Did Somebody Forget?

tumblr consolidation

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:23:59 -0500

i shouldn’t have half a dozen tumblrs

politicalprof: Changes in US spending 2001-11, as prepared by...

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:57:28 -0400

Changes in US spending 2001-11, as prepared by US Senate Appropriations Committee.

Note that security, defense and medical spending (much of what is titled “mandatory spending”) have skyrocketed. Revenues have declined—in part due to the Bush tax cuts, and in part due to the economic collapse. Non-security discretionary spending (schools, drug and food regulation, etc., has stayed flat since 2001, adjusting for inflation).

As I quoted Ezra Klein in a previous post, we have to fix the deficit we have, not the one we imagine we have.

From: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/chart-of-the-day-out-of-control-spending-not-really-out-of-control-at-all.php?ref=fpa

costapobre:

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:32:42 -0400

costapobre:

GOWNS: radianthour: “What you’ve been thinking about recently or seeing...

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 21:53:34 -0400

GOWNS: radianthour: “What you’ve been thinking about recently or seeing...:

radianthour:

“What you’ve been thinking about recently or seeing recently (is) at a higher level in your consciousness, so your brain is kind of predisposed in that direction,” says Cantor, professor emerita of communication arts and outreach director center for communication research at the University of Wisonsin-Madison. “So if you’ve just seen a movie about really altruistic people and you get an opportunity to behave altruistically, you’ll probably do it, rather than if you mostly watch and idealize characters in programs like Seinfeld, which has been proven to turn otherwise average humans into the most nauseatingly cynical pieces of shit, endlessly repeating dismissive, sarcastic phrases and opinions they consider to be their own after viewing fictional assholes for long enough.”

dvvglvs: wesified: Capsules vs Clowns nais

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 23:08:29 -0400

dvvglvs:

wesified:

Capsules vs Clowns

nais

How Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 22:08:41 -0400

How Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality:

Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950. The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes.

Many Republican businessmen have told me that the Obama Administration is the most hostile to business in 50 years. Really? More than that of Richard Nixon, who presided over tax rates that reached 70%, regulations that spanned whole industries, and who actually instituted price and wage controls?

In fact, right now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad. Meanwhile, across the globe, the world’s fastest-growing economy, China, has managed to use government involvement to create growth and jobs for three decades. From Singapore to South Korea to Germany to Canada, evidence abounds that some strategic actions by the government can act as catalysts for free-market growth.

Of course, American history suggests that as well. In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the U.S. government made massive investments in science and technology, in state universities and in infant industries. It built infrastructure that was the envy of the rest of the world. Those investments triggered two generations of economic growth and put the U.S. on top of the world of technology and innovation.

But that history has been forgotten. When considering health care, for example, Republicans confidently assert that their ideas will lower costs, when we simply do not have much evidence for this. What we do know is that of the world’s richest countries, the U.S. has by far the greatest involvement of free markets and the private sector in health care. It also consumes the largest share of GDP, with no significant gains in health on any measurable outcome. We need more market mechanisms to cut medical costs, but Republicans don’t bother to study existing health care systems anywhere else in the world. They resemble the old Marxists, who refused to look around at actual experience. “I know it works in practice,” the old saw goes, “but does it work in theory?”

Check out this startlingly enlightened question from the great intellectual Richard Dawkins

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 23:29:52 -0400

Check out this startlingly enlightened question from the great intellectual Richard Dawkins:

thenoobyorker:

Richard Dawkins asks,

Given that Islam is such an unmitigated evil, and looking at the map supplied by this Christian site, should we be supporting Christian missions in Africa? My answer is still no, but I thought it was worth raising the question. Given that atheism hasn’t any chance in Africa for the foreseeable future, could our enemy’s enemy be our friend?

