It takes enormous personal courage to share your pain so others may grow and learn. I wish to celebrate Ann for such story telling. We are all a little more human tonight for her generosity. If you missed Crazy Questions, Sane Answers – go look.

There is an absolutely heartbreaking documentary by the New York Times on a girls school in Pakistan that is being closed down by the Taliban. Please watch it; it really struck home with me.

I have two girls myself and their hunger for learning is astonishing. My youngest, who’s 4 1/2, is in a Montessori school where they suggested she could move up to kindergarten a year early. Once she caught wind of this, she’s been working her butt off to get into that class. Her goal (not mine, mind you. She got this into her head all by herself) is to read all of the beginners books by herself (at least a couple dozen of them) and she has started making up homework assignments for herself. Last night she was writing down and solving her own addition problems. It would astonish me that a 4-year-old could do this except I’ve seen it all before. My eldest, who’s 8, skipped a grade and  just came home proudly showing us her report card.  She is now reading through the entire Harry Potter series again.

Now I am imagining what I would do if someone tried to hold them back. With guns, public whippings, beheadings. I used to be not very keen on Obama’s plan to add more troops over there. But goddamn we’ve got to do something.

Don’t call it schadenfreude. That’s the term for taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, and I’m not guilty of that.

What I feel today, as I review the news that former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio’s conviction has been upheld, isn’t about pleasure in his mighty fall from power. In fact, it’s not “pleasure” at all.

Instead, tell me what the word is for “taking satisfaction in justice served,” because that’s what I’m guilty of. Right now I’m feeling powerfully and righteously satisfied that a man who caused so much misfortune is getting at least a small slice of what he deserves. Full story »

by Lara Amber

I’ve never been an early adopter of technology. I, like most people, come in at wave two or three, but well before grandmas finally get that machine everyone else had for a decade. So ordering a Kindle 2 the day it was announced by Bezo goes against the grain. I’ve had it for a day, and let me tell you it’s going to change the world.

I’m not talking about the sleek design, the high price tag, or the status symbol of carting around the next hot gadget. This, as has been said before, is the iPod of the book world, and its effect will be just as profound. Full story »

The UK, in 1979, was a mess.

In 1976, the then-Labour government of James Callaghan became the first developed-nation member of the OECD to have to beg the IMF for a bail-out after economic collapse. The top tax bracket was 83%, excluding tax on dividends and interest, while the bottom bracket was 33%. The European Economic Community (precursor to the EU) made an additional $3 billion available on top of the $3.6 billion from the IMF.

The damage of high taxation, high wages and terrible red tape was causing businesses to collapse and, as they fell, government nationalised them.

The Britain that Margaret Thatcher “won” 30 years ago, in 1979, was wracked by daily strikes by millions of unionised workers. Their wage packets, under the Labour government, were being increased by 30% annually but with no concomitant increase in efficiency or production.

The setting for a battle royal was in place. No-one doubted that getting England back to work would require incredible hardship. Few felt it would be possible. Full story »

“You’ve got to give the Republicans this: they stay on message, regardless of context or logic. Society could be in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and the GOP would be wringing its hands over the government giving out shotguns rather than giving tax cuts to shotgun makers.“

- Bromius

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• OCO satellite lost, GOSAT gets “first light”
• Scientists suggest burying carbon with crop residues in the deep ocean
• Reversing urban flight required to cut transportation carbon emissions
• Track your region’s CO₂ emissions on Google Earth
• Economists generally agree on climate disruption effects
• Coal ash affects hundreds of communities nationwide

On February 23, NASA’s newest satellite failed to reach orbit, crashing instead into the southern Pacific Ocean. This satellite, the Orbital Carbon Observatory (OCO), was supposed to monitor the emission and absorption of carbon dioxide (CO₂) for at least the next two years. This is a terrible loss for the scientists involved, and for climate science in general, for reasons I’ll explain shortly.

Luckily, all is not necessarily lost. Full story »

As I watched the Oscars last night – or perhaps “endured” is a better word, because Huge Ackman prancing around with his nipples all stiff over the return of The Musical! (come on, just try to say it without Jazz Hands) is more than I can take without a cabinetful of medication – I noted that again Meryl Streep got nominated. (And by the way, now I hear that Beyonce might play Ginger in a Gilligan’s Island movie, which means you won’t even be able escape her ubiquitosity by getting stranded on a goddamned deserted island.)

Back to Meryl, though. Full story »

Future Sock

I knit.

I had my imagination tickled by the story of an eighty-three year old named Mrs. Abner Bartlett of Medford, Massachusetts.

