Open Thread
April 20, 2010 archive
Apr 20 2010
Late Night Karaoke
Apr 20 2010
The Natural History of Talking Snakes, a Fable 20100419
Once there were several Snakes who could talk. These are related to the one mentioned in Genesis, but are even more devious.
Before we go any further, I want to let everyone know that I have no aversion to, and actually like very much, real snakes. They are extremely useful reptiles, and keep the rodent population at an acceptable level. Without real snakes, our ecology would be quite less tolerable. The former Mrs. Translator has one in the classroom (not a venomous one) and we together kept a Ball Python until he became too big for safe handling, so we donated Kaa to a university. Please in no way think that I personally dislike snakes, except for the metaphorical ones.
Apr 20 2010
Big Tent Anticapitalism
One of the most appealing features of the Democratic Party is its adherence to “Big Tent” politics. Here I’d like to propose political organizations devoted to “Big Tent” anticapitalism, uniting people of various viewpoints in an attempt to create an alternative to the capitalist system.
(crossposted at Orange and at Firedoglake)
Apr 20 2010
Too Little, Too Late
In the wake of the release of the WikiLeaks video showing the massacre of civilians in Iraq, two former soldiers from the unit involved have written a letter published at Truthout.org.
The two soldiers, Josh Steiber and Ethan McCord, weren’t in the helicopter. Ethan McCord was one of the soldiers that pulled the children from the van. Josh Steiber wasn’t even on the scene.
But, in their own words, they understood what was happening in their unit:
We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.
This incident occurred in 2007. Three years later, after the April 5, 2010, release of the video, these two former soldiers have penned a letter of contrition and apology.
This is way too little that comes way too late.
Apr 20 2010
Obligations of Debt — Collateralized
How does your Obligation to make your Mortgage Payments, turn into some unseen Investor’s “Income Stream”?
Easy — thanks to Derivatives and CDO’s (Collateralized Debt Obligation).
For the mere Price of Admission, those unseen Investor’s get to divvy up your Mortgage Payments, among themselves — long as they “promise to pay off” that Debt, WHEN, for whatever reason, you are no longer able to make those Obligatory Payments …
Piece of Cake!
Geesh … WHAT could ever go wrong with this picture?
Apr 20 2010
Midterm Storm Brewing: Jobs and Housing Crisis Lost Democrats Massachusetts
Thomas Ferguson is Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a Senior Fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and taught formerly at MIT and the University of Texas, Austin, and is the author or coauthor of several books, including Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political System (University of Chicago Press, 1995) and Right Turn (Hill & Wang, 1986).
Most of Ferguson’s research focuses on how economics and politics affect institutions and vice versa. His articles have appeared in many scholarly journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Economic History. He is a long time Contributing Editor to The Nation and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of the Historical Society and the International Journal of Political Economy.
Apr 20 2010
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Bombs at market, school kill 24 in Pakistan’s Peshawar
by Lehaz Ali, AFP
2 hrs 27 mins ago
| PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – At least 24 people including a child and police officials were killed Monday in bombings hours apart at a high school and a crowded market in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials said.
The attacks take the number of people killed in bombings in northwest Pakistan to 73 in three days, after weekend suicide strikes bearing the hallmarks of Taliban militants left 49 people dead in the city of Kohat. As dusk fell Monday at Peshawar’s busy Qissa Khawani Bazaar, a suicide bomber walked into the crowd and detonated explosives, scattering shoes and human limbs on the street and destroying cars, witnesses said. |
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