This Week in Trump Outrages

You honestly can't make this stuff up -- Trump is well into the Orwellian approach to appointments made so popular during the Reagan years, with lots of people put into agencies whose basic missions they hate. There may be a little sanity injected on the foreign affairs fronts, but domestically, it's all rape and pillage the nation for the banksters and oligarchs, stomp civil liberties for increased profits. Hoo-hah.

1. Most obvious crime, putting Jeff Sessions in as Attorney General, a man considered too racist to be a federal judge, but apparently just right to enforce federal laws on civil rights and all the rest.

   Sessions also called the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP “communist-inspired”...

   Perfect for the Trumpian paranoia world. He's also been characterized as amnesty's worst enemy, so he should be in good position when the interments deportations begin...


2. Then there's presumptive National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who is considered unhinged by people familiar with his prior career and rhetoric during Trump's campaign.

   He was reportedly effectively forced out of the DIA after clashing with superiors over his allegedly chaotic management style and vision for the agency. According to the New York Times, Flynn exhibited a loose relationship with facts, leading his subordinates to refer to Flynn's repeated dubious assertions as "Flynn facts"

   So we may hate his policies, and along the way he may create chaos in the security and defense fields, snuggle up to Russia, and maybe even push us into a war!


3. Then there's the real right-wing demagogue Steve Bannon, who the New York Times has called "Turn on the Hate" Bannon, and who Trump has named as his Chief White House Strategist. Ok, Priebus is the Chief of Staff, but with this guy setting "strategy," we're unlikely to see an end to the hatefulness of the campaign period -- his time at Breitbart pretty much was stop #1 for alt-right talking points and fake news narratives -- what the Southern Poverty Law Center (a place you should consider supporting over the coming years!) has called a "white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill."



4. Then there's Trump himself, self-styled "business guy," whose tax plan has already been shown to be a disaster when tried at the state level. (Of course, those of us who lived through the Reagan/Bush Sr. years already knew that "trickle down" just means huge deficits and cuts to services.) But his personal shamelessness is already on full display, as he encourages foreign dignitaries to stay at his new hotel and starts to leverage his future office for other business advancement. Barely two weeks post-election and he has us well on the way to being a huge new cleptocracy! oy.

Edited to add this example from Argentina, where Trump wasted no time asking for help with a building project.

Privatizing the costs of being a crappy employer

Glad to see California take on Wal-Mart for paying their employees so badly that most of them need public assistance to get up to subsistance living -- that is, for outsourcing their healthcare and some of their wages to the public. I hope that people fighting the arrival of these creeps in their communities bring up the point that while they may provide low-cost shopping, they do it at the cost of impoverishing their employees and the cities where they work.

Turning outrage into sanity?

This bill seems a great idea to me -- it's a crime that a few small-minded state officials can virtually disenfranchise large swaths of the population on whim or through negligence. Here's hoping that the same energy that drove unexpectedly high turnout this fall will also create pressure to pass this one.

Quote of the day, political woes edition

Oh well, you battle global economic meltdown with the corrupt idiotic elites you have...

- Atrios

Widespread frustration

Am finding this a very frustrating time to be a well-informed citizen of the world -- rabid politics is dooming us to extended recession, America seems to be near-single-handedly preventing the world from addressing global warming before it's too late, and our government is reacting violently to expressions of free speech and public demonstrations. I'm short of time, but I hate to let my "grumpy" file get any thicker before Christmas, so here's a big frustration dump from the last month or two, without much additional comment:

• How evo psych is laying waste to responsible science journalism
  
  
• Essays on the trap of US student debt
  
  
• Sexism's Low-Grade Fever
  
  
• The Psychology of Nakedness (and unfortunate implications for opinions of women)
  
  
• A flurry of how online harrassment of women is completely different from what men experience (in both quantity and sometimes-terrifying quality):
  
  
  1. On being harassed: a little GF history and some current events
     
     
  2. But How Do You Know It’s Sexist? The #MenCallMeThings Round-Up
     
     
  3. The Internet Miniskirt
     
     
  4. "You should have your tongue ripped out": the reality of sexist abuse online
     
  
  
• What baseball tells us about racism
  
  
• Congressional Dysfunction Begins To Spook Old Pros
  
  
• What We Want to See On TV: Handsome Politicians
  
  
• EPA chief tells GOP to STFU
  
  
• Wal-Mart to Cut Healthcare Benefits
  
  
• Lack of jobs leaves more suburban, middle class sliding into poverty
  
  
• CHART OF THE DAY: Paul Ryan Wrong About Upwardly Mobile America
  
  
• CHART OF THE DAY: Long Term Unemployment Is A Huge Problem — Especially If You’re Old
  
  
• Older, Suburban and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census
  
  
• New Cartoon: Government To The Rescue!
  