Full story »

If you know neither your enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. –Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu maintained that proper planning secures victory before the battle begins. Carl von Clausewitz insisted that war must focus on the political aim. How is it, then, that we are about to put more troops into a war we know is unwinnable and have no coherent objective for them to pursue?

President Obama announced on Feb. 17 that he will send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. That’s just over half of the 30,000 troop escalation that’s been discussed in recent months. Gen. David McKiernan, top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, says he needs another 10,000 troops on top on the 17,000 Obama has promised on top of the 32,000 already in Afghanistan. McKiernan says the pending escalation won’t be a “temporary force uplift.” He thinks we need to keep 60,000 troops in Afghanistan for the next three to four years. “We’ve got to put them in the right places,” he says; but he doesn’t appear to know where those places are.

As foreign policy analyst Gareth Porter tells us, Obama was ready to support the full 30,000 troop escalation, endorsed by Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and Central Command head Gen. David Petraeus. Full story »

Pepe Escobar’s new book excerpted.

It’s Scholars & Rogues’s pleasure to present an excerpt from the new book by Pepe Escobar, correspondent for Asia Times Online and the Real News Internet TV channel: Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books).

From his ATimes bio:

An extreme traveler, Pepe’s nose for news takes him to all corners of the globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination. Two weeks before September 11, while Pepe was in the tribal areas of Pakistan, he wrote his prophetic piece, “Get Osama! Now! Or else.” Full story »

Imagine a hearing room in the U.S. Senate. Imagine men and women trying to navigate the issues that surround health care in America and negotiate a solution.

Now imagine that the doors to the room are closed, and that the participants remain unidentified, and that, in fact, “Senate aides had threatened to expel anyone who divulged details of the work group,” reports The New York Times:

Since last fall, many of the leading figures in the nation’s long-running health care debate have been meeting secretly in a Senate hearing room. Now, with the blessing of the Senate’s leading proponent of universal health insurance, Edward M. Kennedy, they appear to be inching toward a consensus that could reshape the debate.

The 20 or so people in that room sitting around tables arranged in a square, says The Times, “include lobbyists for AARP, Aetna, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Business Roundtable, Easter Seals, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.”

Well, I’m not inside that room, and neither are you. And we should be, because President Obama said we would be.
Full story »

Yesterday was a roll of toilet paper – congratulations to Terry.

I saved a special picture for Friday.

Yesterday Nick and Elaine identified the inside of the washing machine – congratulations, you win the box of Tide detergent.

For your consideration today:

This just in, America’s youth are a bunch of narcissitically self-entitled little snots.  I’m thinking of an anti-drug commercial right now.  Can you guess which one?

The paper of record (Max Roosevelt), tells me that universities are dealing with “grade disputes” and that the probable cause is “student expectation”.  In other words, “My grades aren’t as high as I think they should be, so we have a dispute.”  Really, it isn’t fair.  You work, like, really really hard all semester.  Ya know, like, going to every class and even reading all of the books that the professor assigns.  You couldn’t possibly, like, receive, like, a C for that.  You even took the time to learn how to use an apostrophe and everything.

We’ll get Grampa Bud’s statement out of the way early, “Who ever told you that life was fair?”

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Just about everyone identified the image yesterday – a stack of blank CDs. qy was the first to respond, so the judges declare you the winner, but points go to Ubertramp for the most creative answer.

You all are very good at this game, so I had to search for an interesting image. It’s unlikely I’ll stump you, but maybe this will slow you down some… have a guess.

Obama was in town yesterday to sign his stimulus bill. This victory, the first great moment of the Obama administration, was a hard-fought one earned in the face of fierce opposition from fiscally responsible Congressional Republicans. These staunch guardians of the American purse strings have proven, time and again, their willingness to combat wastefulness and ill-advised spending by…

Wait a second. Back up. Full story »

We are witnessing what a military takeover of a superpower looks like in the new American century. David Pertraeus became the most dangerous American general since Douglas MacArthur when George W. Bush announced that his “main man” would decide when, how and if an Iraq troop drawdown would occur, giving Petraeus unilateral control of U.S. foreign policy. In the summer of 2008, when then candidate Barack Obama started talking about a 16-month withdrawal deadline and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki said that sounded about right, you could almost hear Petraeus screeching What a world! What a world! from Baghdad to Washington. If you listened closely, you also heard the propaganda campaign to sell America on an endless occupation of Iraq click into high gear. Full story »

Yesterday was lettuce on a tortilla – congratulations to Rho.

Have a guess at this image – same rules as yesterday.