Brainy Snack Pack: Not Just For Kids!

The Quiet Coup

If you read only one long-form article today, make it this one, please. Simon Johnson lays out the case that the US is becoming a banana republic, an oligarchy in which ordinary citizens are burdened by debt to keep paying into a system that supports an ultra-rich tier, while we remain mired in impossible situations.

Despite the promise of the American dream, despite our capitalism and liberty, social mobility, the capacity to rise out of your own class, is lower in the US and Britain than it is on the European continent. And it's not going to get better, not with our current financial regime retaining the reins. Recent crises show that larger institutions retain the power and authority needed to survive a crisis, while smaller institutions fall by the wayside, leaving the financial world in even greater sway of the predominant institutions afterward than before. The quality of these institutions is not assessed, only their capacity to garner the attention of goverment.

Johnson shows how an "astonishing" number of de-regulatory moves in the past decade, mostly fueled by the shuttling of Wall Street and Administrative positions back and forth, has led to the current crisis. By exploiting our fear of massive collapse, our government has become "of course, partners," with the financial products industry, and left you and I doomed to pay the price for their failure.

Salmonella found in nation's pistachio supply

( Lovely! I had some just last week )

If we curb carbon emissions, we'll be denying plants their food!

( Science from our friends in Congress! )

Tax cuts for the rich and less regulation would still cost "a lot."

( We don't have a budget plan, but if it did, it would still cost 'a lot.' )

Reverse your email composition

( Doesn't everyone do this? )

If Atheists Ruled the World

( Dramatic readings from Fundies Say the Darndest Things! )

"Oh god, a mundane. Don't let it touch you."

I was on the bus the other day, and as I stood behind the yellow line waiting for my stop, the next stop, I spotted a young man, probably in his early 20's, sitting in the front section of the bus, and he was wearing a tail. Not just any tail, but a big, bushy racoon's tail, clipped to the belt at the back of his pants.

"That's a pretty nice tail."

He looked at me, startled, like I'd just called him something nasty. He shook himself, said, "Thanks," in a very clipped tone.

"No, really. And the shirt. Is that a Michelle Light drawing?"

"Don't know," he said. He wasn't willing to make eye contact.

"Do you know who drew it?"

"No," he said, turning his head even further away. It was that pathetic, short "no" from someone who really doesn't want to talk to you. I felt kinda sorry for him. He'd gotten the courage, or maybe the desperation, up enough to wear his tail in public, and a furry t-shirt, but then he didn't want to talk about it, address it, or be addressed on it. He got off at the same stop I did and very hurriedly walked away.

(Headline explained here, if you didn't recognize it.)

Off the air for the next 47 hours...

Well, it's that time of year again. Time to ignore the Intarweb, to duck and cover, and to wait until April 2nd, at which point I nuke my RSS reader with a 'Mark All As Read' and go on as if nothing happened. Thanks to the World Wide Web, people on the other side of the International Date Line are already posting their silliness.