Jon Stewart ethers Faux News:
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| Tone Def Poetry Jam – Lyrics Controversy | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Tone Def Poetry Jam – Lyrics Controversy | ||||
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Category: Society
Healthcare is not a Normal Good
[Healthcare] is virtually the only part of the economy where I can go out and get any service I want—cancer treatment, open heart surgery, have a wart removed, whatever it is—and I pay $3 for it or $5 for it or nothing, even if it costs $50,000 or $100,000. I mean, imagine if you had the same situation with automobiles. Where I could show up at the car dealership and I could say, ‘I want the Mercedes for free.’ Well, people say, ‘You can’t have the Mercedes for free. You have to pay $50,000 for it.’ You say, ‘Why not, I have an inalienable right to free healthcare. Right? Why don’t I have an inalienable right to a free Mercedes?’
I love Levitt and Dubner, but here they lose their way. They miss an important moral dimension to the argument over healthcare. The best response was in the comments from “Miichael[sic?]”
To extend your Mercedes analogy, what usually happens is that you are told by your personal Car Expert that you need a Mercedes or you will die. You can’t afford one, and your Car Insurer says they won’t pay for one. So you walk. And you die.
The Racism of Frame
Wow.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Racism of Frame:
On Friday I joked on twitter, the other day, that biggest problem with attempting to write smart is that you end up attracting people who really are smart. And sometimes they write in to tell you you’re wrong. And sometimes, In such cases, your forced to acknowledge their point.
Continue reading “The Racism of Frame”Trains and Freedom
“Anyway, my experience is that of the three modes of mechanized transport I use, trains are by far the most liberating. Planes are awful: waiting to clear security, then having to sit with your electronics turned off during takeoff and landing, no place to go if you want to get up in any case. Cars — well, even aside from traffic jams (tell me how much freedom you experience waiting for an hour in line at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel), the thing about cars is that you have to drive them, which kind of limits other stuff…
So if trains represent soulless collectivism, count me in.”
(Via Paul Krugman.)
Count me in too, Professor. Watching trains pass you by as you’re stuck in a traffic jam doesn’t strike me as freedom.
The Truth is Impossible to Hide
Smooth jazz is really my Dad’s thing so I’m generally not all that turned on by modern praise and worship music. But the words…Lord, God Almighty.
Live up to Expectations
I want to live up to her expectations. (Applause.) I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. (Applause.) All of us -– we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations. (Applause.)
Read the speech. It’s worth it.
(Via The White House.)
Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side: “
Fear leads to anger…
It’s no surprise that the former Navy pilot sees himself as a champion of the military, and he chides Obama for inexperience in pushing to lift the ban on openly gay service members. But McCain is indulging in semantics when it comes to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
In 2006, he said on MSNBC that ‘the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.’ Now that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, supports the Pentagon’s move toward junking DADT–and even McCain’s wife, Cindy, has appeared in a gay rights group’s video opposing the policy–the senator is blocking Obama’s plan.
Anger leads to hate…
‘I understand that’s his commitment to the gay and lesbian community,’ McCain says. But while a Pentagon study released Tuesday found more than two-thirds support for the change among service members and said disruptions would be minimal, McCain wants a broader study that would focus on combat readiness.
Hate leads to suffering…
His explanation: ‘The Marine commandant is opposed to [dropping] Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I know for a fact the other three service chiefs have serious reservations.’
As for their superiors, McCain casually mentions the commander in chief and defense secretary, ‘neither of which I view as a military leader.’
H/T to Andrew.
He Reported the FBI’s Own Informant to the FBI
Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:
He Reported the FBI’s Own Informant to the FBI: “Here’s an incredible piece of reporting in the Washington Post about Craig Monteilh, a convicted criminal turned FBI informant-provocateur, and former foot-solider in our War on Terror:
Before the sun rose, the informant donned a white Islamic robe. A tiny camera was sewn into a button, and a microphone was buried in a device attached to his keys.
‘This is Farouk al-Aziz, code name Oracle,’ he said into the keys as he sat in his parked car in this quiet community south of Los Angeles. ‘It’s November 13th, 4:30 a.m. And we’re hot.’
The undercover FBI informant – a convicted forger named Craig Monteilh – then drove off for 5 a.m. prayers at the Islamic Center of Irvine, where he says he spied on dozens of worshipers in a quest for potential terrorists.
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the FBI has used informants successfully as one of many tactics to prevent another strike in the United States. Agency officials say they are careful not to violate civil liberties and do not target Muslims.
To wit:
Monteilh said he was instructed to infiltrate mosques throughout Orange and two neighboring counties in Southern California, where the Muslim population of nearly 500,000 is the nation’s largest. He was told to target the Islamic Center of Irvine, he said, because it was near his home.
FBI tactics were already a sensitive issue at the Irvine mosque, a stucco, two-story building that draws as many as 2,000 people for Friday prayers.
With tensions rising between law enforcement and Muslims over allegations of FBI surveillance, J. Stephen Tidwell, then head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, spoke at the mosque in June 2006.
‘If we’re going to mosques to come to services, we will tell you,’ he said, according to a video of his speech. ‘. . . The FBI will tell you we’re coming for the very reason that we don’t want you to think you’re being monitored. We would come only to learn.’
Two months later, in August 2006, Monteilh arrived at the same mosque. He had called earlier and met with the imam. That Friday, he took shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, before hundreds of worshipers.
Read the whole thing. Monteilh can not be taken at his word, but the information the Post corroborated is damning. The parallels with the War on Drugs are alarming, particularly paying convicted criminals large sums of money to make cases against alleged criminals.
(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic.)
Here we go again.
TSA Agents Harass and Threaten Mother, Force Her to Miss Flight
TSA Agents Harass and Threaten Mother, Force Her to Miss Flight:
Stacey Armato:
TSA rules allow for alternate screening (no x-ray) for breast milk and I almost never had a problem… until the week before this screening. I was held for 30 minutes that week while the TSA manager called to find out the rules. I was told to ‘pump and dump,’ and asked why the milk wasn’t clear, also asked where my baby was and if it was really milk (uh traveling, working mom pumping doesn’t usually have the baby with her).
After begging him to figure it out, they finally let me through. I called and complained to TSA and was instructed to travel with the TSA breast milk rules printed out and present them whenever there is a problem.
A week later, she traveled through the same airport and this time, the TSA agents recognized her and retaliated, detaining her in a special screening area for an hour, purposefully making her miss her flight unless she relented and allowed her milk to be X-rayed. She showed them the printed TSA regulations allowing alternative screening for breast milk and they told her those rules don’t apply.
And she got the security tape to prove her story. Minus, curiously, 20 minutes of footage.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
I wonder how conservatives live with themselves when justifying this at the same time going ballistic over 3 percentage points on taxes or access to healthcare. That kind of hypocrisy simply escapes me.
Close the Washington Monument
Schneier on Security: Close the Washington Monument:
“Terrorism isn’t a crime against people or property. It’s a crime against our minds, using the death of innocents and destruction of property to make us fearful. Terrorists use the media to magnify their actions and further spread fear. And when we react out of fear, when we change our policy to make our country less open, the terrorists succeed — even if their attacks fail. But when we refuse to be terrorized, when we’re indomitable in the face of terror, the terrorists fail — even if their attacks succeed.”
(Via Schneier on Security.)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We have been dancing to Osama’s tune for too damn long. We need to stop taking cues from insane men in caves. Refuse to be terrorized.