April 2009
Churchgoers more likely to back torture →
—via azspot:
The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services...
M.I.A. Made the Time 100
—via twentyfourbit:
This is the year of M.I.A. She’s won a Grammy, been nominated for an Oscar, raised the roof at Coachella, had a baby and now she’s one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.
In a behind the scenes video segment from her photo shoot with Time, M.I.A. discussed how she infuses her experiences as a refugee from Sri Lanka into her music. “I can sing about songs...
Condi: If It Smells Like Nixon, It’s Criminal →
by Emptywheel @ Firedoglake
Cenk Uygur got an absolutely damning video of Condi Rice channeling Richard Nixon. After denying she “authorized” torture—she just conveyed policy authorization to the agency, but I’m sure that authorization had a virgin birth before that—she explained that if the President authorized it, then it couldn’t violate the Convention...
“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis...”
– Sen. Dick Durbin
as reported by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com - Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress (via ledgergermane)
Spanish Judge Gives Go-Ahead on Torture... →
by Nick Baumann, Mother Jones
The new investigation by Judge Baltasar Garzon (whom Mother Jones2004 and discussed again this January) comes after he was instructed earlier not to open an inquiry into six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Garzon’s latest ruling does not name specific individuals, but will “investigate both those...
Condi Invokes The Nixon Defense →
by Digsby, Hullaballoo
—via thesmarttart:
“Condoleezza Rice, who’s being investigated and may go to prison if she ever sets foot in Spain, had a conversation at the Hoover Institute where she follows in the footsteps of another California politician:
Q: Is waterboarding torture? RICE: The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal...
Texas, Run by Secessionist Guv, Has Received More... →
by Jonathan Stein, Mother Jones
—via azspot
Stephen Fry's letter to his 16-year-old self |... →
—via lindaboucher:appliedculture
vruz: very emotive, no matter your background or the society you had to endure. it’s about Fry’s life, but it could be about any oppressed voice longing to break free from the locks that have been set on too many by the rule of the intolerant few.
Anti-green economics - Paul Krugman Blog -... →
—via moorewr:
Clearly, opposition to doing something about climate change has fallen back to a new position: claims that attempting to limit greenhouse gas emissions would be incredibly costly. Yet the most careful studies, like the big MIT study of Congressional proposals, find only modest costs. Pay no attention, say the critics.
vruz: so, the strategy is to abandon something that...
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cities In Dust
...
Garzón Moves →
by Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish / The Atlantic
Undeterred by the Spanish government’s overture to Obama, the inevitable international attempt to hold the United States to account for gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture begins in earnest:
Spain’s top investigative magistrate has opened an investigation into the Bush administration over alleged...
If Americans Will Not Defend The Geneva... →
.. then the rest of the civilized world will have to take a stand against the now documented war crimes of high officials in the American government
by Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish / The Atlantic
Judge Garzón’s decision revealed a deep engagement with documents which had been released in Washington in the last two weeks, particularly a group of memoranda prepared by lawyers in the Bush...
“Waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it’s...”
– Barack Obama on waterboarding (via unburyingthelead)
2008-04-29 TPM
“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”
– Duke Ellington, memorably stating his view on the problem of art’s relationship to entertainment. Clive James argues that it is not an idle lyric but an assertion of aesthetic philosophy made at the time when jazz began to mirror other arts of the 20th century in declaring that anything enjoyable...
“The mythology of bold, preemptive (and cheap) intervention against avian flu has...”
– m-x: mike davis: capitalism and the flu (via jhnbrssndn)
From One-Party Rule to Cry-Baby Caucus →
This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow
by Greg Saunders
—via moorewr:
It’s astounding to me that the Republican party can complain with a straight face that they aren’t getting enough input into the stimulus package (or any other Obama Administration agenda items). If think every Democrat who appears on TV (both of them) should do nothing but remind America how things worked in D.C. a few...
“Under the Milky Way” – The Church
(Words/music:...
Bombay Bicycle Club - Lamplight
(Taken from I...
“The only sense of entitlement is coming from the old school players — the...”
– Newspapers, The Recording Industry And A Misplaced Sense Of Entitlement (via gcn)
“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
(via sometimesagreatnotion:benjaminhilts)
Daily Kos: Sanchez baffled by GOP spin: "What the... →
—via moorewr:Excuse the mess, Senator DeMint’s bullshit bucket just overflowed.
