Atrios makes an excellent point that we should not assume, despite certain appearances, that the “super rich” are orchestrating the conditions of our economy with complete awareness:
That rich elites weren’t begging the government to take the health care nightmare off their hands taught me that they often don’t have any idea what they’re doing.
– Even their cats are refined: It seems that George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the British Parliament, lost his pet hamster at Downing Street. After searching the premises for about a fortnight (I’m running out of Britishisms here), his cat, Freya, located the little dude by “meowing at an electricity box.” Not ripping the thing open and chowing down on aged hamster, like an uncouth American cat might do.
– Dogs, meanwhile…: Six years ago, a woman lost her wedding ring. A few weeks ago, she found it again—in her dog’s barf:
“He was making goofy noises, and was acting like he was going to throw up,” Matykowski said. Matykowski’s husband, Don, got Tucker out on the yard, and Tucker threw up.
When Matykowski walked up to Tucker’s vomit with cleaning supplies in her hands, she spotted something sparkly.
There it was– her diamond ring that disappeared six years ago.
“I screamed. I kid you not,” Matykowski said.
Matykowski brushed the ring very gently with a soft toothbrush and toothpaste, and it looked exactly the same just like six year ago.
– Meanwhile, in Florida: Police in Florida—because where else?—arrested a man for animal cruelty and domestic battery after, during “an incident that started over an argument about women’s rights with his girlfriend,” he punched and choked her 9-month-old rabbit, Bun Bun. I, uh……yeah, I got nothin’. Continue reading
President Obama seems to have finally figured out that the Republicans in Congress are going to oppose him no matter what he does, and now that he doesn’t have to run for president again, he might as well call it like it is. Things got pretty epic, though, when he pulled out a Scorsese/Wahlberg reference:
The truth is, even with all the actions I’ve taken this year, I’m issuing executive orders at the lowest rate in more than 100 years. So it’s not clear how it is that Republicans didn’t seem to mind when President Bush took more executive actions than I did. Maybe it’s just me they don’t like. I don’t know. Maybe there’s some principle out there that I haven’t discerned, that I haven’t figure out. You hear some of them — “sue him,” “impeach him.” Really? Really? For what? You’re going to sue me for doing my job? Okay.
I mean, think about that. You’re going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job — while you don’t do your job.
There’s a great movie called “The Departed” — a little violent for kids. But there’s a scene in the movie where Mark Wahlberg — they’re on a stakeout and somehow the guy loses the guy that they’re tracking. And Wahlberg is all upset and yelling at the guy. And the guy looks up and he says, “Well, who are you?” And Wahlberg says, “I’m the guy doing my job. You must be the other guy.” Sometimes, I feel like saying to these guys, I’m the guy doing my job, you must be the other guy.
So rather than wage another political stunt that wastes time, wastes taxpayers’ money, I’ve got a better idea: Do something. If you’re mad at me for helping people on my own, let’s team up. Let’s pass some bills. Let’s help America together. [Emphasis added.]
Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA remarks, “When Obama starts quoting Marky Mark, it’s getting real.”
Shit might’ve just gotten very real.
football v. fútbol — it ain’t just sports, Greg Fallis, gregfallis.com, June 27, 2014
[T]he U.S. is a football nation; the places where we’ve been engaged in combat are fútbol nations. We’re talking two different sports with radically different philosophies. Those philosophies can be seen as metaphors for the ways we wage war. American football is a great metaphor for waging large-scale land and sea wars. The U.S. totally kicked ass in World War II. But for your more modern asymmetrical conflicts, fútbol is the ticket.
***
Here’s why. Football is centralized and authoritarian. Command and authority is channeled through coaches and advisers who aren’t even on the field. The information is relayed to a single individual who reveals those orders to the players. In other words, you’ve got old guys who don’t have any skin in the game making most of the decisions. This is thought to be a good thing, because their decisions can be made in a cold, dispassionate, logical way. Most of the individual players on the field don’t need to know what’s going on overall; they just need to follow instructions and do their fucking job. On the other hand, it means if communications fail, or if the defense takes out the quarterback, the team on the field is thoroughly fucked.
We, the people are violent and filled with rage: A nation spinning apart on its Independence Day, Jim Sleeper, Salon, July 4, 2014 Continue reading
I’ve seen this meme floating around a bit today on Facebook (h/t Jason), even though it’s from an article dated March 22, 2014. I wanted to set a few things straight about it. (This is adapted from a Facebook comment I left.)
The meme shows a picture of Massachusetts State Senator Richard Ross, and names him Asshole of the Day for March 22, 2014. It then states, “Proposed a bill to make women going through divorce get a judge’s permission to date or have sex.”
