America isn’t easy: balancing competing moral claims in advanced citizenship societies

America isn’t easy Building and sustaining a diverse community is not easy. What should we celebrate? Celebrate: to perform (a sacrament or ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites; to honor by solemn ceremonies and refraining from ordinary business; to hold up or play for public notice. What should we tolerate? Tolerate: to endure or resist [...]

Wōden’s Day Wake-up

Those of us who practice that “old-time religion” know that today was named for the Anglo-Saxon god Wōden. He is the pagan god of death, battle, wisdom, discoverer of the runes and leader the Wild Hunt. Health Care Mandate Sparks Constitutional Debate The requirement that everyone buy health insurance — a central element to President [...]

Vast right wing conspiracy

I just had a thought. Compare these two things: When anyone named Clinton talks about a right wing conspiracy, they’re nuts. But when Bush the Second talked about how we had to fight Them over there if we didn’t want to fight Them over here, he knew what he was talking about because he had [...]

Roman Polanski drugged, raped and sodomized a 13 year old child

The title of this post is a key fact that everyone should keep in mind when discussing this case, but it is not the main point of this post.  Some rapist enablers people like Jeralyn Merritt don’t even want anyone bring it up: Free Roman (5.00 / 1) (#122) by mudlark on Mon Sep 28, [...]

“Free Roman Polanski?” WTF?

Movie director/fugitive from justice Roman Polanski was arrested in the Land of the Secret Bank Account on Saturday. To quote Violet Socks: In any event, it’s strangely coincidental that Polanski should be nabbed just a few days after the death of Susan Atkins, the Manson freakazoid who helped murder Sharon Tate. It’s a further coincidence [...]

Monday Morning News and Views

Good morning!! I’m beginning my news browsing a little late this morning. Here the most interesting stories right now from my point of view. Please add your own links in the comments. Afghanistan The Hill: McChrystal not backing down from request for more troops Speaking on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, the new U.S. [...]

What’s wrong with young people everybody now

I’ve been thinking about the failures of government recently (1, 2), and it turns out (h/t dakinikat) I’m in good company. Sachs points out that “Not only are Americans deeply divided on what to do about [everything], but government is also failing to execute settled policies effectively. Management systems linking government, business and civil society [...]

Your Breakfast Read, Sunday Edition

Health Care Clusterf*@k Two things happened here: First, instead of standing up for the successful parts of Mass Health, Romney decided to denigrate anything that had to with MA, the State that made him a Governor, in order to suck up to the extreme Right-wing; Secondly, there is unbearable mendacity present throutout the ranks of [...]

Shitzengiggles Open Thread

I discovered a funny site called “Texts From Last Night.”  It consists of copies of text messages – some by themselves and some with responses – submitted by men and women, most of whom seem to be about college age. I should warn you that some are disgusting, obscene and/or offensive, but many are hilarious.  [...]

The Obama Delusion and Health Care Reform

The Obama Delusion: The belief that although President Obama is a liberal and has liberal values and goals, he cleverly pretends not to be a liberal in order to to fool Republicans into supporting his agenda. {{Sigh…}} Where to begin? While perusing Memeorandum this morning, I noticed Booman’s post from yesterday about “11-dimensional chess.” Frankly, [...]