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Category: Society Page 9 of 69

“[T]oo ignorant to be embarrassed.”

By

On May 20, 2010

In Politics, Society

TNC nails an essential part of the Libertarianism that seems to be so popular these days.

Update: and he’s got a strong follow-up:

What I’m driving at is raising the question about methods is never wrong, to the contrary it’s essential. That process is undermined by people who raise those questions, without having thought about them, without being able to speak to their nuances, and are mostly concerned with tribal signaling. People were dragged from their homes, raped and murdered over civil rights. Talk about it, by all means. But talk about it with the intellectual seriousness it deserves.This is not a third grade science fair project.

You Went to School in Texas?

By

On May 16, 2010

In Personal, Society

Oh.

[As an aside, I finished up my secondary schooling in Georgia.  And it was clearly second rate, in comparison to the DODs schooling I got in Germany.  So I know the failure that I mock.  I mean, getting an entire class to ridicule me, with the approval of the teacher, when I brought up the mere possibility of intelligent design (cf. a literal seven day creation)?  Yeah, that’s the American South.]

Update: more clowning from the Texas State Board of Education:

The new amendment (.pdf), which is expected to get a vote on Thursday, would require high school history students to “discuss alternatives regarding long term entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, given the decreasing worker to retiree ratio” and also “evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U. S. sovereignty.”

[ . . . ]

As justification for that second item, McLeroy writes: “Threats of global government to individual freedom and liberty include the votes of the U. N. General Assembly, the International Criminal Court, the U. N. Gun Ban proposal, forced redistribution of American wealth to third world countries, and global environmental initiatives.”

Biden & Kagan Are Right. DADT Is Wrong.

By

On May 11, 2010

In Law, Society

Joe Biden states what I think is plain:

While serving as the school’s dean, Kagan blocked military recruiters from the campus because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — which Biden called “a very bad policy.”

Biden was asked, “She’s also raised some eyebrows, of course, well documented, when her time there at Harvard, the way that she banned military recruiters there on campus because of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rule. I wanna ask you, not to get into that in particular, but I wanna ask you, was she right or wrong in doing that?”

“Well, she was right,” Biden said. “Let me put this quickly in perspective. For 20 years before she came there military recruiters were not allowed on the campus in the same way other recruiters were.”

In case halfwits like Sen. Sessions didn’t notice, that was the policy of nearly every law school of quality.  The kind of ignorant bigotry the GOP is trying to play to here isn’t, in fact, the norm everywhere.

Before You Get Excited About Elena Kagan

By

On May 10, 2010

In Law, Politics, Society

Read Glenn Greenwald.  Seriously.

Citizenship Means Nothing to Joe Lieberman

By

On May 5, 2010

In Law, Society

I’ve long known that Joe Lieberman and I see the world very differently, but I had no idea that we live in fundamentally incompatible worlds.  His solution to those pesky Constitutional rights enjoyed by citizens?  Strip ’em of citizenship!  The man – after how many decades in public office? – doesn’t appear to understand even the basics, when it comes to the Constitution.  I’m honestly shocked.

Update: Greg Sargeant says that Lieberman may actually be able to find others to publicly support this.  That is a line that, if crossed, makes the supporter someone who is a literal threat to Americans.  It is a completely and utterly unacceptable proposal, and any Senator or Representative who supports it should be drummed out of office.

So How Does This Work?

By

On May 4, 2010

In Politics, Society

Do they hold something over you, and call the favor in when needed?  Or are you just this gobsmackingly, unbelievably, and appallingly craven and stupid?

Ex-FEMA director Michael Brown today claimed that President Obama waited to respond to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico because he wanted an excuse to shut down offshore drilling.

Brown, who directed FEMA under George W. Bush, is famous for his own botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

So what does he have to say about this latest environmental disaster?

“The delay was this,” Brown said on Fox News today. “It’s pure politics.”

Again, one of the advantages that Republicans have over Democrats is that they’ve plenty of people willing to demonstrate this kind of stupefying ignorance of reality.

And from the “Democrats Can Be Idiots, Too” Files . . .

By

On April 30, 2010

In Politics, Society

So, I’d seen bits and pieces about a silly scheme supported by Sens. Schumer and Graham to create some sort of national worker ID card, but I didn’t think such a bad idea would make it into legislation. Well, it’s apparently part of the immigration reform package:

The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment. It would require all workers across the nation to carry a card with a digital encryption key that would have to match work authorization databases.

“The cardholder’s identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer,” states the Democratic legislative proposal.

The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil liberties defender often aligned with the Democratic Party, wasted no time in blasting the plan.

John Cole reacts appropriately:

Apparently they think the outcry over the Arizona “SHOW YOUR PAPERS” bill is that it will only be applied to Hispanics. Polls pretty clearly demonstrate that half the country has no problem with the Arizona bill because it will not affect them- it only is an inconvenience for “others” (meaning brown people). But start talking about a national id with biometric data that everyone has to be issued, and you will think the death panels and health care reform debate were a walk in the park.

And I’m not even talking about the actual merits and downsides to the id card. I’m talking about the freak-out that will be inevitable, some of which I will probably even agree with. This is just stunningly tone deaf.

I’ve talked about the merits (or lack thereof) of national ID cards. What an incredibly stupid move.

It’s Hard Out Here for a . . .

By

On April 27, 2010

In Politics, Society

White Guy?

The Washington Examiner brings us a headline for the ages, in this photo snapped by Twitter user Maimonides.

Obamaexaminer

The headline leads to this story by Julie Mason, which captures the narrative I spotlighted yesterday — conservative shock and horror at President Obama’s blunt video message asking his less electorally reliable coalition of blacks, Hispanics and young people to vote in 2010.

Don’t worry too much, White Guys – Bob McDonnell should be riding to your rescue soon!

M.I.A.: Born Free

By

On April 26, 2010

In Music, Society

M.I.A. first hit the scene in 5 years ago, to much acclaim (most of it completely misdirected, but still, it was exposure).  I jumped that train then, and have enjoyed the ride ever since. This new video – Born Free – brings a departure from her musical style, but heads straight down the political path her music has been on. It’s NSFW, and the conceit of it may be a little disappointing at first, but I’d suggest sticking with it.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Pardon My French

By

On April 26, 2010

In Society

Worthwhile NYT article on the changing position of the French language as a cultural connector:

French is now spoken mostly by people who aren’t French. More than 50 percent of them are African. French speakers are more likely to be Haitians and Canadians, Algerians and Senegalese, immigrants from Africa and Southeast Asia and the Caribbean who have settled in France, bringing their native cultures with them.

Which raises the question: So what does French culture signify these days when there are some 200 million French speakers in the world but only 65 million are actually French? Culture in general — and not just French culture — has become increasingly unfixed, unstable, fragmentary and elective.

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