Quacks without Borders

Homeopaths Without Borders in Africa: "Homeopathy for Health in Africa is affiliated with Homeopaths Without Borders. The Mission of Homeopathy for Health in Africa: To relieve the suffering of as many HIV/AIDS patients as possible using classical homeopathy"

These people are fucking evil and deserve to be put in jail

On Coverage of Egypt

Balloon Juice » Talk like an Egyptian: "So if it weren’t for Israel, it wouldn’t be on your telly at all except to the extent that the available footage was cinematographically more interesting than an ice-storm in Oklahoma to a network news director."

On Glenn Beck On Slavery

"My Goodness -- Glenn Beck Got It Completely Wrong"

Imagine my surprise

Avoid ‘misuse of sex’ in marriage, Canadian bishops warn | Holy Post | National Post

Avoid ‘misuse of sex’ in marriage, Canadian bishops warn | Holy Post | National Post: "Married people living chastely can have vibrant sex lives. In the relationship between a man and a woman, chastity helps them love each other as persons rather than make each other an object of pleasure or satisfaction. Despite what the media and Hollywood suggest, the value of sexual intercourse does not lie in recreation, or physical gratification. Any physical pleasure should lead toward the ultimate expression of love between husband and wife, the total self-giving of one person to another. Sexual intercourse in marriage can be so intimate that it becomes an emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual experience. It strengthens and completes the bond of marriage. That is why the sexual act has to be unitive and procreative and why some kinds of sexual activity are not chaste. Though pleasure may be present, some acts are a misuse of sex when the fall short of what God intends."

via Dan Savage and Rising Hegemon

Wingnuts shooting their own?

Roger Ailes: "What are we to make of this bizarre 'resignation' post? If the statement had been videotaped, would we see Paul reciting it in a monotone while his left eye blinked Morse code? I'd like to think that his partners Assrocket and Johnson did not force Paul out because he refused to toe the wingnut line of religous intolerance and bigotry. But they have not returned Paul's thanks, at least in print."

Lawsuit claims Atlanta Thrashers have lost more than $130 million since 2005 - ESPN

Lawsuit claims Atlanta Thrashers have lost more than $130 million since 2005 - ESPN: "ATLANTA -- The owners of the Atlanta Thrashers claimed Friday to have lost more than $130 million since 2005 and at least another $50 million on the plummeting value of the NHL franchise because of a bitter dispute that ruined their plans to sell the team.

The ownership group, known as Atlanta Spirit, revealed its financial woes in a lawsuit against one of the city's most prominent law firms, claiming faulty legal work is largely to blame for its predicament."

Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal from General Mills contains no blueberries and no pomegranates

Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal from General Mills contains no blueberries and no pomegranates: "Volunteering his research efforts under the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center, the Health Ranger found that Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal contained neither blueberries nor pomegranates."

Police: Suspect in attacks put face in women's buttocks

Police: Suspect in attacks put face in women's buttocks: "The man accused of assaulting women in a West Seattle park intentionally grabbed women from behind and planted his face in their buttocks, according to police."

via ZVTS

Atrios understands

Eschaton: "The best next step is a 150,000 person US occupation of Egypt so we can write their constitution, figure out who their interim leader should be, and then spend 10 years training security forces."

Space Age Archaeology: Consuming the Space Age: the cuisine of Sputnik

Space Age Archaeology: Consuming the Space Age: the cuisine of Sputnik: "While the US military and government were grappling with the political implications of Sputnik 1, one of the ways in which ordinary people responded was to translate the body of the spacecraft into something familiar and edible. The humble olive, with the addition of three or four toothpicks to represent antenna, became a symbol of the satellite. This was an excellent garnish for a martini, sandwich or the quintessential American food, the hamburger."

Karl Marx, Real Business Cycle Theorist

Yglesias » Karl Marx, Real Business Cycle Theorist: "Kudos to Benjamin Kunkel for trying to present an accessible Marxist account of the current financial crisis. I was struck reading the piece, though, by how similar the Kunkel/Harvery/Marx account of the crisis is to linguistically and ideologically quite different accounts from the right."

American Thinker?

American Thinker: Stanley Ann Dunham and the Left's Exploitation of Women:

"The Left's use and abuse of women did not stop with the 60‘s, nor with the feminist revolution of the 70's, which was launched, in part, because of the misogynist Left.

This is just such a fundamentally dishonest reading of the roots of the feminist movement that it has to be deliberate.

On Witches

Romania’s “Witch Tax”: Magic Meets Bureaucracy | Culture | Religion Dispatches: "On January 1, Romania implemented new tax codes that, among other changes, added the occupation of “witch” to the nation’s labor codes"

Tea Party in Power - Fail

Special Report: A Long Island tax cut backfires on the Tea Party | Reuters: "The fiscal consequences, however, were anything but cool. The repeal set Mangano on an immediate collision course with the state-appointed fiscal overseer, the Nassau County Interim Financial Authority, or NIFA. It culminated in NIFA seizing control of the wealthy New York county's finances on Wednesday."