  
• Worthless (we can always protect the banksters somehow)
  
  
• A Banker Speaks, With Regret

  My daughter and I are reading Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” aloud to each other, and those Depression-era injustices seem so familiar today. That’s why the Occupy movement resonates so deeply: When the federal government goes all-out to rescue errant bankers, and stiffs homeowners, that’s not just bad economics. It’s also wrong.

  
  
• Who Killed Hard Work And Personal Responsibility?
  
  
• Federal Prosecution Of Financial Fraud Falls To 20-Year Low, New Report Shows
  
  
• The euro zone’s terrible mistake
  
  
• Ignorance is bliss when it comes to challenging social issues
  
  
• The Medicaid Ambush: The Supreme Court's unexpected and astounding reasons for wanting to hear a challenge to Obamacare.
  
  
• Congratulations, Television! You Are Even Worse At Masculinity Than Femininity
  
  
• IBM co-opting GPS system?
  
  
• Topeka, Kansas, legalizes domestic violence to save money
  
  
• How Medicare Fails the Elderly
  
  
• W. enters my wife’s schoolboard race
  
  
• Naomi Wolf: how I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street
  
  
• Psychology of pepper spray
  
  
• Pepper-spray inventor: "It's fashionable to use chemical agents on people who have an opinion"
  
  
• The Healing Process
  
  
• San Diego police arrest congressional candidate for voter registration in Civic Center Plaza
  
  
• Occupy Forcing Militarized PDs to Show Their Colors
  
  

To hell in a handbasket

I apparently just read, seethe, and file the links away for some imaginary future date when I'll have lots of spare time to analyze, ponder, and blog. But that's not happenin'! So here's a record-breaking heap of links from the last three months, that pain me to varying degrees and/or foreshadow the end of the American experiment:

I. Politics

• Oh, What Did You Think Would Happen? -- Governor Christie renegs on a major political deal, unashamedly
  
  
• The First Amendment, Upside Down -- campaign finance *stifles* speech?!?
  
  
• Mysterious Firm Gives $1 Million To Pro-Romney Group, Closes Shop
  
  
• Why the Press Loves Jon Huntsman but Ignores Ron Paul -- The media is fascinated by protest candidates who critique their own parties, but it marginalizes those who attack the establishment [fascinating!!]
  
  
• Conservative pundits grapple with ‘anti-science’ charge, flail
  
  
• Wis. Official To DMV Employees: Don't Offer People Free Voter-ID Cards Unless They Ask (no reason to *encourage* civic participation by the poor!)
  
  
• When Ronald Reagan Was President, There Was A Soviet Union And A Cold War -- but now mindless conformity is all the GOP needs
  
  
• Dennis G. Jacobs: Case study in judicial pathology -- more turning the Constitution inside out in the name of Security...
  

II. Economy

• Social Security provides the majority of income for three-fifths of Americans age 65+, but hey! let's whack at it and keep those old folks scramblin'!
  
  
• Related: We know how to reduce poverty among seniors
  
  
• Bill Gross: Deficit reduction can — and should — wait -- even big Wall Streeters can see the obvious! why not our political leaders?
  
  
• British Economy, After Austerity, at Zero Growth in the Past Nine Months -- more evidence that our approach is a deadly one
  
  
• Public special ed employee has $0 paycheck after health insurance deductions -- ah, but the public sector is pampered!
  
  
• A rising hunger among children -- eventually a lack of money affects nutrition and these children's futures
  
  
• The Embarrassment of the Poverty Rate -- is that it gets higher as we throw up our hands
  
  
• The Price of Rural Life -- disproportionately dependent on national support
  
  
• Big oil companies make huge profits with taxpayer support but cut jobs anyway
  

III. Health Care

• How our two-tiered healthcare system hurts kids -- wait longer for appointments and care than identical symptoms with private insurance
  
  
• Perversity -- public health interests and the financial interest of hospitals are often at odds, showing why capitalism is unlikely to solve this one
  

IV. Other stuff

• All Work and No Pay: The Great Speedup -- American workers getting squeezed from both ends
  
  
• Guilt Through Algorithmic Association -- when what people Google starts affecting your life or your safety (really scary!)
  
