions that create economic policy.

Most importantly, his contributions aren’t just theoretical abstracts alone.  His contributions have brought theory down from the philosophical level to the ‘make it work’ level of policy.  He was the visionary behind the Clinton economic policy that defined a new economic philosophy called the “third way”.    The third way was really a pragmatic view of government’s role  in a market economy based on naturally and unnaturally occurring flaws in markets that cause them to collapse or fail or not produce the most efficient out come.   His theories teach us that some times you have to step in to correct the limitations of the market in the real world.

He has a new article up at Project Syndicate called ‘New Year’s Hope against Hope’. The man is very brilliant and has produced theorems that are both complex and significant. (My Risk Theory Seminar which included his theory of screening is responsible for a large number of  my gray hairs.)  However, the resulting narrative of his theory and work is always practical, pragmatic, understandable and spot on; once you get pass the math.

Here’s why I wish he had the ear of our tin ear president.

In fact, 2010 was a nightmare. The crises in Ireland and Greece called into question the euro’s viability and raised the prospect of a debt default. On both sides of the Atlantic, unemployment remained stubbornly high, at around 10%. Even though 10% of US households with mortgages had already lost their homes, the pace of foreclosures appeared to be increasing – or would have, were not it not for legal snafus that raised doubts about America’s vaunted “rule of law.”

Unfortunately, the New Year’s resolutions made in Europe and America were the wrong ones. The response to the private-sector failures and profligacy that had caused the crisis was to demand public-sector austerity! The consequence will almost surely be a slower recovery and an even longer delay before unemployment falls to acceptable levels.

There will also be a decline in competitiveness. While has China kept its economy going by making investments in education, technology, and infrastructure, Europe and America have been cutting back.

It has become fashionable among politicians to preach the virtues of pain and suffering, no doubt because those bearing the brunt of it are those with little voice – the poor and future generations. To get the economy going, some people will, in fact, have to bear some pain, but the increasingly skewed income distribution gives clear guidance to whom this should be: Approximately a quarter of all income in the US now goes to the top 1%, while most Americans’ income is lower today than it was a dozen years ago. Simply put, most Americans didn’t share in what many called the Great Moderation, but was really the Mother of All Bubbles. So, should innocent victims and those who gained nothing from fake prosperity really be made to pay even more?

Yup, that’s the BIG question that Obama should be asking himself: “Should innocent victims and those who gained nothing from fake prosperity really be made to pay even more?”  How can they bail out the perpetrators and punish the innocent?  There are no big thinkers in the District at the moment when we really need one.

Mister President, please put Dr. Joseph Stiglitz on speed dial.

Airing of Gratitudes Open Thread

Posted: January 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because, open thread | Tags: , | 37 Comments

Graphic from Dakini Creations Art and Gifts: Art From and For the World

What a better way to start off a New Year than by offering thanks to all the people, things, actions, efforts, and means we have! There’s never enough occasions for some  good old fashion gratitude!  Yup, some times you gotta gripe!

But, other times you just gotta show some appreciation.

From dakinikat:

I’m really fortunate to have some really great people in my life.  My dad is my best buddy.  My sister comes through when no one else will.  Eldest daughter has right livelihood down to a T and that gives me much joy.  Youngest daughter has figured out that there is life beyond the party zone and that lightens my spirit.  I’m also blessed with a sangha and a dzogchen guru. Then there’s my friends–like you–that keep my head on straight and right-sized for my body.

Yup, the gratitude in me goes out to all the good people in my life! What would I do without you?

A message from Wonk the Vote:

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust

Brava and much gratitude to everybody at Sky Dancing — no relentless distractions on the frontpage and no gratuitous food fights constantly hijacking the comments. Just content, content, content, collaboration, and community! I’m raising my glass to all of you —

So raise your glass if you are wrong,
in all the right ways,
all my underdogs,
we will never be never be anything but loud
and nitty gritty dirty little freaks
won’t you come on and come on and raise your glass,
just come on and come on and raise your glass

Love,
Wonk

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