For someone who claims to be an enlightened and rational individual, Richard certainly neglects to mention that he’s also a reactionary bigot and, as vulgar as it may sound, a eejit. Ian (Digital Pidgin) does an excellent job of summarizing some of the problems within the New Atheists movement and what the role of the Left in all of this should be/ has been over the years in a recent post over at State Formation,

This particular misreading of Marxism as virulently anti-religious, embodied by numerous faux-Leftists, serves explicit political purposes. It can be utilized by the ruling establishment to generate a reaction against radical politics, particularly among white American Christians – in other words, the “value voters” crowd that consistently elects those catering to the desires of the global elite. The latter group, while often ridiculed by the existing secular power structure, are gladly co-opted by it when this serves the interests of power, whether it be mobilizing support for disastrous economic measures that favor the rich, or advancing an imperialist foreign policy. When the time arrives, frightening images of Godless, relativistic Marxists conspiring to erode the spiritual fabric of Western civilization can be conjured up to stir the Christian right into a frenzy. Now that anti-communist paranoia has lost some of its traction, the same tactic is being played out with a new Eastern Other.

It is not surprising then, that nowadays many of the same people from this camp also squawk about the convergence of Marxist theory with militant Islamism; some even seem to predict the possible establishment of some sort of worldwide Marxist caliphate if Western values are not defended. The blatant contradiction in this paranoid narrative is simply cast aside and buried through sensationalist fearmongering. Alberto Toscano’s excellent book Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea explores the parallels between anti-Marxist and anti-Islamic narratives, showing how both traditions are dismissed in liberal discourse for their perceived endorsement of a ‘fantatical’ universalism. The overwhelming hypocrisy of such accounts, which are themselves decisively opposed to philosophical pluralism and impose a totalizing monocultural narrative over all of history, needs little elaboration here.

The fact is, just like those from religious backgrounds, the Left has long been engaged in opposing the type of exclusionary ‘we’ve got the Truth’ secularism that is pushed by the likes of Grayling, Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins, who proffer a conception of the world mirroring the sensationalist ‘civilization under siege’ narratives outlined above. Representatives of this ideology view our secular Leftist tradition in the same way they view religion: atavistic, fanatical, something to be relegated to the dustbin of history (a history which has in fact ended, conveniently with them on top). The assumptions and objectives of the New Atheist movement are unequivocally at odds with our values and commitment to social change, both political and ethical. We are opposed to the Eurocentric and aristocratic ethos of this movement, its complicity with the status quo, and its unrelenting condescension toward differences of opinion. We also feel that these intellectuals are spreading their tentacles into disciplines in which they have no competence, resulting in regressive readings of Western philosophy and bastardized conceptions of world history that prop up neocolonial ambitions.

Literary critic Terry Eagleton, with his typical wit, recently ridiculed this practice in anarticle on Grayling’s college that inspired my own:

“Dawkins touts a simple-minded, off-the-peg version of Enlightenment in which people in the west have all been getting nicer and nicer, and would have ended up as civilised as an Oxford high table were it not for a nasty bunch of religious fundamentalists. Who would pay £18,000 a year to listen to this outdated Victorian rationalism when they could buy themselves a second-hand copy of John Stuart Mill?”

Dawkins and friends have long been producing such deeply flawed and ethnocentric accounts of philosophy and history, while treating their own favored intellectual terrain, that of the natural sciences, as immune to the influence of politics. In doing so, they can conveniently dismiss all critiques of the bourgeois assumptions underpinning what Leftist intellectuals and heretical scientists refer to as ‘Ultra-Darwinism’ (for an interesting discussion of the debate over conflicting accounts of evolution and the influence of politics in the natural sciences, see the recent article on Stephen Jay Gould entitled ‘This View of Life is Dialectical’). Is this the kind of scholarship the world needs?

metonymia: dumbassfils: Hey Y’all Tax Donald Trump. Tax...

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:08:29 -0400

metonymia:

dumbassfils:

Hey Y’all

Tax Donald Trump. Tax Orange County, California. Tax Greenwich Connecticut.

translated from revisionist historian

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:26:00 -0400

translated from revisionist historian

Photo

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:47:47 -0400

murdercycles: National Geographic Magazine, 1971

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:41:30 -0400

murdercycles:

National Geographic Magazine, 1971

thenoobyorker: liberationfrequency: New York Post - Stay...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:45:11 -0400

thenoobyorker:

liberationfrequency:

New York Post - Stay classy.

Well you’ll never convince me with that typeface. Just so we’re clear, the American Freedom Defense Initiative doesn’t speak for supporters of Israel. They speak for Islamophobes.

