Politically Minded

Illustrating the differences between the various ideologies, while you weigh the merits of becoming a hermit.

Don't necessarily agree with all of this, but one of many kissoffs to a president I won't miss, unless Obama manages to be even worse - and with January 20 being so close at hand when I first submitted this to my now invisible Ma.gnolia account, I felt the need to bookmark at least one. Found on Furl.

David Brooks, in an op / ed piece to the New York times, discovers that participation in the market does not magically transform human beings into the rational beings that one could easily see that they aren't by ... oh, say, talking to them.

Rebuttal to an often repeated and sometimes rationalized piece of folk wisdom that holds that such wars never happen. Found on Furl.

Satire posted during the Obama campaign.

Deliberately bookmarking an article posted over five years ago to help make a point - one keeps hearing people say that the American job market has been bad "lately", as if the severe shortage of entry level opportunity in America were a recent phenomenon, instead of the lingering scandal that it has been.

Now, something from today (2009) as the author talks about sometimes undignified extremes that some applicants go to in the often futile search for work. Submitted to Digg by bamafun.

Yet another reason why I'll never vote Republican, again.

A thought to keep in mind as you read this - what happens to the already overburdened graduate whose job gets outsourced, and then can't find another because he's deemed "overqualified" for the low skilled, low wage jobs available? Answer: Look up "capitalization of interest" and then note that one can't erase student loan debt by declaring bankruptcy. What will result will be the mathematical equivalent of charging compound interest on a loan that the graduate has been deprived of the means of repaying.

Let's hear it ... for village idiocy. Blog post mentioning the praise of the same, from somebody who ought to know better.

Please, somebody, tell me that this isn't true ...

Telling an unflattering truth.

Watch what's left of a once distinguished architectural legacy be destroyed because our city is run by idiots. Consider this quote: ""Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Alderman Matlak said. "A lot of people don't want 19th-century buildings.I grew up in a frame house. My bedroom was 8 by 8. People don't want that now." Then - here's a wild idea. Maybe they might try moving into one of the neighborhoods that isn't historic? Which, in Chicago, is almost all of them, now? Speaking as somebody who lives in Chicago, I can report that the difference of opinion between the developers and the preservationists on this is not an honest one; the rate of demolition has not been exaggerated one bit.

Story from the Onion - especially useful as a link when posting to Tribe.net.

The Soviet Realist version of LOLCats

Piece in which the narrator, on meeting a homeless man, comes face to face with his own self-absorption.

Another example of what has become of the rule of law in the United States.

This report comes from London, but the attitudes mentioned can easily be found in the United States as well. Wondering if, in the long run, the Diaspora has a future, at least anywhere in the West or the Middle East, outside of Israel.

Blog post about the joy that is life under "employment at will", and the public response to the problems that arise under that policy.

Watch a mockery being made of due process - husband held in prison for 14 years on a civil contempt charge.