Weekend wrapup
Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 09:24AM No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post
Our image in the Muslim world would probably improve if we stopped killing so many Muslims.
Sounds like a whole big cloak-and-dagger clusterfuck in Pakistan. What’s our urgent national interest over there again?
The disgraceful, repulsive treatment of Bradley Manning continues. Those of you in the area can join the protest at Quantico VA two weeks from today - Sunday, March 20. Please do.
Lisa Dodson on the Moral Underground.
Torrent sites have moved their domain registrations from “.com” to others (like .me) because of bullshit like this.
A new kind of activism. If there’s no union busting legislation flying through your legislature this could be a good way to spend a little time.
The Supreme Court actually placed a limit on corporate personhood. Together with the Westboro ruling it was a surprisingly good week from a body I have come to expect very little from.
The criminals who wrecked the economy have gotten away scot free not because making a case against them is too difficult but because they have seized enough control of the political and judicial systems to be able to act with impunity.
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve largely turned over my blog to news, updates and commentary on Ohio’s SB 5. It’s an assault on the middle class, our neighbors and our families. It’s a huge fight, it’s extremely important, and it’s what I’m spending my time and energy on right now. It passed the state Senate last week and goes to the House this one. The tactics used in the Senate were at best questionable, senators were simply lying to constituents about their intentions, and the whole think reeked of cronyism - and contempt for democracy.
This fight is happening elsewhere. It isn’t a protest, it’s a movement. And you won’t hear about it, and least in its proper scope, from national outlets (via, and via). To hear about this stuff you need to find alternatives. Go to First Draft for the latest on what’s happening, or go to their blogger Scout’s Twitter feed, check out her live reports from the scene and check out the links she’s posting.
To find out the latest from Columbus visit Plunderbund, or go to the #SB5 Daily, a paper.li site curated by Anna in Cbus. Start checking out the many smaller outlets covering the movement here in Ohio.
The point here is: there are huge numbers of us in this movement, but we can’t depend on big outlets to report on it properly. So we’ll have to scour a larger number of out-of-the-way sites instead. It’s more work and it requires going off the MSM grid, but it’s doable. We’ll find each other. We already are.
Big media review of Ohio. Andy Kroll on Wisconsin.
I meant to post this from Athenae last week:
Oh my fucking GOD, my Facebook page is not subject to the Fairness Doctrine.Don’t know the context, but it’s probably funnier to just imagine it anyway. More big laughs from Thers.
ECONNED EXCERPT from page 134:
Did Morgan Stanley and its cohort knowingly push the Mexican banks toward the brink? Ex-Morgan Stanley derivatives salesman Frank Portnoy, who helped peddle the Mexican deals, suggests as much:At the time, many US bankers regarded the Mexican banks as cash piñatas and were eager to smash them open…if they were piñatas, they weren’t even close to full yet….Our plan was to fatten the banks with some more….An easier path to a Mexican bank’s wallet was through its stomach.What would we feed the Mexican banks? Obviously, it should be high margin and high volume. We wanted to make as much money as we could. It should be addictive too, so the banks would gorge themselves. Once the banks were bloated and couldn’t eat another bite, it would be easy to bat them down. Then, at the appropriate moment one little nudge would cause the entire obese Mexican banking system to topple like Humpty Dumpty.
During the month before the Mexico implosion, one of Partnoy’s colleagues gloated, “You have to be a criminal to be good at this business.”
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