Politics, open government, and safe streets. And the constant incursion of cycling.

Year: 2010 Page 2 of 25

Confirmed 57-40: GOP the Party of Hate and Bigotry

To hell with them (and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin).

Midweek Makeover: Oh My God Edition

In 2007, Mark Ronson put together an album of cover collaborations called Versions.  He invited Lily Allen, whose star had just exploded, to re-record “Oh My God”, a track she’d covered on an earlier mixtape.  I’m already a fan of Allen’s flavor of Britpop, but I especially enjoyed it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4GvHXjHMmo[/youtube]

Fan vid, of course.  Official is here.

I’ve enjoyed that track for years now, but never even thought about its nature as a cover until this year, when some friends staying with me left behind a slew of music that they thought I might appreciate.  And so I came across the original Kaiser Chiefs version of Oh My God (please just ignore the awful video):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EwhK4pyQEg[/youtube]

*Love* it.

About That Deficit . . .

Adam Serwer (correctly) calls bullshit:

The $900 billion deal to extend all of the Bush tax cuts represents a substantial retreat for the president on a major campaign promise, a major victory for the Republican Party, and, let’s face it, complete obliteration of the notion that the deficit matters politically as anything other than a blunt instrument to wield against the welfare state. The deficit is an absolute emergency when it comes to making sure all Americans have health care, but an afterthought when it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.

Is Joe Lieberman Anti-Free Speech?

Consider.

Updated: Of course he is. I have now concluded my obvious-answers-to-obvious-questions exercise.

Silence Instead of Sputtering

In all honesty, the Wikileaks event has turned me into a net consumer of media in the past week. I’ve got a lot to say (shocker), but I keep wanting more of it before I’m certain about what I want to say. I’m a longtime resident of the Transparency Camp, and this doc dump tests a lot of the principles required for residency.

But then we get to a day like today, and I’m glad that I’ve mostly shut up. Between idiocy like this and this and this? I might permanently sink my chances of being welcome in polite society.

Why You Should Read Non-American Media, Example 5421

Compare the New York Times glossing of the revelations concerning US diplomatic spying with the Guardian’s detailed look.

Anything That Keeps Us Safe

Right?

Right?

Hitchens v. Blair: “Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world.”

Oh, to have been there to watch Christopher Hitchens debate Tony Blair on the net benefit of religion in the world.  Hitchens opened, quoting Cardinal Newman’s Apologia:

“The Catholic church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail and for all the many millions on it to die in extremist agony than one soul … should tell one wilful untruth or should steal one farthing without excuse.”

You’ll have to say it’s beautifully phrased, but to me, and this is my proposition, what we have here, and picked from no mean source, is a distillation of precisely what is twisted and immoral in the faith mentality. Its essential fanaticism, it’s consideration of the human being as raw material, and its fantasy of purity.

Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. I’ll repeat that. Created sick, and then ordered to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea. Greedy, exigent, greedy for uncritical phrase from dawn until dusk and swift to punish the original since with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place.

Blair replied:

So the proposition that religion is unadulterated poison is unsustainable. It can be destructive, it can also create a deep well of compassion, and frequently does.

And the second is that people are inspired to do such good by what I would say is the true essence of faith, which is along with doctrine and ritual particular to each faith, a basic belief common to all faiths, in serving and loving God, through serving and loving your fellow human beings.

[ . . . ]

The message of the prophet Mohammed, saving one life is as if you’re saving the whole of humanity, the Hindu searching after selflessness, the Buddhist concepts of Kuruni … which all subjugate selfish desires to care for others, Sikh insistence on respect for others of another faith. That in my view is the true face of faith. And the values derived from this essence offer to many people a benign, positive and progressive framework by which to live our daily lives. Stimulating the impulse to do good, disciplining the propensity to be selfish and bad.

The entire transcript is available.  Grab a cup of tea and read the whole thing.  Inspiring, really.

10:15/Saturday Night: Sunday Morning Edition

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBFXJw7n-fU[/youtube]

Midweek Makeover: Recycling Edition

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