The End of Realpolitik?

The End of Realpolitik? » Pagan+Politics: "Things are developing quickly in Egypt — so quickly that everything may have changed by the time you read this. For a long time Egypt has been stuck in a holding pattern under its dictator Mubarak and his careful balancing act. He has been crucial to American interests, part of our campaign to contain Iran and strengthen Israel. The fact that he is a dictator with a rather bloody record and his people have lived without a free press or other basic human rights has been an uncomfortable fact for half a dozen US administrations."

How to Perpetuate a Zombie Lie

How to Perpetuate a Zombie Lie - First Draft: "The 'we're doomed' crisis is actually a very managable issue. To offer an analogy -- saying this is a crisis is like saying you'll never make it home because your car only has three quarters of a tank of gas. And lord knows where the next filling station is."

The Problem with Civility

The Problem with Civility | Religion Dispatches: "What drives the viciousness of our current politics is not that some people are wankers—excuse my French—and need to improve their behavior, but that the vast majority of citizens, whether on the left or the right, perceive that their political leaders have failed and continue to fail to provide a meaningful future for them and their children. Solve that problem, and you'll solve the problem of our discourse. Until then, spare me the lectures on civility."

Amen, Pastor Dan!

Egyptian Stock Exchange still on 'net

Egypt Leaves the Internet - Renesys Blog: "One of the very few exceptions to this block has been Noor Group (AS20928), which still has 83 out of 83 live routes to its Egyptian customers, with inbound transit from Telecom Italia as usual. Why was Noor Group apparently unaffected by the countrywide takedown order? Unknown at this point, but we observe that the Egyptian Stock Exchange (www.egyptse.com) is still alive at a Noor address.

Its DNS A records indicate that it's normally reachable at 4 different IP addresses, only one of which belongs to Noor. Internet transit path diversity is a sign of good planning by the Stock Exchange IT staff, and it appears to have paid off in this case. Did the Egyptian government leave Noor standing so that the markets could open next week?"

Egypt becomes a black hole

Censoring some sites is one thing, but how has Egypt unplugged the internet entirely? | News.com.au: "EGYPT has apparently done what many technologists thought was unthinkable for any country with a major internet economy: It unplugged itself entirely."

on egypt

Freedom now smells like tear gas, feels like rubber bullets | Firedoglake: "Always good to see the United States on the side of freedom and change. Nearly 30 years of rule by “emergency decree” and grooming your son to replace you does seem pretty democratic, if by democratic you mean Feudal."

Hosni Mubarak, the plane is waiting

‘Hosni Mubarak, the plane is waiting’ by Yasmine El Rashidi | NYRBlog | The New York Review of Books: "Cairo on the morning of January 25 felt like something of a ghost town. Few civilians were to be found on the streets, most stores were shuttered, and the typically heaving downtown was deserted. It was a national holiday, and in the central town square, named Tahrir, or Liberation, even cars were scarce, and parking spaces—always sparse—were in abundance. The only conspicuous presence was that of Egypt’s police and state security. Rows of their box-shaped olive-green trucks lined thoroughfares and narrow side-streets, in some cases blocking them off for miles. Beside them were battered cobalt blue trucks—the ones used to whisk away prisoners and detainees. Throughout the downtown area and in neighboring districts, police and informants (easily identified by their loitering presence, darting eyes, and frequent two-second phone calls) were gathered around the otherwise empty major arteries of the city. Hundreds of them. Many wore black cargo pants, bush jackets and clunky army boots. Many more were in plain clothes—standing on street corners, at calculated intervals on sidewalks, in building entrances, on bridges, and in the few cafes open on a day when almost everything was closed."

sounds distressingly familiar

Rising Hegemon: Sarah Palin, Bachman can't out-stupid me: "The Soviets fell because they spent way too much on their military and had internal domestic rot -- against the rigors of maintaining an occupying empire."

maybe someone should ask the CIA

Chile to probe Allende's death - Americas - Al Jazeera English: "Chile is launching its first investigation into the death of President Salvador Allende, 37 years after the socialist leader was found shot through the head during an attack on the presidential palace.

Allende's death, during the bloody US-backed coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power on September 11, 1973, had until now been ruled a suicide."

conor Friedersdorf takes a stand on Egypt

Your Role In Egypt - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan: "Berlinski would like the United States to intervene in some way on the side of the people, whereas writers like Daniel Larison argue that it's best for the United States to just stay out of the way – especially in that region, American support can undermine protestors. I have no idea what the right approach is in this case."

on driving in the snow

Eschaton: "people should just learn that 'driving automobile' and 'fairly large snowstorm' just don't combine very well."

conor Friedersdorf calls someone else a hack

A Series Of Misleading Comparisons - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan:

"I invite you to read the rest. It's as good as everything Lewis writes, and sufficient to show why it is lazy, amateurish journalism to act as though our countries are in analogous situations right now – as if the fact that Greeks are protesting in the streets and Americans aren't shows that our people are wusses (or anything else).

