BLOGMEDIA COLUMNISTS english
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Butterflies and Wheels
What started as an invitation to deliver a lecture gradually ‘evolved’ to become a grand tour that would take me to all states in Australia. Many pastors subject their members and those who come to them for prayers to torture, inhuman, abusive and degrading treatment in the course of deliverance or in the name of casting away the devil or demons. The true test of a democracy is not how it panders to the so called will (real or imagined) of the majority but how it treats and respects its minority. Jim Wright on Ayn Rand I’d rather be forced to sit with a hemorrhoidal badger in my lap through every single George W. Bush and/or Al Gore speech ever recorded than to have to read Atlas Shrugged ever again.Vox
Giancarlo Corsetti , 2 April 2012 Is austerity self-defeating? Is it keeping Europeans underemployed for years and destroying the very growth needed to pay off the debt? Or is it steering nations clear of Greek-like tragedies? So starts a new debate on Vox on austerity, introduced in this column. Julian di Giovanni, Andrei Levchenko, Jing Zhang , 2 April 2012
Engage
Cross posted from A. Jay Adler’s blog, the sad red earth. One of the salient features of the evolving massively networked media environment is the readier production than ever before of manufactured realities. Enough people simply assert something to be true, enough people virally lift the assertion across the MNM and write about it as true, and the idea takes almost unshakeable hold in the minds of a sufficient number of people so that the manufactured reality is now a feature of reality itself – a contention, a belief that clings to circumstance and becomes a part of it. No situation in the world produces more of this than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Pajamas Media
by Ed Driscoll In the 1960s, liberal journalists told us all to "Question Authority." Now they wax nostalgic for the days when they saw themselves as The Authority.
It took the front and back of a military “Charge Sheet,” DD Form 458, and three additional sheets to list the 17 specifications of Charge I, “Violation of the UCMJ, Article 118– each one specifying the murder of an Afghan man, woman or child — and the following two additional charges: Charge II: “Violation of the UCMJ, Article 80,” I.E. the attempt to murder one Afghan man, one woman and four children. Charge III: “Violation of the UCMJ, Article 128”: I.E. committing... Yesterday I wrote about watching the movie Groundhog Day on Country Music Television and the fact that they’d muted the word gay from one scene. I questioned why they did so since the scene simply involved Bill Murray’s character saying that a waiter was gay and the waiter calmly confirming the fact.
The Moderate Voice
Right Across the Atlantic
On Sunday Newt Gingrich was interviewing with Fox News’ Mike Wallace, when he let go this bomb: Well, I think you have to be realistic, given the size of his organization, given the number of primaries he’s won. He is far and away, the most likely Republican nominee. And if he does get to 1,144 delegates, I’ll support him. I’ll do everything I can this fall to help him defeat Obama.Classically Liberal
South Carolina is one of those bizarre Bible-belt states. Normally it is as bat-shit crazy as Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi or Texas but it can get nutty. Of course, this is most likely the case with God's Own Party (GOP). The Lauren County Republican Party has decided to try to get candidates to sign morality pledges straight out of some back-woods tent revival, absent the handling of rattlesnakes. Their pledge was adopted unanimously by the local Republicans who, given the demographics of the country,probably couldn't unanimously spell unanimously. The county has a median family income well below normal.
By Xeni Jardin at 10:19 am Sunday, Apr 8 • 3 Comments • Share This is how it's done. A ring-tailed coati mauls and slurps Easter eggs in Zagreb Zoo April 8, 2012. (REUTERS/Antonio Bronic) By Cory Doctorow at 9:53 am Sunday, Apr 8 • 0 Comments • Share
Boing Boing
Well, almost. We still have a few surprises up our sleeves, but some of the site's new features are still brewing. So, rather than make you wait, we thought we'd do a soft launch, and show you what we have now, updating the site with its new features as they become available.
Drawn!
Lawyers Opposing Health Care Law Cite Kids-With-Pre-Existing-Conditions-Can-Go-Fuck-Themselves Clause WASHINGTON—As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments today on President Obama's health care reform law, plaintiffs aiming to strike down the legislation are citing the U.S. more »
The Onion
Posted by Stan Collender My column from today's Roll Call explains why "ridiculous' and "infuriating" are two of the milder words you might want to use when you think about the latest House GOP plans to abandon the deal it agreed to in August and try to use the fiscal 2013 budget resolution to cut appropriations even more. Tea Party Budget Plans Don’t Make Political Sense
Capital Gains and Games
Today, Breitbart.com “editor” Meredith Dake has A Note on Comments , and it’s pretty funny. Over the past month, we’ve monitored how our readers have responded to the new comment format, and how our new comment system has served our site and our vast readership. We’ve also monitored how the hordes of trolls manage the new system, and have been developing new safeguards based on a month of monitoring their behavior.