  
• Even married monogamous women are dirty sluts who deserve cancer now -- when a vaccine becomes a political football
  
  
• Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas -- when you hear that "when 10% hold an unshakeable belief" is the threshold, it makes more sense of the craziness that passes for Conventional Wisdom these days...
  
  
• Return of the Bug-Eyed Bachmann -- not so funny when you clue into the gender politics of such images -- more here.
  
  
• A Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not "Crazy" -- more on how women's opinions and feelings get dismissed
  
  
• Finally, really pulling lemons out of the lemonade pitcher: Ugandans say they were beaten and forced from homes to make room for carbon credit forest. Of course...
  
  

Quote of the day, soulless edition

Wow. Boehner on whether his bill will prevent downgrade of U.S. creditworthiness: "That is beyond my control."

Josh Marshall, at TPM

Thursday link-dump

Accidental free-time this afternoon! Let's get some recent infuriators out of the tab-heap! (with apologies for how old some of these are...)

• Your iPhone is tracking your movements. No really, and there seems to be no workaround.
  Edit: since this was discovered, it's been fixed in an operating system patch, so if you're updating, you should be ok. reminder to stay alert!
  
  
• Authorities finally admit that all three reactors at Fukushima melted down -- honesty is good but doesn't really help with damage mitigation...
  
  
• DHS documents show agency isn't sure pornoscanners are safe -- but really, everything is fine! don't look over here!!
  
  
• This is what happens when we don't vaccinate -- outbreaks, at huge public cost
  
  
• Why A Power Of Attorney Is No Substitute For Marriage When A Loved One Is In The Hospital -- imagine not being able to hold a loved one's hand in their final hours, because paperwork was being investigated several states away
  
  
• CHART: Bush Policies Dominant Cause Of National Debt -- those tax cuts have cost us more than our economic woes + ongoing Middle East wars combined!
  
  
• Chart Of The Day: For American Workers, No Economic Recovery -- suck it up, peons!!
  
  
• Schumer: Republicans’ ‘Slash-And-Burn’ Policies May Be Effort To Sabotage Economy -- win the election at the cost of the economy! sigh.
  
  
• Medicaid a Big Deal Too -- people forget how much of the elder population relies on Medicaid when nursing home time comes
  
  
• Tipping point for severe climate change already reached -- well THAT's not good news!
  
  
• Wonkbook: What a Nobel prize won’t get you -- apparently a label of "qualified" from the U.S. Senate
  
  
• Hollerin’ Season -- what it's like to be subjected to sexual harrassment (or steeled against it) everywhere you go
  
  
• The Women Men Won't See -- an amazing story of a female comics enthusiast being treated like she literally isn't present in the store
  
  
• Is Roe safe? Absolutely not. -- not a good time for complacency
  
  
• Common Hour: The Promise and Perils of Hook-Up Culture (video) -- in some ways reassuring, but paints a deeply depressing image of sexual relations on campuses today
  
  
• The Secret History of Iraq’s Invisible War -- an amazing story of immense financial investment into fancy technology to counter low-tech methods of terrorist assault
  
  
• Afghanistan, the Barking Dog -- a great visual summary of our flailings there

No really, we were trying to find him too!

Apparently Pakistan is rounding up the informants who helped the CIA locate bin Laden, and their fate is unknown. But these guys are our friends, right?

Giant pre-vacation link-dump

Infuriating:

• The New Obama Budget (by Krugman)

  ...listening to the administration, you’d think that discretionary spending, not health care, is at the heart of our long-run deficit problems — and you’d also think that the job of rescuing the economy was done, with unemployment still at 9 percent.

  More on this, in a different form, here.
  
  
• Krugman: Republicans want to "eat America’s seed corn" -- along the same lines, Echidne: Eating the Seed Corn. Who Needs Education?
  
  
• Health insurers continue to drop children's coverage
  
  
• Journalists angry over the commission of journalism (fact-checking is upsetting!)
  
  
• Wisconsin Update: Trashing “the Hippies”
  
  
• Frustrated in Florida -- more overprotection of capable children/teens
  
  
• Schools often react poorly to student suicides, experts say -- in fact, the most common responses are precisely counterproductive!
  
  
• Military Personnel Say Pentagon Ignores Sexual Assaults, Harassment
  
  
• Today's Deep Thought -- restricted range of arguments about gender equality
  
  
• Toxic Chemicals and Where the Burden Should Be -- quit blaming moms and let's get some decent environmental regulation!

  But there is only so much time in the day - is my time really better spent researching which deodorants are least likely to cause developmental problems in potential future babies, or is it better spent advocating that the FDA and USDA and other acronyms stop letting poisons into our products in the first place?