And no of course he would never use that word because it would be uncivil. I happen to agree with his point, I am just amused.

Dan Choi's open letter to the President: I'm not paying $2500 DADT Debt

Pam's House Blend:: Dan Choi's open letter to the President: I'm not paying $2500 DADT Debt: "Today I received a $2,500 bill from your Defense Department Finance and Debt Services. Specifically, you claim payment for 'the unearned portion' of my Army contract. Six months after my discharge under the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy I have tried to move forward with my life, and I was inspired by your clarion calls for our progress as one nation towards a more just society. I have served my country in combat and I have tried to live my life by the values I learned at West Point in continued service to our nation. To move forward in my own life I have finally sought treatment for Combat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Military Sexual Trauma (MST), Insomnia, and Depressive Disorder from the Veterans Affairs Department. But I still find myself on a domestic battlefield for basic dignity as an American citizen. I know I am not alone in this fight because of the desperate cries for help I get from discharged, unemployed, discriminated, and suicidal veterans. I have felt all of their same pains personally. Today I also witness the disgrace of a country that perpetually discovers methods to punish its own citizens for taking a moral stand."

This is a joke right?

Treasury funds Bristol Palin to speak on campus | Student Life: "Bristol Palin has been selected as keynote speaker for this year’s Sexual Responsibility Week at Washington University."

insurance company douchebaggery

Insurance Company Drops Vet Over 2-Cent Shortage - Denver News Story - KMGH Denver: "THORNTON, Colo. -- Two pennies. That's the difference between a potentially life-saving surgery and a dropped insurance plan."

On That California Budget Problem

Split Roll Property Tax - It's time to close a big tax loophole for businesses - Los Angeles Times

Goldberg calculates that Disneyland, which hasn't had a reportable change of ownership since, well, forever, is currently taxed at an average of about a nickel per square foot. For comparison, a median California home bought last year out of foreclosure, measuring 1,600 square feet and selling for about $330,000 (these are averages from the California Assn. of Realtors), would incur property tax of about $3,300 per year, or $2.06 per square foot.

It is nonsensical for Prop 13 to apply to commercial real estate. Write up a small business exemption if you have to (just to shut up the loonies) but this is craziness.

Be Afraid

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community: "The answer to that question is that we live in a country of bedwetters. Maybe you aren't a bedwetter. But most of your neighbors probably are. And, as far as I can tell, the Republican Party's foreign policy is based on instilling primal fear in the American people (and, seemingly, themselves) so that they can go about doing what they wanted to do anyway. But, worst of all, the Republicans expect politicians from all over the world to house people whose mere presence in the United States (the Republicans believe) would invite catastrophic terrorist attacks and/or whom are so diabolical that they can escape from our SuperMax prisons."

Easy Questions

Balloon Juice » Did people really believe this?

Was the Beltway myopia so great that DC insiders believed 40 year-old legends more than they believed Nate Silver?

Yes.

George Allen Running Again

George Allen to announce Senate bid Monday - David Catanese - POLITICO.com:

"Former Sen. George Allen will end weeks of speculation and formally declare his candidacy for U.S. Senate in Virginia on Monday, two Republican advisers tell POLITICO.

All you need know about the way that the GOP is going is that it is now OK to be a bigoted scumbag and still run for Senate.

via Oliver Willis

Video - Wild Dog Puppies

How cute

via ZVTS

on not ignoring Caribou Barbie

Daily Kos: Why we can't say goodbye to Sarah Palin: "Palin is no different. To ignore her is to give her free range of our political discourse, to allow her virulent hyperbole and lies to go unchecked. It is a mistake to think that the blogosphere, or one or two columnists from the New York Times and the Washington Post, have the power to make her go away by simply ignoring her. As she has made clear since 2008, she isn't going anywhere."

Can I have 2?

Ostentatious, yet tasteless: "The staggering 155m Streets of Monaco yacht is expected to cost over $1.1 billion to build and is modelled on a section of Monte Carlo."

'Steampunk Palin' Comic More Insane Than You Imagined - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

'Steampunk Palin' Comic More Insane Than You Imagined - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

Steampunk Palin hopes to capitalize on the popularity of two things: First, former Vice Presidential Candidate and ex-Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, whose life story of beauty queen to elected official to media celebrity has captivated a nation, both for those who find her to be an inspiring voice to the Tea Party movement of libertarian-influenced conservatives, and those who derive perverse entertainment from many of her public statements and behavior."

The second thing is steampunk, a literary genre that borrows the notions of cyberpunk and transplants them into an alternate history past or fantasy world, usually influenced by the works of H.G. Wells or Jules Verne. It's often characterized by the use of advanced technology substitutes reliant on non-electrical power, and a visual aesthetic heavy on intricately designed gearworks. Its popularity has reached a point where some enthusiasts enjoy dressing up in their own steampunk inspired costumes, and thus been fairly or unfairly labelled as "Goths who decided it might be fun to wear brown for a change."