Thursday, June 7, 2012

Things to Know - 8 June

<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-billionaires-buy-wisconsin-20120606,0,7775507.story"><span style="color:#2262CC">See full story&raquo;</span style></a>

Billionaires buy Wisconsin recall election for Scott Walker

( David Horsey / Los Angeles Times )

1.  Charles Blow has us look at the changing demographics of minority representation in the two dominant political parties, how they have changed, and how the options at the table have changed:

2.  The States of America House (Boehner, Ryan, etc.) are plotting legislation to freeze compensation for federal workers.   My concern is that the perception that they are working at the fringes and working to the center of the Wisconsin governor's agenda and allowing the banker and Wall Street to continue their big casino games is somehow unfair.   Does this perception have traction, and will it fly?:

3.  Funny, but Californians along the tony La Jolla coast line are outspoken and not really welcoming their new neighbors (the Romneys) and tend to make it their business to make them aware of that:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/garden/mitt-romney-the-candidate-next-door.html?_r=1&ref=politics&pagewanted=print

4.  A very interesting and educational piece on Ayn Rand.  She has lately been brought back by a weird collection of fans (a real mix of intellectuals and questionables).  This article helps shed some understanding on why she is revered and reviled at the same time.   There is also an enclosed video interview with her and Mike Wallace, so that you can see her cold and abrupt personality (she makes an ice cube come across as a hot coal), charm your senses:

5.  Fareed Zakaria comes out with a piece that takes great exception to Mitt Romney's tax cut plan, and he explains why MittBott is dead wrong, and that his plan will only add to the disaster that began in the W administration:

6.  Paul Krugman throws in this suggestion that if we were to go back and do what Reagan did (a Keynesian stimulus), we just might get back on track.   That is, if we went back to super spending (as Reagan did with his weapons) we could achieve prosperity.  Instead of weapons, may we suggest roads, bridges, infrastructure, etc:

7.  The behavior of the House or Representatives is reprehensible.  The rest of Congress is no pillar of governance, either.  Today it is just passed of as disgusting and shameful.  Years from now,  it will be looked upon as one of the catalysts of our second revolution, or written about disdainfully as the all-time low in our history:

8.  David Brooks writes about how our rationalization to essentially lower standards of morality and ethics is a reflection on our regard for our social values, and how we get away by cheating the system:

9.  While all of the gnashing and angst about Big Money, dysfunctional government, Occupy Movements, the collapsing Euro Zone, etc....is going on, the planet's ecological systems are being poisoned, and we are just about at the point of no return.  There is no motivation for the Ayn Rand fans to cure it.  The right-wing extremists are not going to cure it.  Everyone else is watching the Stanley Cup or the Preakness.....and so it goes:

--
Juan

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."  
       -- Ray Bradbury
"For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is not news." 
       -- Gloria Borger
"The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards." 
       -- Arthur Koestler
"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." 
       -- George Bernard Shaw
"A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't." 
       -- Unknown


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