• Alaska state rep refuses TSA grope of her mastectomy scars, drives home from Seattle -- and for those who think this is all accomplishing something, there's TSA airport body scan tests miss gun: report
  
  
• The undiscussed elephant in the room: poverty!
  
  
  1. It Takes a Village, Not a Tiger

     The parenting wars look like they are about children, but really they are only about each parent’s own child. That’s why they serve such a useful social function. Without them we might have to think about the frightening place America is becoming for ever more millions of kids. Who knows? We might even feel that we should do something about it.

  2. Class And Social Security

     A 30 percent cut in benefits would represent disaster for tens of millions of Americans, but a barely noticeable inconvenience for VSPs and everyone they know. A rise in the retirement age would be a vast hardship for people who do manual labor, but if anything a gift to VSPs, who don’t want to step aside in any case. And so on down the line.
     
     So going after Social Security is a way to seem tough and serious — but entirely at the expense of people you don’t know.

  3. The compensation-productivity gap

Fascinating:

• The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect
  
  
• An Interesting Study on Drug Use Prevention
  
  
• My big picture view of Wisconsin -- how people think wealth is distributed (versus how it is, how it should be)
  
  
• Why Do Protests Bring Down Regimes? neat!
  
  
• Quantum Mechanics vs. Relativity: It Depends on What "Understand" Means -- heck, they're both hard
  
  
• TEDxSF - Jill Vialet - 11/17/09 (video talk) -- how critical play is to children, and how amazingly they respond to even a pilot effort
  
  
• The Mad Men Account -- why is the series so appealing (and to whom)?
  
  
• SoundWorks Collection: Gary Hecker - Veteran Foley Artist -- performing sound effects back into movies; amazing!
  

Cheerful:

• Can I Get An Amen? America doesn't run the world.
  
  
• Obama administration replaces controversial 'conscience' regulation for health-care workers -- do your job or find another one!
  
  
• Russ Feingold Launches Progressives United PAC -- aiming at the Citizens United decision, in particular
  
  
• Religious Coalition Tells The GOP That ‘The Budget Shouldn’t Be Balanced On the Backs Of The Poor’
  
  
• Mushroom and BalletBoy Go to the Park! kids need some independence!
  
  
• They Said Shut Up, but mombloggers continue to share everyday life with others working through it
  
  
• The Court would like to balance the scales -- time off, as long as you're excited about any kid you get!
  
  
• Jon Stewart Nails Fox News Hypocrisy On Teachers Vs. Wall Street Pay Levels
  
  
• Parov Stelar - Catgroove -- this guy can dance! great fun!
  
  
• What would Feynman do? -- long but hilarious skewering of stupid interview questions
  
  
• Today’s Silly Question -- what's cuter than a smiling piglet?!?
  
  
• And now for no apparent reason… Kittens… in… Bowls!
  
  

So much frustration, so little time

That's right, it's time for a link dump from my Grumpy Tabs file...

• Is science hard to communicate to the public, or does our society devalue intelligence and expertise to the point that people don't even *want* to hear about scientific findings?

  The problem isn't scientists learning how to tell cool stories, which is a skill of great value in any society because humans relate and learn through stories, but that America has raised generations of people to make fun of anyone who cares about shit enough to learn something complicated and be passionately engaged with their work, and marginalize and ignore what they have to say.

• Social contract lying in ashes: what happens when we replace government protection of the common good (funded by -- gasp -- taxes) with privately paid services. Ludicrous versions of justice.
  
  
• Rafe calls this Everything wrong with America in one article -- how, among other things, private prison interests are driving Arizona's draconian immigration policies.
  
  
• Of course, Rafe left out the TSA:
  
  
  1. At increasing numbers of airports, you are now offered the choice between excessively detailed imaging and invasive pat-downs designed to make you stick with the imager, radiation or not. More on this stupidity here.
     
  2. In parallel with the Arizona case above, it turns out that these new machines were brought to bear more due to lobbying by manufacturers than because of any real belief that they'll make anybody safer.
     
  3. Despair, Inc., comes through with some pithy t-shirts to capture your travel experience, if this hasn't driven you from the air entirely.
  
  
• Here's a little bit on military censorship of photos taken in the Mideast and elsewhere.
  
  
• Speaking of the military, looks like the Democrats are throwing them overboard again, planning to abandon DADT in the lame-duck Congressional session.
  
