Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
- House GOP Picks Ethically-Challenged Freshmen for Judiciary Committee – Great — appoint two guys who were forced to resign as US Attorneys as congressional committee members overseeing, among other things, the US Attorneys office.
- Staver Lays Out Religious Right’s Plans for Fighting DADT Repeal – Does anyone think the Liberty Counsel wouldn’t still be militating for all this if it weren’t a time of war and if the service chiefs were all full-blown behind it? Of course they would. It’s not about the peripherals, it’s about their wanting gays to be second-class citizens (at best).
- Robert Reich on American-Style Capitalism and Jobs – This is, in fact, the bottom line. And with the increasing globalization of economies, as the underlying article notes, supporting the profits of American-owned companies doesn’t necessarily translate much, if at all, to the jobs picture in the US. So the question becomes, should our economic policy be focused on the profitability of said companies, or on the economic welfare of the citizenry? The two are not (and should not be) mutually exclusive, but neither are they the same thing.
- Coburn Will Block 9/11 First Responders Bill, Potentially Killing Its Chance Of Passage – Sen. Coburn, do you REALLY think it’s more defensible that you’re rejecting this bill based (truthfully or not) on the process around its introduction, rather than its substance? Really? Isn’t that how the Pharisees operated?
- “If the Internet Had Always Existed” by Jeff Rubin on CollegeHumor – Heh.
- BBC News – China bans English words in media – One of the strengths of English — and a major reason why it has supplanted earlier linguas francas — is its flexibility and adaptability and willingness (no matter how much we sometimes hold our noses) to adopt foreign terms. (I have much less of an issue with adopting vocabulary than devolving grammar, but that’s an issue for another day.) By taking this kind of stance, the Chinese put themselves firmly alongside of the French in seeking linguistic purity rather than linquistic hegemony. In the past, China has always conquered by quietly absorbing its conquerers.
- This Is, Quite Possibly, The Saddest Story Of The Year – I’m sure leaving in the temporary reduction on the marginal tax rate for the wealthiest will soon relieve these people of all their woes. Right?
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