Archive for the ‘Decline and Fall’ Category
They’re Just Warming Up
The Supremes are eager to make some law: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a major case on affirmative action in higher education, adding another potential blockbuster to a docket already studded with them. The court’s decision in the new case holds the potential to undo an accommodation reached in the Supreme Court’s [...]
February 21, 2012
· 
John Cole · 
140 Comments
Posted in: Activist Judges!, Decline and Fall, Election 2012
Coming Clean Under A Hard Rain
Cue the “abyss staring back” and “ends justify the means” soul-searching on the case of HuffPo’s Peter Gleick admitting to less than forthright methods to obtaining the right’s game plan on pushing climate change denial in schools. At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be [...]
February 21, 2012
· Zandar · 84 Comments
Posted in: #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Both Sides Do It!, Decline and Fall, IOKIYAR, Science and Technology, Show Us Your Countertops, The Dirty F-ing Hippies Were Right, We Are All Mayans Now
Tyranny of the Minority
Via Ezra Klein, this graph: So 80% of the economists think the stimulus created jobs, yet for some reason these folks are still running the show globally: Specifically, in early 2010 austerity economics — the insistence that governments should slash spending even in the face of high unemployment — became all the rage in European [...]
February 20, 2012
· John Cole · 45 Comments
Posted in: Decline and Fall, Domestic Affairs
Sunday Evening Open Thread
Not an easy read, but an interesting one: Chris Heath at GQ on Terry Thompson, all-American survivor (until suddenly he wasn’t), in “18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque, and 1 Man Dead in Ohio“. I hear that the Grammys will be telecast this evening, and I’m assuming [...]
February 12, 2012
· Anne Laurie · 96 Comments
Posted in: Decline and Fall, Open Thread, Pet Rescue
Keeping CPACers Safe in Their Bubble
Jefferson Morley at Salon puts a brave face on Occupy CPAC’s Friday march: The two Americas came face to face briefly Friday afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. While several thousand conservatives thronged the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel, several hundred progressive unionists marched up to the hotel’s entrance, banging drums, carrying [...]
February 11, 2012
· Anne Laurie · 38 Comments
Posted in: #OWS, Decline and Fall, Republican Venality
What I learned from The Corner today – An occasional series
Warning: Many links are to Kathryn Jean’s Fluffy Pink Womb of Zygote Love. Kathryn Jean thinks that Mitt Romney is a man of principle because he vetoed a section of legislation which would have required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims – or as she puts it: would [...]
February 3, 2012
· Sarah Proud and Tall · 40 Comments
Posted in: Assholes, Decline and Fall, I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It)
An Exaltation of Larks, A Surfeit of Targets
Maybe it really is too late. Classical empires lasted centuries: the Han Dynasty held sway for 400 years, barring that brief unpleasantness with Wang Mang. The Romans had a similar run, depending on how you choose to bracket the rise and fall. The Mongols were a little less permanent, but for all their brutal kin-slaughter [...]
February 1, 2012
· Tom Levenson · 83 Comments
Posted in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, David Brooks is a dickhead, Daydream Believers, DC Press Corpse, Decline and Fall
To Whom it May Concern: Sincerely, Mitt Romney
Here’s something fun to ponder while you watch Governor Romney make his speech tonight: Seated around a conference table in a nondescript suburban Virginia office building, a dozen Republican voters shed light on one of the continued mysteries of this election season: What ails Mitt Romney? Four strong supporters of the tea party movement; a [...]
January 31, 2012
· Kay · 107 Comments
Posted in: Decline and Fall
Decline and fall
If there was a way to short our entire civilization, I would do it. Friedman, on how he wants both campaigns to run on a platform that is 90% what Democrats are already running on and 10% his own Chinese dreams: And, if by some miracle, both run that campaign, and the 2012 contest is [...]
January 22, 2012
· DougJarvus Green-Ellis · 118 Comments
Posted in: Decline and Fall
Jeb Bush Is Grifter-Curious
Sweet suffering national polity, I honestly thought “the smart brother” would have the sense of self-preservation (decency not being part of the Bush geneset) to lie low until more of us had the chance to forget the horrors of the Dubya Regency. But it looks like we are never going to be rid of these [...]
January 22, 2012
· Anne Laurie · 82 Comments
Posted in: Assholes, Decline and Fall, Election 2012, Our Failed Political Establishment, Republican Venality
Our Continuing Moral Decay, and I Blame Scott Beauchamp
Every time I listen to wingnuts talk about family values, I wonder just what kind of fucked up family they come from. We’re used to hearing conservatives talk about the corruption of the American soul, and usually the corruption they are talking about is stuff they just don’t like- women controlling their own bodies, someone [...]
January 13, 2012
· John Cole · 137 Comments
Posted in: Decline and Fall, Military
Open Thread: “All the News that Fits [the Narrative], We Print”
In case I just failed to get the memo instructing all front-pagers to weigh in, I think it’s worth sharing the thoughts of a veteran lifer on newspaper “impartiality”: ... Newspapers today are run by terrified beancounters. The industry is dying. They know it. They are casting about for any strategy to delay the inevitable [...]
January 12, 2012
· Anne Laurie · 65 Comments
Posted in: C.R.E.A.M., Decline and Fall, Open Thread, Our Failed Media Experiment
Another Sign That The Apocalypse Is Upon Us…
....this, presented without further comment, via TPM: Former New Life Church pastor and self-described “bisexual” Ted Haggard swapped wives with actor and self-described “church” Gary Busey for the ABC reality show Celebrity Wife Swap. Uh. What? Speechless, me. ... Really. The Mayans might just have bee on to something. 2012 could be it for our [...]
January 5, 2012
· Tom Levenson · 90 Comments
Posted in: Decline and Fall, My Own Theological Premises About The Nature Of Sex, We Are All Mayans Now
President Obama Plays The GOP Yet Again
Republicans are preparing to go into full OUTRAGE MODE over the Obama Administration’s request to the Treasury to raise the debt ceiling another $1.2 trillion. The debt ceiling deal worked out earlier this year gives the Republicans a chance to pass a resolution of disapproval, but the President would have to sign the resolution after [...]
December 28, 2011
· Zandar · 81 Comments
Posted in: Decline and Fall, Election 2012, hoocoodanode, OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!, Republican Stupidity
Open Thread: Matt Taibbi’s Xmas Festivus Carol
(Pat Oliphant via GoComics.com) Ever the zealous over-achiever, in his Rolling Stone holiday post, Taibbi attempts to play all four of Dickens’ ghosts: ... Asked if he were willing to pay more taxes in a Nov. 30 interview with Bloomberg Television, Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen Schwarzman spoke about lower-income U.S. families who pay no [...]
December 23, 2011
· Anne Laurie · 40 Comments
Posted in: Assholes, C.R.E.A.M., Decline and Fall, Don't Mourn, Organize
