Friday, December 16, 2011

Things to Know - 16 December




1.  Robert Scheer starts us off with a piece on how our civil liberties are being trashed and a budget that keeps the MIC in plush shape:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print/40199/

2.  This article points out something that many people had already suspected about the Tea Party - It was all about Racism - directed against the 1st black president - that got them started.  Guess who has recently come up with this notion?  You'd be surprised:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print/40174/

3.  Here's a Porkie piece, but not like the usual ones:  By the time you read this, we will be getting feedback from recent polls that show that he has maybe peaked and is starting to show signs of slippage.   Leroy N. Gingrich thinks outside the box because he's not happy being in the box with the rest.  He's too good to be in the box with others. He needs to be unrestricted by boundaries because his his ego is too big.  So, he does strange things and he couldn't care less how many boxes he destroys in the process.  The business of Newt is to be different, in a bombastic, and destructive manner.  It sells books:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/40173

4.  Here's the Sioux City GeeOpee debate which is like going to a zoo and watching the hyenas snarl and dodge each other while trying to take each other out:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gingrich-on-the-defensive-in-gop-debate/2011/12/15/gIQAJPg8wO_story.html

5.  Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning Economist.   Ron Paul is a medical doctor and a Congressman.  Mr. Krugman is going beyond Porkie (having dismissed him as over the hill and gone past his peak).  Ron Paul will probably be up next, and he is taken to task for his views on the economy.  As Krugman is no MD, Paul is no Economist:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/gop-monetary-madness.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

6.  Timothy Egan shares his views on the subject of too much information being shared hastily on digital devices.   One advantage of being behind the technology curve for the old or senior generations is that the indiscretions of digital diarrhea are not as formidable or as prevalent or as haunting:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/please-stop-sharing/?pagemode=print

7.  Christopher Hitchens.  Brilliant and beyond interesting.  Not always someone you could agree with, but he made you have to think, not just think:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-mew-hitchens-20111216,0,141590,print.story

8.  The plight of the immigrant culture, both past and present, in East Hollywood, California, and probably every where:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tobar-20111216,0,6323647,print.column

9.  Iraq.   The war is over.  The MIC is furious, and so are the elected officials that they have bought.  What else is new?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hayden-iraq-withdrawal-20111216,0,6177582,print.story


--
Juan Matute

"Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator and change has its enemies."
       -- Robert F. Kennedy
"The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way."
       -- Samuel Butler
"There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them."
       -- Emile Chartier
"I can't bring myself to say, 'Well, I guess I'll be toddling along.' It isn't that I can't toddle. It's just that I can't guess I'll toddle."
       -- Robert Benchley
"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."
       -- Oscar Wilde

Friday, December 9, 2011

Things to Know - 9 December





1.  There is something very morally disgusting about the subject in this article (disposing of US Troop remains in a landfill).  Ultimately it is not that the ashes are mingled with discarded yard debris and general waste products, but the shame by which unclaimed body parts are just part of the business of making war.  Personally, I am a cremation, no afterlife kind of guy, and probably should not care much,  But, I do.  I care about the cavalier attitude that has inured the military bureaucracy in how it respects human life being thrown into an other crumby and dumb war:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/air-force-dumped-ashes-of-more-troops-in-va-landfill-than-acknowledged/2011/12/07/gIQAT8ybdO_print.html

2.  Remember those ads on TV by ANGA, where they gloss over or do not mention the harm done by fracking to our drinking water tables?  Well. let's see them wiggle out of this?
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FRACKING_GROUNDWATER_POLLUTION?SITE=VAWAY&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

3. There is someone else, by the name of Thom Hartmann,  who has some text and video on things you should know:

http://www.truth-out.org/print/10158

4.  The other people who stand on the stage with Porkie chime in with their assessment of his character:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-supporters-ex-colleagues-attack-gingrichs-leadership-vanity/2011/12/08/gIQAfS4YgO_story.html

5.  It really is difficult to take Gingrich as a serious candidate.  He's just performing, like a former aging pop star, now relegated to casino lounges and county fairs, and instead of selling CDs at the back of the venue, he's selling books instead.  He's an insult to serious politicking:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gingrichs-book-selling-efforts-test-law/2011/12/06/gIQAtPqYfO_print.html

6.  Not to be overlooked, David Brooks has something to say about Leroy Newton Gingrich.  A bit of praise, but ends in pointing out his character flaws:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/brooks-the-gingrich-tragedy.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

7.  Paul Krugman on Romney, his record at Bain, the wealthy, and the obligation of the 1%:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/krugman-all-the-gops-gekkos.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

8.  Boyle Heights, in Los Angeles, is a rich cultural and historical part of the city.  Hector Tobar paints a picture in words:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tobar-20111209,0,1817494.column

9  This is for all those naysayers who claim that climate change ("global warming") is a hoax, or is not a man-made problem:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-climate-20111209,0,3206861,print.story



--
Juan Matute


"What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow."
       -- A.A. Milne
"It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth."
       -- George Burns
"The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling."
       -- Paula Poundstone
"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other."
       -- Eric Hoffer
"We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."
       -- Ray Bradbury