The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    trkingmomoe's picture

    Sen. Warren Receives a Standing Ovation at California's 2015 Democratic Convention

    By trkingmomoe on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 3:40am |

    Saturday at the 2015 California Democratic Convention held in Anaheim, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was one of the speakers. She deliver a fiery speech "America is ready to stand with us" that brought down the house.  

    Ichabod

    By Aaron Carine on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 6:11pm |

    I used to admire Noam Chomsky. Since 9/11 he has been a douche. I'm going to try to demonstrate this, using Chomsky's commentary on the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

    Chomsky's theme, as you might expect, is that while the Paris killings were bad, the West does worse, and dash it all, nobody talks about these other crimes.

    Chomsky starts out by equating the Charlie Hebdo murders with the Nato air strike on a Serbian television station during the Kosovo War. Both were attacks on journalists.

    trkingmomoe's picture

    New Bills in Congress to Curb Food Born Antibiotic Resistant Salmonella

    By trkingmomoe on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 1:26am |

    Both the Senate and House today introduced bills after Frontline on PBS aired a documentary,The Trouble With Chicken, on deadly salmonella outbreaks caused by eating infected chicken.  If you have not seen it, you need to watch it because we all eat food. You can see it here. 

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-chicken/

    Richard Day's picture

    MINUTIAE

    By Richard Day on Thu, 05/14/2015 - 3:23pm |

    Helium atom ground state.

    Thank you for your patience.

    Evidently I mixed Viagra with Mexican Food and experienced 18 hours of heartburn along with extensions of vital organs, not to be mentioned in polite company.

    Actually my PC (purchased in July of last year) failed, crashed and died.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Fight Flight Freeze

    By Elusive Trope on Thu, 05/14/2015 - 11:58am |

    Fight Flight Freeze sounds like some surreal schoolyard playground game, some weird mix of Red Rover and Simon Says.

    Yet is another take on the Fight Flight Response. I think viewing our response to a (potential) threat as Fight Flight Freeze Response is a more accurate and provides some insight, I believe, into what many would call the political apathy in this country.

    I think everyone is aware of the notion of Fight or Flight, and that it was a emergent feature of our evolution in an effort to survive and reproduce. One of our distant ancestors crosses a path with a tiger and his or her body goes into a response that among other things increases the heart rate and prepares the muscles. He or she is ready to either fight or flee as fast as his or her feet can manage. Freezing was rarely seen as third option in this response to a survival.

    The UK Tory victory has been greeted

    By Flavius on Sat, 05/09/2015 - 10:42pm |

    here by a very old and very wrong assessment of  Labour's  economic performance. Krugman-of course- and a few others rebut it but it's become the accepted story.

     

    A short hand way to portray what was actually the truth is to look at the deficits- and occasional surpluses- of the two main UK parties.

    They're essentially the same.

    For example

    Labour            Average Deficit          Tories   Average Deficit       

    1975-78          (6)Billion    

                                                                1979-87       (9)

    Elusive Trope's picture

    You're So Vain

    By Elusive Trope on Sat, 05/09/2015 - 4:12pm |

    The other day I was walking through downtown Seattle and something that reminded me of one of the reasons I left Portland, Oregon, for Indiana.

    This reason was what I perceived as whole lot of people flaunting of wealth, as well as possessing a shallow aesthetic and an extreme conceitedness (The last two could be said of many of the not-so-wealthy hipsters). What I saw in downtown Seattle was a little shop called Vain.

    jollyroger's picture

    The Federal Police Inspector General is conducting random audits

    By jollyroger on Sat, 05/09/2015 - 8:39am |
     
     
     
    Well, at least that's what we might wish for, starting with the creation of such an office...
     

     In point of more specific fact, the epidemic of citizen journalism that has broken out to the effect that atrocities as old as the emergence of municipal police forces from the gang substrates that prece

    UK Vote

    By Flavius on Thu, 05/07/2015 - 2:00pm |

    Time     Con    Lab    Lib  Scots   UKIP    Other                                                                              

                                                                                              

    12 40     145       157     6     52        1                         

    12 49     154       166     6     53        1

    12 55  '   165        174    6     53        1       12

    1 10       179        180     6     53       1        12

    1 15       191       187      6     54       1        12

    barefooted's picture

    To McDonald's With Love

    By barefooted on Tue, 05/05/2015 - 9:10pm |

    My best friend and I worked at McDonald's when we were barely fifteen. We obviously lied about our age, but the manager didn't care. He was the oldest employee at twenty-two and liked bossing teenagers around - when we weren't all getting high in the break room after hours.

    jollyroger's picture

    McCutcheon: Chief Justice Roberts chooses institutional over party loyalty.

    By jollyroger on Thu, 04/30/2015 - 5:00pm |
     
     
    This is not entirely unexpected, as his title is, after all, Chief Justice.  Still (Taney, C.J., and Rhenquist C.J., egregor), not every U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice in history as been similarly virtuous.

    So let's do something about it.

    By Flavius on Wed, 04/29/2015 - 10:25pm |

    When I got to my unit, we were still in tents waiting for the Russians to go back to barracks. Almost the first thing my battery commander told me was, "Truman forced through the integration of the Army. In the long run it'll be good for the country but right now it’s bad for the Army."

    But as those integrated units actually went into combat later: in Vietnam or the Middle East, their integrated nature hasn't seemed to seriously degrade their effectiveness. Or at least not to the extent that anyone now advocates un-integrating them.

