The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Libya news

    By artappraiser on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 10:38pm |

    First up: Lest we forget, Gaddafi would like to remind us all that he's living in another universe:

    Qaddafi Writes to Obama, Urging End to Airstrikes
    By David D. Kirkpatrick and Fareem Fahim, New York Times, April 6/7, 2011

    TRIPOLI, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya sent another strikingly personal letter to President Obama on Wednesday.....

    “You will always remain our son whatever happened,” Colonel Qaddafi wrote. “We Endeavour and hope that you will gain victory in the new election campaigne. You are a man who has enough courage to annul a wrong and mistaken action,” he added, in idiosyncratic spelling and capitalization.

    [.....]

    ....Qaddafi’s letter, addressed to “Mr. Our dear son, Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu Oumama,” the Libyan leader reiterated his characterization of the rebels as "Al Qaeda gangs.” He recalled Mr. Obama’s repeated statements “that America is not responsible for the security of other peoples.”,“That America helps only. This is the right logic,” Colonel Qaddafi wrote, adding, “As you know too well democracy and building of civil society cannot be achieved by means of missiles and aircraft, or by backing armed members of Al Qaeda in Benghazi.”.....

    Dean Baker adds up Ryan's numbers

    By Flavius on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 1:55pm |

    well somebody has to.

     

    Baker today in Brad Delong's blog.

     

     

    cmaukonen's picture

    Consensus

    By cmaukonen on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 12:17pm |

    con·sen·sus [kuhn-sen-suhs]
    –noun, plural -sus·es.
    1. majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.

    2. general agreement or concord; harmony.

    Wisconsin supreme court election

    By Flavius on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 6:38am |

    Kloppenburg will win.  NOON Wednes day

    With one (pro Prosser ) precinct missing she's ahead by 220

     

    Richard Day's picture

    Barack Obama, The Apology

    By Richard Day on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 2:35am |


            THE APOLOGIST?

     

    The Apology, by Plato was my favorite read as a freshman in college.

    After reading this short bio, I cried. No kidding.

    GotToBeMe's picture

    Political Cartoon: Kinetic Military Action Pendulum

    By GotToBeMe on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 12:09am |

    Political Cartoon: Kinetic Military Action Pendulum by Cartoonist Kaveh Adel

    Kinetic Military Action Pendulum….

    In Libya…. and (feel free to insert a country of your choice here)

    Crossposted at www.Kavehadel.com/blog

    we are stardust's picture

    Thoughts From One of the 'Not-In' Ilk

    By we are stardust on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 1:26pm |

    (This was in comment to Destor's blog; kinda hated to muck up the sweet lines of his thread with it.)

    ........................................................................................................................................

    Reading through the comments on this thread, I’m struck by the prism everyone’s looking through is confined to the next Presidency.   ‘Can’t take a Repub’; ‘I won’t tell him I’m in until…’; ‘I’ll weigh the field, vote for the best’, and so on.

    I reached the point of No Confidence awhile back over a couple big issues and now realize there’s no way on earth I’ll ever vote for Obama in 2012.  Actually, it’s freed me up quite a lot to be more committed to taking The Long View: not just considering the next cycle, the next President or Congress, but how to save the republic at all.

    Not that anyone might give a fig about my thinking, but I thought I might write it anyway.  ;o)

    The degree to which our federal electoral politics is captive to the present duopoly is staggering; the degree to which it’s now captive to the military-industrial-security state through the WOT and War on Drugs is disgusting.  And the degree to which it’s now captive to the 1%, 5%, whatever, at the top of the income and wealth pyramid is not only alarming, but dangerous.  The best writers are trying to get us to remember that this situation never stands; history shows us that, whether it’s changed through armed revolution (which I really fear for obvious reasons), or even what happened during the Gilded Age with labor strikes and violence leading to Progressivism and Teddy’s trust-busting and FDR’s and LBJ’s policy enactments to right some of the wrongs done by capitalism run amok.  Now the Second Gilded Age is here: with a vengeance.

    cmaukonen's picture

    They Say We'll Have a Revolution......

    By cmaukonen on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 12:40pm |



    The Rise and Fall of the American Empire seems to be the topic du jour these days and at least one anthropologist has done a significa

    Richard Day's picture

    MORTGAGES: 60 MINUTE STYLE

    By Richard Day on Mon, 04/04/2011 - 10:42pm |

            FELONS RUN AMOK

    Instead of arguing about Goldstone

    By Flavius on Mon, 04/04/2011 - 9:37pm |

    check out  bitterlemons.http://www.bitterlemons.net/

    You can read the opinions of a Hamas leader which may or may not confirm what you already think. And those of a settler , ditto.

    Frequently there are 4 views on an issue. A leftish former assistant to Barack:a settler or some one who voices their views; a Palestinian university president; and someone who voices the views of Palestinians who are not university presidents.

    I'm not peddling a subliminal message that of course " they can all get along".

    The Decider's picture

    Medicare Cuts: It's Still Not Enough!

    By The Decider on Mon, 04/04/2011 - 5:30pm |

    Representative Paul Ryan is in the news today saying that the Democrat offers to cut Medicare aren't enough: he wants to abolish the whole program. Medicaid too. He thinks that makes him all conservative. I say, it's STILL NOT ENOUGH! We also need to make those old pikers pay back the money that the government's given them. And while we're at it, make employees pay back those employers contributions that companies have been extorted into giving. That will really stimulate the economy! God bless America! (and go get 'em Huskies)

    Fed Loaned Billions at Low Rates to Libyan Controlled Bank

    By NCD on Sun, 04/03/2011 - 10:16pm |

    Bernie Sanders forced the Fed to release this information, which apparently was only produced after lawsuits by news organizations, Sanders website:

    A Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law already had forced the Fed last Dec. 1 to name banks that took trillions of dollars in emergency loans during the crisis.