  
• Here's a little reminder that we don't live in a postfeminist era -- the language we use to describe men and women, even when giving a positive review, differs enough to create significantly different outcomes.
  
  
• The Supreme Court may be poised to end class-action lawsuits, which would have a huge impact on the ability of average folks to protect themselves and the rest of us.
  
  
• And finally, from the Department of Brash Hyprocricy, a freshman Republican who railed against healthcare reform complains at a month's delay in getting his own government healthcare. Poooor baby!

Smoke and mirrors

As though the generation of crappy mortgage loans and the foisting of their risk onto investment funds weren't crooked enough, banksters couldn't be bothered to keep records of their shenanigans, so nobody's sure who actually owns the loans on many homes faced with foreclosure. I agree with Digby that it's time for some jail terms and a lot fewer handouts to financial geniuses!!

(via Eschaton)

Economic policies that might surprise you

• Raising the retirement age gets a lot of discussion right now, and Ezra Klein notes that life expectancy has been going up for high wage earners but not so much for those at the bottom of the spectrum. Another policy that bludgeons the already overworked and underpaid.
  (via rc3.org)
  
  
• From the Department of Republican hypocrisy, a chart that compares the long-term effects of the estate-tax cuts (that they love) with those of the unemployment benefits (that they hate). Guess which one really screws the deficit??
  (via rebecca's pocket)
  
  
• I hope that a special place in hell is reserved for people with job openings saying that the unemployed need not apply. That should really pull the economy out of its current hole!!
  

Wednesday tab dump

Really large number of interesting things in the hopper, but a week of solo parenting means I have neither time nor energy to do them justice. So here they come!

• A wolf in sheep's clothing: PayPal screws small event organizers in a nontrivial way. Why all the evil, PayPal??
  
  
• From the Department of Unexamined Privilege: Summer Opportunities for Indentured Servitude.

  Unpaid internships may expedite the climb up the employment ladder for students from relatively wealthy, well-connected families, but for others it just knocks out the bottom rungs altogether.

  (via Atrios)
  
  
• Depressing: the military attempts to reframe internet crime into a terrorism issue so that it can expand its domains of power. The language debate may have already been lost. sigh.
  (via Atrios)
  
  
• Yay! some good news! Obama Administration to Cover PTSD for ALL Veterans (still, kind of tragic that it took this long...)
  
  
• From the Department of Counting Chickens (Schadenfreude office): The GOP's big November problem is that the public hates congressional Republicans! imagine!!
  
  
• Cool news of science: recent neuroscience findings indicate that we may affect the accuracy of our memories every time we recall them! Really neat for a neuro nerd like myself, as it turns some fundamental dogma on its head, but interesting for a general reader too, both conceptually and in how it might help with PTSD and other disorders.
  (via rebecca's pocket)
  
  
• From the Department of Comeuppance: Lady Business: Cleavage in the workplace. hilarious and on-target.
  (via Medley)
  
  
• Planning a vacation? The ways to make it a great one may not be what you think; science has some tips.
  (via rc3.org)
  
  
• And finally, from the Department of Great Metaphors: Pandas and Lobsters: Why Google Cannot Build Social Applications... -- fascinating for its insights into the Internet social space, whether or not you care about Google's business decisions.
  (via Medley)
  

Frustrated and helpless

I used to find myself furious and worried about a lot of things under the Bush Administration, but now I find the areas of continuity with the Obama era even more worrisome, because they indicate institutionalization of a bunch of things that are terrible for our nation, economy, character. It's starting to get me down, and maybe unloading some tabs will help...

• La. Police Doing BP's Dirty Work -- hello? who's in charge here? does corporation trump Constitution??
  
  
• How many Americans are targeted for assassination? um, what? [head-desk]
  
  
• Endless war, a recipe for four-star arrogance -- chilling.
  
  
• Fixing The Ideology Problem in Our Political Press -- a great summary of the problem(s) and critical fixes.
  
  
• We need to restore economic growth -- a case study in how austerity during a recession is a terrible idea.
  
  
• When Greatness Slips Away -- a chipper, chipper summary of ways in which America is losing its way.
  

...but they're *our* crooks!

No amount of violence, irresponsibility, and coverup can keep us from using Blackwater for military security. Of course, when there's another international incident, it will be all Who Could Have Foreseen?!? grrrr....