    Richard Day's picture

    SATIRE & BALTIMORE

    By Richard Day on Wed, 04/29/2015 - 3:05pm |

    Frank luntz 2009.jpg

    THE BEST SATIRE

    Chris Hayes just performed the best satire concerning these ‘riots’ we have witnessed lately that I have ever viewed on cable news TV.

    http://www.upworthy.com/he-shows-how-the-news-talks-about-black-people-by-talking-about-white-people-instead?c=upw1&u=9beeb15593fb4076e273acb1945b1a26642c99a7

    Like Frank Luntz tells the repubs every day:

    It is not what you say, but how you say it.

    barefooted's picture

    Baltimore On Alert

    By barefooted on Mon, 04/27/2015 - 6:28pm |

    Freddie Gray was put to rest today amid calls for peace, justice and answers. Hours later, young people - high school age - began assaulting police officers, burning police cars and looting at least two businesses. The Baltimore Sun reports:

    Hillary thru the Looking Glass

    By PeraclesPlease on Sun, 04/26/2015 - 9:21am |

    2 items I saw today re: how the media prism will focus on Hillary actions in different ways.

    In #1, Ted Lipien notes that the blind Chinese dissident had distinctly commended Hillary while expressing disappointment with the Obama Administration - the former part left out of the Politico version as Voice of America sat on the translation.

    trkingmomoe's picture

    Republicans Split Over Medicaid Expansion in Florida

    By trkingmomoe on Thu, 04/23/2015 - 12:34am |

    The debate over whether to continue the refusal to expand Medicaid or go to Washington with a program proposal has caused a split in the Republicans in Tallahassee.  They are now facing a budgetary crises because LIP (Low Income Pool) a grant to help cover the cost of healthcare for the uninsured will expire June 30. The State of Florida was told a year ago by the CMS that this funding would expire but Rick Scott included it in the budget for this year.  

    Iran

    By Flavius on Wed, 04/22/2015 - 12:56am |

    The Dagblog world has been essentially silent about the Laussane "agreement" and IMHO properly so. To some extent possibly because as always  the devil is in the details. But,perhaps even more,because in this case those of us who hang out here know that the remaining devil(s) may be lurking in the details that we don't know about because they haven't yet been agreed.

    Dr. Quinn's Koestler-like Energy Future Shock

    By PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/17/2015 - 7:48am |

    We had an interesting guest appearance by Quinn re: the slide to renewables in perhaps 30-40 years.

    Presuming this all goes as (un)planned and coal/oil/gas can mostly be phased out, it begs some interesting questions, what with nearly limitless almost-free energy (& electric cars, super-grids & presumably electric planes to go along with it)

    1) what happens to our global warming concerns as we replace fossil fuels with non-CO2 & non-heat producing alternatives?

    What, me happy with Congress?

    By Oxy Mora on Wed, 04/15/2015 - 11:50am |

    Regarding the Senate committee's unanimous vote yesterday to "condition the President's power" on negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, I was irate before I had my coffee, on the fence during breakfast, and surprisingly I now have decided not to allow perceived insults to the President ruin my day. I'm not gloriously happy, but I'm o.k with with the unanimous vote.

    stillidealistic's picture

    "Female" and "Republican" - Huh???

    By stillidealistic on Mon, 04/13/2015 - 7:57pm |

    I like to think of myself as being open-minded (my deceased uncle accused me of having such an open mind that my brains had fallen out!) and willing to listen to anyone's point of view, if for no other reason than to do a reality check on what I think vs. what others think. I have learned a lot listening. And SOMETIMES I am even able to refine my thoughts based on what I've heard. I am not wishy-washy, but I am able to evolve in my thinking, when presented with an idea that has merit. Little of what I think is carved in stone, and I like that about me. 

    Great Scott

    By Flavius on Sun, 04/12/2015 - 11:08pm |

    I first formed an opinion about Scott Ritter in the early 90s based on some network’s clip  showing him--then a UN arms inspector--arguing with some of his Iraqi contacts.  Poorly... Fitting every part of the role of the Ugly American.

    Some years later he spoke at some local hall and I went. In the flesh he was an improvement.

    That was the last I thought about him until the Huffington Post last week headlined those  comments of his on Lausanne which I linked to in Caviar anyone? I recommend taking a look at that link. Whichever side you’re on, Ritter raises issues which should be dealt with  although he himself, like me, seems  pro Lausanne. 

    Richard Day's picture

    THERE IS NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!

    By Richard Day on Sun, 04/12/2015 - 12:53pm |

    League of their own ver2.jpg All the republicans have been doing over the last six years is sobbing over the election and re-election of Barack Hussein Obama.

    Mr. Obama was not qualified to run for President of these United States of America because he was not and is not an American citizen.

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/was-there-a-birth-certificate-trump-battles-abcs-jon-karl-over-obamas-ted-cruzs-citizenship/

    Mr. Obama worshipped with a radical anti-white Christian minister.

    http://abcnews.go.com/blotter/democraticdebate/story?id=4443788&page=1

    stillidealistic's picture

    Religious Freedom? I Think Not.

    By stillidealistic on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 6:48pm |

    Religious freedom, my ass.

    None of this stuff going on right now is about religious freedom. It's about fundamentalist Christians wanting to shove THEIR religion down the throats of everyone else.

    I haven't heard a SINGLE SOLITARY Christian leader come out and say how wrong it was for the country to basically FORCE Mormons to abandon polygamy, even though it was a basic tenant of their religion from the get-go.

    I haven't heard a SINGLE SOLITARY Christian leader come out and say that the Muslims should be able to practice Sharia Law, according to their religion.

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