First of all, Sen. Ross introduced the bill at the request of a constituent, apparently based on a Massachusetts procedural rule that allows anyone to introduce legislation. The senator has stated that he does not actually endorse the bill, so I guess I really don’t understand how Massachusetts does legislating.
The meme is misleading because it only mentions women going through a divorce, and it does not mention anything about the bill only applying to divorces with children. The bill is terrible, but not for the reasons stated by the Asshole of the Day site. The change made by the bill would apply to both men and women….at least on paper. This is actually a relatively common feature of divorces with kids, in my experience (with some very important differences I’ll discuss below). Here’s the text of the amended provision:
In divorce, separation, or 209A proceedings involving children and a marital home, the party remaining in the home shall not conduct a dating or sexual relationship within the home until a divorce is final and all financial and custody issues are resolved, unless the express permission is granted by the courts.
The idea behind this, in Texas at least, is to keep the kids’ situation reasonably stable while the divorce is pending—in Texas that’s a minimum of 60 days from the filing date, but in some states it’s as much as 6-12 months. Having new significant others around while the divorce is still pending, the theory goes, is not in the “best interest of the children” (which is the gold standard in every state that I know of.)
Now, in practice, is this a good idea to have as a statute covering all divorces with children? Hell no. It assumes that children need to be shielded, and can be shielded, from the grittier details of a divorce in all cases, and that’s not remotely correct. Note that the bill doesn’t make distinctions between infants (who don’t care), the toddler-to-tween range (who would probably be the most affected), and teenagers (the wildcard). Continue reading
A member of a documentary film crew managed to escape with only cuts and scratches when a lioness attacked him in someone’s living room last November, as reported by News 4 San Antonio (h/t Lindsay).
No. No no no no no. In fact, no × ∞.
“Domestication” takes multiple generations—it’s the process by which the wolf became the dog, the junglefowl became the chicken, the aurochs became the cow, or the cat became the, uh……cat.
I think they meant to say that this particular lion was born in captivity. Even that doesn’t necessarily mean that she has been tamed, and it absolutely does not mean that she has been “domesticated.”
Do not bring a lion into your living room. Just don’t. Please.
For additional information, see these charts on how to pet an animal properly. For example, here’s the chart explaining how to pet a wolverine:
Here’s a hint: do not attempt to pet a wolverine.
MRAs Aren’t Just Terrorizing Women — They’re Hurting Men, Too, Tom Hawking, Flavorwire, July 1, 2014
It’s easy to write off MRAs as lunatics — any group who can call feminism “a multibillion-dollar hate industry” isn’t exactly asking to be taken seriously, especially since I’m writing this on a day when the Supreme Court just decided that a corporation’s right to believe in whatever bullshit it likes is more important than a woman’s right to insurance-subsidized birth control.
***
There are many things to dislike about r/RedPill types. Many, many things. But here’s the issue: quite apart from their hatefulness, they do their “cause” — such as it is — absolutely no good at all. As with extremists in many other areas, they hijack and polarize a discussion that is worth having.
The one where I need help understanding why MRAs don’t become feminists, Mychal Denzel Smith, Feministing, July 3, 2014 Continue reading
I’d not heard of Secret before, but it apparently contains this bit of “political wisdom” (via Doug Henwood):
Who knew Secret contained political wisdom? https://t.co/NZhMDYabqj pic.twitter.com/RJyIV32QXD
— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) July 6, 2014
In case the image doesn’t embed with the tweet, here is a link to the Secret post, and here’s the image.
The birth control debate is really about the housing market, Eric Garland, Eric Garland Blog, March 4, 2012
All of this debate is about the housing market. And unemployment. And Afghanistan. And health care for Baby Boomers. And Netflix. And drones. And the bankruptcy of Greece. And more. None of this spontaneously vomited national debate has a thing to do with healthcare or birth control or morals. It has everything to do with a nation that is afraid to discuss its real future, so it would much prefer to re-fight the great debates of the 20th century.
As somebody who discusses the future professionally with leaders of organizations, I will tell you that people everywhere are so terrified of what is coming next that they are fundamentally incapable of having a discussion about it. The American Mindset is almost entirely about Growth and Winning, and the simple fact is that we are likely unable to grow geographically or economically due to fiscal and demographic constraints. Thus, our steady-state economics, or even steadily receding economy, will not look like winning, either on a balance sheet or in people’s minds. Americans are addicted to seeing the Dow Jones go up every year. They want their houses to be worth more and more, forever. They want to stay “number one,” whatever that means, at all costs. And virtually none of that is likely in the near future. It is so difficult for Americans to consider that they are reverting to all manner of fantastic, irrational thinking to avoid the painful realities that may be ahead.
A Fascinating Study of How Creationists Understand Early Human Fossils, Mark Strauss, io9, July 2, 2014 Continue reading