Gratuitous Audio Feed
Leo Kottke: “Busted Bicycle”
Tone Deaf–Again
The current swine-flu epidemic is a good reason to take another look at the economic stimulus bill. Guess who’s left looking stupid and evil yet again?
When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus [...]
Bill O’Reilly is a Corporate Dirtbag
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, like most of the hard right in media, has rediscovered the pleasures of contrarianism since the election, with fascism less in fashion in American politics. Don’t miss this howler from Wednesday night:
This is obviously a major story — when a powerful corporation which controls a major part of the American media [...]
Gratuitous Video Feed
Herbie Hancock: “Rockit”
I always found this video disturbing–those mechanical things that look like people, in the throes of agony or ecstasy.
Remember When?
Jason Leopold reminds us of a previous liberal vendetta against waterboarding, carried out by Ronald Reagan’s Department of Justice, back when we thought the practice illegal:
In 1983, the Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies for waterboarding prisoners to get them to confess to crimes.
The deputies were sentenced to four years [...]
Ahhhh…
Work is a four-letter word around here, but there’s quite a bit of satisfaction to be drawn from chores done well. Or well enough. The pool is now pretty clean, with its chemistry balanced, and I even swept away more of winter’s grunge. Lynne, meanwhile, has planted the ‘maters seen here. Not in view is [...]
Gratuitous Video Feed
Johnny Winter: “Highway 61 Revisited”
Astroturf
Medicare Advantage is federally-funded, private insurance administered for profit, and therefore not as efficient at delivering benefits as is plain old Medicare. With a Democratically-led Congress considering cutting Medicare Advantage funding, the private insurers are playing dirty when it comes to cobbling together the appearance of grass-roots support for their profiteering:
Across Massachusetts, senior citizens are [...]
Sir Ian McKellen on the craft of acting.
Cootiephobia
Kandahar Taliban have claimed responsibility for the assassination of Afghani women’s rights activist Sitara Achakzai over the weekend:
Officials said the attack happened in broad daylight. The Taliban have claimed responsibility. Friends said Mrs Achakzai was returning from a provincial council meeting; her assassins were lying in wait nearby.
“This cold-blooded [...]