Wisconsin Court Voids Governor Walker’s Anti-Union Law

Thu, 26 May 2011 18:52:56 -0400

Wisconsin Court Voids Governor Walker’s Anti-Union Law:

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

May 26 - A Wisconsin judge voided a law that would limit public employees’ collective-bargaining rights because the legislation was passed in violation of state open- meetings requirements.

In her decision today, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi didn’t rule on the merits of the law championed by first- term Republican Governor Scott Walker. She said lawmakers could still pass the measure if they abide by public-notice rules.

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on June 6 will hear arguments on whether it can take control of the case and, if warranted, dismiss it. The law requires annual recertification votes for union representation by public employees and makes union dues voluntary. Firefighters and police officers are exempt.

“This case is an exemplar of values protected by the open meetings law: transparency in government, the right of citizens to participate in their government and respect for rule of law,” Sumi wrote in her decision.

hipsterfood: an easy salad: make some cashew cheese and put it...

Fri, 13 May 2011 15:24:59 -0400

hipsterfood:

an easy salad: make some cashew cheese and put it in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. chop up some greens and toss them in a teaspoon or two of apple cider vinegar. slice two medium tomatoes. put the greens in the bowl, then alternate between tomato slice & spoonful of cashew cheese. enjoy!

i should have taken today off

tetradugenica: tuff69: tetradugenica: mdl4: The Vernon C....

Wed, 11 May 2011 18:54:07 -0400

tetradugenica:

tuff69:

tetradugenica:

mdl4:

The Vernon C. Bain was built in New Orleans at a cost of $161 Million. It houses 800 prisoners.

HAHAHA 161 million dollars

and people think government corruption is for the third world

welcome to the third world

it’s always been here

it was just waiting for the right time to come out and greet you

hahahhaa it would be cheaper to buy each prisoner a house

think about that

hahaha and with the huge drug war sentences you have to assume the turnover isnt that high, so even 3200 guys still get 50k each

like what a fucking waste of money

its ridiculous that corporations dont pay taxes and we keep all the poor people in jail instead of using that money to get them jobs and educations

imho the us justice system should become more honest and just execute every black man suspected of a crime

then it would be doing its duty effectively

and maybe people would realize how fucking hideous and awful it is and it would come to a halt

amerikkka, exhibit a

"It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the..."

Mon, 09 May 2011 10:27:29 -0400

“It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.””

- Noam Chomsky

awizardharry: teensfightingonyoutube: mountquits: thedailywha...

Fri, 06 May 2011 07:33:27 -0400

awizardharry:

teensfightingonyoutube:

mountquits:

thedailywhat:

Good Boy of the Day: As you may have heard by now, a lone Dog of War was among the 79 Navy SEALs involved in Operation Neptune Spear (AKA Operation Kill Bin Laden), but what you may not have heard is that this bomb-sniffing K9 likely had body-armor-piercing titanium teeth that cost $2000 a tooth to install.

“It’s just devastating what these teeth do when they into someone,” former US military dog trainer Alex Dunbar told The Daily. “It’s like being stabbed four times at once with a bone crusher.”

“SEALs are the deadliest fighting force on the planet,” former SEAL sniper Brandon Tyler Webb is quoted as saying, “and you better believe those dogs are the same.”

Below: A titanium-toothed police dog —

[fp / @mikenizza / image: thedaily.]

That was the coolest story ever

holy awesome jesus damn

THERE’S NOTHING ON THE BOOKS THAT SAYS A DOG CAN’T BE TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES

in the german shepard’s defense he was only following simple commands

isn't it great how the media simply dismisses anyones right to protest unless they're angry stupid right wing people

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:21:34 -0400

tetradugenica:

let’s grind their bones into the dust of the past

fuckyeahmarxismleninism: Havana: A mural by the Cuban Union of...

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:31:42 -0400

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Havana: A mural by the Cuban Union of Young Communists reads, “Study, work, rifle.”

gowns: chaplin preaching the new sincerity to the cynical,...

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:59:47 -0400

gowns:

chaplin preaching the new sincerity to the cynical, know-it-all, too-clever-for-real-action leftovers of the 1930s

and now, here we are! scrambling out of our shells once more! time to ♪ make up your mind, wake up and fight ♫