Creeping crud

I don't know which is worse, the complete ecological disaster that this gushing oil well has created -- the latest being that the oil stream is going to whip around Florida and poison the entire Atlantic coast -- or the completely half-assed, amoral approach that BP has taken to addressing it -- from doubling the mess with poisonous chemicals, to maximixing their profit by keeping most of their fleet busy doing something else, to prioritizing shareholder dividends over the welfare of the rest of the nation. (Plus sending their first responders to get liability releases and keep-quiet notices all over the coast.) Nobody winning here...

(first link via Medley tweet, last via Atrios)

It's time for another istallment of Good News, Bad News!

Because there's just too much of the latter and desperately little of the former...

Good News:
BP might actually get some comeuppance for its negligent drilling practices in the Gulf and many other places. Is it too much to hope?

Bad News:
Dispersants being used to control the spilled oil may be poisoning people who are helping with the clean-up. And presumably the rest of the ecosystem too...
(via Atrios)

Good News:
Legislation repealing the stupid Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is about to be introduced, with support from both White House and House Democrats. No idea what it's fate might be, especially if it's framed as an amendment to something else, but it's a start!

Bad News:
The war is making you poor -- and that's before we look at what we've already spent. Does anybody even think about plans for withdrawel anymore? Are we really learning to live in a perpetual state of conflict, heedless of the price?

Good News:
Mark Twain's autobiography is about to be released this fall, after being held 100 years from his death, as he requested. There's bound to be some fun in there!
(via boing boing)

Pure Silliness:

• Tragically familiar: the sneaky hate spiral

  Eventually, the sum of the small annoyances begins to exceed your capacity for patience and rational thought. All it would take to send you over the edge into a bottomless pit of angry hysteria is just one more tiny, little thing...

  I like to take my misanthropy into solitude, preferably with trees. This is tragically incompatible with my current Life With Toddler...
  
  
• A map of Europe redrawn to reflect the lessons and injustices of history.

  In Britain's place should come Poland, which has suffered quite enough in its location between Russia and Germany and deserves a chance to enjoy the bracing winds of the North Atlantic and the security of sea water between it and any potential invaders.

  (via kottke)

Thought-Provoking:
A recent book ponders some cultural differences between conservative and liberal regions of the country, and notes some striking assumptions that often cause us to talk past each other. They write: In red America, families form adults [early pregnancy and marriage, and teens grow up because of adult demands]; in blue America, adults form families [teens are encouraged to be "smart" about sex and to wait to start families after they finish their educations]. Interesting lens for other conflicts, and the reviewer notes some other implications about our evolving society and how it treats these two paths.

Quote of the day

The Senate is holding a hearing today where several current and former Blackwater employees will be testifying, but honestly the only way Congress would stop giving Blackwater money is if it started registering black people to vote.

- Adam Serwer

(lifted whole from Atrios)

New Year's link-dump

A new year, a new decade (I leave the pedantry to others), a ridiculous heap of tabs open on my browser. Time for a clean slate! Here are a number of things, from the serious to the ludicrous, that have caught my interest in recent weeks. Apologies that I've lost track of where I found most of these!

• Face recognition software (for which, I'll admit, I don't have any application) appears to fail for black people. Oops!! I like the mix of humor and incredulity here.
  
  
• Healthcare reform isn't just an abstract policy issue -- it's life and death for people whose current coverage is running out for one or another inhumane reason. Insurers don't want to carry people with chronic conditions, even if straightforward interventions keep them healthy; I guess that the stratospheric costs of covering them after their (uncorrected) health collapses don't really matter, as long as they're off the books and somebody else's problem...
  
  
• Speaking of healthcare, there's a delicious (snarky) irony in the fact that Rush Limbaugh got such great medical treatment from HI's highly unionized, socialized medical system (i.e., one of the most progressive in the country). Sure, Rush, if we all had care like that, we probably *wouldn't* need reform...
  
  
• Atrios has some good points on US industrial policy (or lack thereof). Often the same guys who argue loudest for free-rein capitalism are those getting the most from the antiquated set of incentives and subsidies we already have.
  
  
• Amusing, and not without truth: Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy -- the complaints of this first-world modern life...
  
  
• I'm not a phone texter, yet anyway, but the value of this application is immediately obvious to me -- really, I'd like a similar application for a book reader, since I'm more likely to be reading while I'm walking my daily commute, but so far peripheral vision has been enough.
  
  
• A good tip for anybody at any time: 10 words you need to stop misspelling. Am tempted to buy the poster of this one, but that just wouldn't help with emailers and other folks in the e-world...
  (via Lou at work)
  
  
• And finally, for your amusement, a touching tribute to the lesser kudu from the late Brad Graham. I hope we'll all use the gift of another year to be the best damn kudus we can be!