“How could (doomsday preacher Harold Camping’s) calculations (about when the world would end) be wrong? Camping used the most precise method available: taking numbers at random from a 400-year-old English translation of a group of tangentially-related, ancient, Middle Eastern texts transcribed from Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic oral histories! It’s how I do my taxes!”
—STEPHEN COLBERT, on why Harold Camping got it wrong, on The Colbert Report (via inothernews)
June 2011
“
For decades, the uninterrupted programming on PBS has been one of its most distinctive selling points to audiences and philanthropic and corporate supporters alike.
But those leisurely stretches of break-free programs could be going away.
PBS officials told member stations at its recent annual meeting in Orlando that beginning this fall, the Wednesday science series “Nature” and “Nova” would contain corporate and foundation sponsor spots, promotional messages and branding within four breaks inside the shows, instead of at the very beginning and end.
The longest period of uninterrupted programming, according to a plan shown to the programmers, would be just under 15 minutes, compared with the current 50 minutes or more. Based on what PBS learns in the fall, the new format would continue to be introduced night by night through the year, officials said.
” —PBS Plans Promotional Breaks Within Programs (via ryking)May 2011
One of the several things wrong...
….in America today is the fact that Memorial Day is not only a day to remember those who have given their lives in service of their country, but a day when one can get a fantastic deal on a new mattress.
Why the Democratic Party Has Abandoned the Middle Class in Favor of the Rich →
alternet.org
In 2008, a liberal Democrat was elected president. Landslide votes gave Democrats huge congressional majorities. Eight years of war and scandal and George W. Bush had stigmatized the Republican Party almost beyond redemption. A global financial crisis had discredited the disciples of free-market fundamentalism, and Americans were ready for serious change.
Or so it seemed. But two years later, Wall Street is back to earning record profits, and conservatives are triumphant. To understand why this happened, it’s not enough to examine polls and tea parties and the makeup of Barack Obama’s economic team. You have to understand how we fell so short, and what we rightfully should have expected from Obama’s election. And you have to understand two crucial things about American politics.
The first is this: Income inequality has grown dramatically since the mid-’70s—far more in the US than in most advanced countries—and the gap is only partly related to college grads outperforming high-school grads. Rather, the bulk of our growing inequality has been a product of skyrocketing incomes among the richest 1 percent and—even more dramatically—among the top 0.1 percent. It has, in other words, been CEOs and Wall Street traders at the very tippy-top who are hoovering up vast sums of money from everyone, even those who by ordinary standards are pretty well off.
Second, American politicians don’t care much about voters with moderate incomes. Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels studied the voting behavior of US senators in the early ’90s and discovered that they respond far more to the desires of high-income groups than to anyone else. By itself, that’s not a surprise. He also found that Republicans don’t respond at all to the desires of voters with modest incomes. Maybe that’s not a surprise, either. But this should be: Bartels found that Democratic senators don’t respond to the desires of these voters, either. At all.
Random Acts of Chaos: US High School Student Threatened With Death For Apposing School Prayer →
nymphgonebad.tumblr.com
NORTH LOUISIANA has been described as “the buckle on the Bible Belt” – and not without good reason, as high school student Damon Fowler at Bastrop High School has discovered to his cost.
On the eve of his graduation, the atheist student contacted the school superintendent…
“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”
—Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer, La Petite Claudine
“Have you ever noticed that the only metaphor we have in our public discourse for solving problems is to declare war on it? We have the war on crime, the war on cancer, the war on drugs. But did you ever notice that we have no war on homelessness? You know why? Because there’s no money in that problem. No money to be made off of the homeless. If you can find a solution to homelessness where the corporations and politicians can make a few million dollars each, you will see the streets of America begin to clear up pretty damn quick!”
—George Carlin (via loveyourchaos)
“Sometimes, I like to read the bible in public and yell out, “Oh Bullshit!”
—Zach Galifianakis (via notmovingtoportland)
Patriot Act Extension Signed By Obama →
huffingtonpost.com
I think it’s time those of us on the left think seriously about voting third party in 2012. Because the Democrats AREN’T liberal. Aside from being mildly supportive of a few social issues I think are important, they behave like Republicans. Right now, since they have our unconditional support - because where are we to go?- politics is like a tug-of-war with only the right side of the rope pulling.
Drink The Kool-Aid!: Corporate "People" →
drinkthekoolaid.org
In a ruling issued late Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Cacheris tossed out part of an indictment against two men accused of illegally reimbursing donors to Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns.
Cacheris says that under the Citizens United decision,…
Play
“I love giving money to Israel. And so there’s a picture there that people realize that, we stop helping Israel, we lose God’s hand and we’re in big time trouble.”
—
Rep. Dan Webster (R-FL)
Every time we give money to Israel I feel God’s hands all over me. That is God, right?
(via corruptpolitics)
I wonder how many Christian Zionists support Israel for this reason or because they want all of Israel to belong to the Jews and in addition, they want to convert those Jews in Israel to Christianity; this is because only the aforementioned guarantees the return of Jesus.
(via thenoobyorker)
and another thing ...: The Republican Death Wish →
silas216.tumblr.com
Forty Senate Republicans have now joined their colleagues in the House to support Paul Ryan’s plan that would turn Medicare into vouchers that funnel money to private health insurers. They thumbed their nose at the special election in upstate New York earlier this week that…
Tim Pawlenty has his own Rev. Wright →
salon.com
I am absolutely loving the GOP field for the 2012 election so far; every Republican in it is a walking disaster!
