Romney, the Rich and the Rest, by Charles M. Blow

“Misstatements and mendacity.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/opinion/collins-the-politics-of-absolutely-everything.html?ref=opinion

The Politics of Absolutely Everything, by Gail Collins

“Pink ribbons, red state?”

Jobless Rate Falls to 8.3%, Altering Face of Campaign

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html?scp=1&sq=activists&st=cse

Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/nyregion/raymond-w-kelly-nypd-commissioner-runs-into-turbulence.html?scp=3&sq=11&st=cse

After 11 Years, a Police Leader Hits Turbulence

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/florida-lawmaker-withdraws-casino-bill.html?scp=2&sq=florida&st=cse

Florida Mega-Casino Bill Is Withdrawn

Protests Over Soccer Match Riot Continue in Egypt

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/world/middleeast/syria-homs-death-toll-said-to-rise.html?hp

Deadly Attack on Syrian City Adds to Push for U.N. to Act

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/fbi-admits-hacker-groups-eavesdropping.html?scp=5&sq=hackers&st=cse

F.B.I. Admits Hacker Group’s Eavesdropping

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/technology/eu-backs-delay-in-googles-privacy-policy.html?scp=2&sq=google&st=cse

E.U. Presses Google to Delay Privacy Policy Changes

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/world/europe/putin-aide-promises-significant-changes-in-russian-political-system.html?scp=2&sq=putin&st=cse

Putin Aide Says Foreign Hands Are Behind Protests

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/world/africa/un-says-famine-in-somalia-is-over-but-risks-remain.html?scp=2&sq=somalia&st=cse

U.N. Says Somalia Famine Has Ended, but Warns That Crisis Isn’t Over

Komen just pretended to reverse its decision defund Planned Parenthood’s cancer screening services (it promises only to consider Planned Parenthood applications in the future, not to fund them) .. But now that everyone has become aware of Komen’s sleaziness, it’s time to look at what they – and the cancer industry – do more generally. They fund efforts to diagnose and find a cure but they work against things like prevention. They also tend to push back against research that shows we’ve been over-diagnosing and over-treating breast cancer .. We ought to use this scandal to examine more closely where cancer money gets spent – on treatment, turning cancer patients into customers – and rarely on prevention. While I appreciate the gesture, pink ribbons to me have come to symbolize cancer patients as profit centers, both for consumer goods capitalizing on an association with the goodwill (and Komen), as well as for ungodly expensive drugs that don’t always provide better outcomes

.. read more

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/d2239780-4d4e-11e1-8741-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1lGMINQMA

Romney Isn’t Concerned, by Paul Krugman

“Conservatism without compassion.”

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http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/the-komen-foundation-apologizes-reverses-on-planned-parenthood/?ref=opinion

The Komen Foundation Apologizes, Reverses on Planned Parenthood, by Andrew Rosenthal

“At a time when political leaders never admit fault and rarely accept responsibility, the Komen foundation did both, and that’s worth celebrating.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/opinion/brooks-how-to-fight-the-man.html?ref=opinion

How to Fight The Man, by David Brooks

“A fogie’s advice on how to beat the fogies.”

Cancer Group Backs Down on Cutting Off Planned Parenthood

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/business/sec-is-avoiding-tough-sanctions-for-large-banks.html?scp=1&sq=s.e.c.&st=cse

S.E.C. Is Avoiding Tough Sanctions for Large Banks

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/us/politics/senate-approves-ban-on-insider-trading-by-congress.html?scp=5&sq=senate&st=cse

Senate Approves Ban on Insider Trading by Congress

Police Kill 4 Protesters as Egyptians Unleash Fury Over Soccer Riot Deaths

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/world/middleeast/gaza-protesters-throw-slippers-at-un-chief.html?scp=2&sq=gaza&st=cse

Protesters in Gaza Throw Shoes and Sticks at U.N. Chief

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/world/middleeast/effort-to-rebrand-arab-spring-backfires-in-iran.html?scp=7&sq=iran&st=cse

Effort to Rebrand Arab Spring Backfires in Iran

 Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking.

It’s nothing to brag about.

And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.

Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don’t have all the answers to think that they do.

Most people would think it’s wonderful when someone says, “I’m willing, Lord! I’ll do whatever you want me to do!” Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas.

And anyone who tells you they know, they just know what happens when you die, I promise you, they don’t.

How can I be so sure? Because I don’t know, and they do not possess mental powers that I do not have.

The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt.

Doubt is humble, and that’s what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong.

This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.

If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you’d resign in protest.

To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers.

If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let’s remember what the real problem was… that we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it.

That’s it.

Grow up or die.

