Isn't That Special

"They would be outraged if adherents of other religions solicited their children or exploited their collegial relationships in the quest for converts. So why don’t they give it up? They can’t. Their beliefs require that they push as hard as they can to implement their understanding of God’s will."

Valerie Tarico, AlterNet

Quoted from the post, "How the Fundamentalist Mind Compels Conservative Christians to Force Their Beliefs on You," it's plain to see how there's no choice but to go for theocracy. With the help of George W. Bush, headway was made:

Faith-Based Order Silent on Discrimination

[ABC News]

"I'm disappointed," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "I am particularly frustrated that President Obama still has done nothing to ban hiring bias by publicly funded religious charities. That's the 800-pound gorilla in the room. No American should be denied a government-funded job because he or she holds the 'wrong' views about religion."

Banks of America and England

"This settlement farce reveals yet again that contracts in America have become decidedly one sided affairs: banks will take advantage of every trap and snare, and engage in further abuses if they can get away with them, but woe betide anyone on the other side."

Yves Smith

“Market discipline can’t apply to everyone except banks.”

Sir Mervyn King

Tribute to Dennis Kucinich

For standing up for America during the dark years of the Bush/Cheney administration; for speaking out and drawing up articles of impeachment; for standing as a candidate for the presidency; for advocating single-payer health care insurance --

Tribute to Dennis Kucinich, a True Progressive:
[Adodie - Daily Kos]

"It is with great sadness that I must write that Dennis Kucinich, the House's liberal lion from Ohio, lost his primary tonight against Rep. Marcy Kaptur, after redistricting forced the two against each other. ...

"Kucinich has a great economic/social safety net voting record. He has fought to defend the middle class against top-down class warfare, and has never abandoned important programs like Medicaid and Social Security. He always advocates for fairer tax rates, a single payer health care system, and worker rights."

House Full of Cats

"Cat count nears 70 at Elmer Avenue house" -- reported by Fort Wayne Journal Gazette today. I think the link will expire; reference is http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120306/LOCAL07/303069972/1043

A couple collected and hoarded cats in a small one-story house. The article quotes a spokesperson for Animal Care & Control: “These cats are so frightened and so feral-acting that the bottom line is who is going to be able to identify or want an animal like this.”

On a positive beat:

Stuff the Whisker Wag'n

Students Rally to Help Homeless Animals

"Student members of the Animal Care Teen (ACT) program at Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control will rally together on Saturday, March 17 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. to conduct a special Stuff the Whisker Wag’n service event. Their goal is to collect much needed canned food for homeless shelter dogs and cats. ACT students decided on the project after learning that 6,435 cats and kittens arrived at the shelter during the spring and fall months of 2011. In total 8,027 lost and homeless felines and 6,118 canines were sheltered at Animal Care & Control last year." [Citizens Square Blog]

Krugman on "Freshwater Economics"

A couple of notes from Paul Krugman's "Economics in the Crisis"

And so we got the division of macroeconomics. On one side there was “saltwater” economics – people, who in America tended to be in coastal universities, who continued to view Keynes as broadly right, even though they couldn’t offer a rigorous justification for some of their assumptions. On the other side was “freshwater” – people who tended to be in inland US universities, and who went for logically complete models even if they seemed very much at odds with lived experience.

. . .

What’s remarkable about that is that this was all based on the presumption that freshwater logic would provide a plausible, workable alternative to Keynes – a presumption that was not borne out by anything that had happened in the 1970s. And in fact it never happened: over time, freshwater economics kept failing the test of empirical validity, and responded by downgrading the importance of evidence.

Bush Bailout

"Conservatives Loved George W. Bush from the Beginning and Until the Very End"
[Blue Texan, Firedoglake, 2011]

Conservatives always had a big mancrush on the Commander Guy and deep down, they still do. And why not? He gave you guys everything you wanted: big tax breaks for rich people, invasions and bombs for brown people, less regulations for corporations, John Roberts, Sam Alito, the gutting of environmental laws, torture, lots of Federalist Society wingnuts appointed to the bench, the promise of a Constitutional amendment banning teh gey, lots of very manly tough talk, etc. etc.

From the beginning:

2001: Bush's "Rebate and Switch" Tax Scam
[Jim Hightower, Monitor]

What kind of tax "cut" actually will leave you owing more money to the IRS next April? Answer: George W. Bush's widely-ballyhooed, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, $300 tax rebate.

Until the very end:

Refresher Course: TARP
[Donny Shaw, Open Congress Blog, 2010]

TARP was proposed top-down by the Bush Administration and passed on a bipartisan basis by the Democratically-controlled 110th Congress. Remarkably, only 34% of people know that TARP was a Bush program, not an Obama program.

Imagine Schools for Dummies

Imagine soaks the Sunshine State

Learning Curve:

"Hoosier taxpayers paid $1,053,668 in rent and $401,800 in operating costs for the Imagine Life Sciences Academy East in Indianapolis last year. The bills were similar for the three other Indiana schools."


Charter School Scandals: Imagine

"Imagine Schools is the nation's largest for-profit charter school management company operating 71 charter schools, and enrolling more than 36,000 students nationwide. Imagine's Web site lists its schools operating in the following 14 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, DC."