    LarryH's picture

    Moo - beep beep beep

    By LarryH on Sun, 04/03/2011 - 1:24pm |

    I just had to pass along this blog post by someone I follow:

    http://www.prairie2.com/2011/03/those-lying-cows.html

    And if you are looking for an alternative appreciation of the whole subject of fallout, this heavily footnoted presentation is interesting I think.  Start with the section titled “Bending Fear Into Insight.”

    http://doctorapsley.com/RadiationTherapy.aspx

     

    Questionable Finance

    By EmmaZahn on Sun, 04/03/2011 - 12:50pm |

    Will someone explain to me why, in light of this U.S. Repo Close: Current 3-Year Note at Lowest Rate, Minus 1.7% - Bloomberg, are we, e.g. the US Treasury, paying positive 1.25% on that same note?  That makes its current yield 2.95%.  The difference in time to maturity is not a satisfactory answer.

    Richard Day's picture

    AN ATTEMPT TO LIGHTEN THINGS UP AROUND HERE: THE MADDEN INTERVIEW

    By Richard Day on Sun, 04/03/2011 - 12:36pm |

                                 
     

                                      REPUB FRONT RUNNER

    jollyroger's picture

    Wounded by Articleman, a cut of the most unkindest sort, that being a true one.,

    By jollyroger on Sun, 04/03/2011 - 2:09am |

    In a glancing blow that I think should have been called a foul, but these corrupt refs can't see  past the home team jersey so what can you do, but anyway, driving for the hoop A man jammed me for  manifesting insufficient committment to ecumenicism.on account of a willingness to offend where a prilevege to be free of offense is asserted by my fellow world citizans.

    Barth's picture

    The Company We Keep

    By Barth on Sat, 04/02/2011 - 7:47pm |

    None of this should have surprised anyone, particularly those who could not bring themselves to vote, or otherwise support candidates whose election would have gotten in their way. The handwriting was on the wall, plain for everyone to see or, perhaps, to read. But either the President disappointed, or did something with which the voter disagreed and they got elected.

    cmaukonen's picture

    Another one bites the dust...

    By cmaukonen on Sat, 04/02/2011 - 7:11pm |

    One of the better posters at this blog has left. This is a shame. And the reason is the totally childish, immature, self centered and sophomoric comments made. Some even personal attacks that even the most repugnant right winger would not stoop to.

    Congratulations ass holes, you have just made his point in spades.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    The Mortmain of the Patina

    By Elusive Trope on Sat, 04/02/2011 - 4:08pm |

    A conservator brush vacuums Konskie III, a Frank Stella
    painting in the Glass House collection.

    Credit: Courtesy Luca Bonetti

    Epilogue

    TimDanahey's picture

    Jobs: The Problem Government Doesn't Want to Solve

    By TimDanahey on Fri, 04/01/2011 - 1:39pm |

    There isn't a single news story these days that isn't framed around the word "jobs." Political parties make their cases couched in phrases such as "job killing" or "job creation." They tell us unemployment is a persistent problem that will take years to solve. The truth is they don't want to solve unemployment.

    Radical Mellonism

    By EmmaZahn on Fri, 04/01/2011 - 12:22pm |

    The Mellon Doctrine - Paul Krugman - NYTimes.com:

    “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.” That, according to Herbert Hoover, was the advice he received from Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary, as America plunged into depression. To be fair, there’s some question about whether Mellon actually said that; all we have is Hoover’s version, written many years later."

    Maybe Krugman is correct. Maybe Mellon-style liquidation is now the official doctrine of the G.O.P. Maybe rather than making the comparison then using it to sneer and argue against G.O.P. plans, it might be more effective to make the comparison then use it to advantage.

    Richard Day's picture

    REPUBLICANS FOR A BITTER AMERICA!

    By Richard Day on Fri, 04/01/2011 - 4:23am |

    File:Asian elephant eating02 - melbourne zoo.jpg

                                           ELEPHANT CRUSH           

    MrSmith1's picture

    April Fools? No. It’s April Awareness!

    By MrSmith1 on Fri, 04/01/2011 - 2:48am |

    I hope that all the fine folks that populate this blog community will indulge me for writing about something non-political and not particularly humorous.  It is a subject that is close to my heart.  

    In 1985, I was diagnosed with a chronic degenerative inflammatory disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS).  Most likely, you have never heard of it, or, if you have, it’s because you either know someone that has it or you are a Rheumatologist. 

    cmaukonen's picture

    Our current collective political insanity

    By cmaukonen on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 8:21pm |

    Why is the right acting like they have lost their collective minds ? For one thing the decision of giving corporations person hood and the ability to buy any politico they choose, as Sam Smith points out here.

    They're lying about social security

    By Flavius on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 1:20pm |

    Dean Baker in today’s FT

     Deficit hawks now like to show off charts in which the costs of Social Security-along with Medicare and Medicaid,.are projected to go through the roof in the decades ahead. These charts show the costs of everything else more or less under control this looks ominous. But it is also a trick.

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