Bill Maher

He will point the finger at those who have made your life bad and tell you “They are the fault, they are to blame”.  Kinda like Hitler did in post WWI Germany.

The Crazier the Better

Think of Gingrich as the secret love child of Milton Friedman and Howard Stern. Or of nuclear-war advocate Herman Kahn and Marilyn Manson. Newt’s brand of conservative ‘idea generation’ is designed, first and foremost, to get lots of attention – which it has – and to make the values we’ve held for generations seem stale, rigid, and somehow less exciting than the futuristic corporate oligarchy of tomorrow.

Shock value is just as important as the ideas themselves. In fact, it’s more important. The Newt conservatives are conducting an intellectual guerrilla operation against deeply held values of the common good. Most of the ideas aren’t intended to be practical. They’re like performance art, but of a kind that’s designed to reinforce the suggestion that our old way of life is failing.

Newt is merely the latest and most conspicuous example of this Insane Idea Factory in action. There’s plenty more where he came from.

And the crazier the idea, the better. There are no rules and no boundaries, even those of common decency. Firing janitors and making poor kids clean the schools instead? That’s creative thinking! Ending Social Security and putting the financial security of a nation’s elderly at risk? That’s innovation! These liberals won’t think outside the box!

For all their carping about ‘liberal dreamers,’ there are no more impractical and wild-eyed dreamers on the planet than Gingrich and his fellow Conservative Utopians. They love coming up with the kinds of ideas that college students used to have in the sixties when they were getting high in their dorm rooms. The difference is that the college students were straight again in the morning.

But in the halls of conservative think tanks, the lava lamps never stop burning.

The Unthinkable

Herman Kahn wrote a book called Thinking the Unthinkable in which he argued that the US could attack the Soviet Union and start a nuclear war and “win.” That laid the foundation for decades more of a pointless and costly arms race, and spawned a whole industry of intellectual agents provocateurs whose role was to challenge conventional thinking with “rule-breaking” brilliance – even when , especially when, the conventional thinking was right.

An entire right-wing think tank industry was spawned. That network generated many ideas that served large corporations, including the concept of an “individual mandate” compelling citizens to buy health coverage from an industry dominated by for-profit insurers. That’s why Newt endorsed the idea, when it was created for the purpose of undermining the Clintons’ health reform project. He’s only rejected it now because it undermines an even more important objective: defeating Obama.

Hey, creative thinking’s great. I wouldn’t be affiliated with an organization like the Institute for Ethics in Emerging Technologies if I didn’t believe in exploring radical ideas. But the idea is only part of the process. It’s equally important to review the idea to see if it makes sense. Brainstorming begins with creativity and free association. But then it should be followed by analysis and common sense, hopefully leavened with humane values. The Gingrich types never get past the free association part.

As I was saying, creative thinking is great – that is, if you don’t forget the ‘thinking’ part.

The Agenda

The real objective is to convince middle-class Americans that most of the things they value in life – job opportunities, education for their children, a secure retirement – are obsolete, ineffective, standing in the way of a more vibrant future. That’s why Jack Kemp pushed “Free Enterprise Zones,” which would have suspended most of our labor laws and minimum wage requirements. The idea keeps resurfacing as a way to prevent outsourcing to the Third World – which it would, by turning portions of our own country into Third World enclaves.

Gingrich’s”Contract With America” was a masterpiece of word manipulation. Now he’s rebranding reality again: Economic security will “stifle innovation.” The Social Security system doesn’t “tap the energy of the market.” Unionized janitors are preventing poor kids form “learning the culture of work.”

Newt is like the kid in your high school who was pretty smart – but thought he was a genius. He’s not even close. But when it comes to distracting and confusing the public just enough to push through a radical corporatist agenda, he’s pretty damned smart.

Know what’s not smart? Underestimating Gingrich, or the corporate idea factory he represents.

The Box

Gingrich’s supporters tell us he was born to generate new and creative ideas. He “thinks outside the box.” But all of his ideas would make the rich even richer. However crazy they sound, they all serve The Agenda, an ambitious plan to help mega-corporations rule our lives like feudal barons while destroying the social contract that made this country prosperous.

Ir may not be written down in a single document, but make no mistake: There is an Agenda.

Newt doesn’t really think outside the box at all. His mind is locked inside an ironclad receptacle in which every idea must serve, protect and amplify oligarchic wealth and power. He stays inside this container with every word, every thought.

And if Gingrich has his way, we’ll all be locked inside that box too. Its interior may be dark and claustrophobically small. But there’s still room enough for the future he envisions, the world he represents, the bitter medicine we’ll all be forced to swallow if our country is placed under the care of conservatism’s Dr. Strange.