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Why It's Wrong When Wrongdoers Are Allowed to Admit No Wrongdoing - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna...
""The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." So wrote Milan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. It is one of my favorite quotes and it popped into my head as I was reading about last week's settlement between JPMorgan and the SEC in which the banking giant agreed to pay a $25 million penalty and cancel $647 million in fees owed by Alabama's Jefferson County as the result of a complicated derivatives deal that blew up in the county's face. As part of the settlement, JPMorgan neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing -- despite ample evidence that it had engaged in plenty of wrongdoing. Things like paying off local officials with millions to win no-bid contracts worth billions and convincing county officials to switch from fixed-rate bonds to bonds hedged with risky derivatives -- a switch that has driven Jefferson County to the brink of bankruptcy. "We have been victimized by our creditors," said a county official. JPMorgan released a... more... - Neal Jansons from Bookmarklet
Obama uses the word 'teabagger' to describe opposition - http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...
Poll: 80% of Republicans Support Extending Patriot Act - http://abcnews.go.com/US...
Why fundamentalism will fail - http://www.boston.com/bostong...
Five Years Of Firefox [Video] - http://www.spreadfirefox.com/5years...
Paranoia Strikes Deep - http://www.nytimes.com/glogin...
Chiefs Release Larry Johnson After Gay Slurs - http://www.sportingnews.com/blog...
Sometimes it’s too Social - http://socialmediarage.com/2009...
Lush Letter Carrier Busted for DUI - http://www.nbcmiami.com/news...
Count Von Count - Sesame Street 40th Anniversary [Image] - http://blog.thedudedean.com/files...
"No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature." -Emerson.
Murdoch: We’ll probably remove our sites from Google’s index (ahahahahahah!) - http://mutateweb.com/archive...
"Rupert Murdoch has suggested that News Corporation is likely to make its content unfindable to users on Google when it launches its paid content starategy . When Murdoch and other senior News Corp lieutenants have criticised aggregators such as Google for taking a free ride on its content, commentators have questioned why the company doesn’t simply make its content invisible to search engines. Using the robots.txt protocol on a site indicates to automated web spiders such as Google’s not to index that particular page or to serve up lionks to it in users’ search results. Murodch claimed that readers who randomly reach a page via search have little value to advertisers. Asked by Sky News political editor David Speers why News hasn’t therefore made its sites invisible to Google, Murdoch replied: “I think we will.”" - Neal Jansons from Bookmarklet
I started playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Demo. - http://raptr.com/thepuck
RT @TheDudeDean: Digg: Five Years of FireFox http://www.spreadfirefox.com/5years... #Software #Digguser (wow, that went by quick)
Google Doodle Celebrates Sesame Street Anniversary (PHOTOS) - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009...
Celebrate with us - Firefox is 5 years old on November 9th - http://www.spreadfirefox.com/5years...
Oscar the Grouch Sesame Street 40th Anniversary [Image] - http://blog.thedudedean.com/files...
Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. (musical heads vid) - http://vimeo.com/6223439
Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. (musical heads vid)
Play
Stephen Fry and Chris Hitchens Destroy the Catholics (vid) - http://skepchick.org/blog...
"As Amanda reported in the Quickies a few weeks ago, Stephen Fry and Chris Hitchens participated in a debate over the topic “The Catholic Church is a Force for Good.” Fry and Hitchens were, naturally, on the anti- side, and absolutely destroyed the poor souls on the pro- side. Check out the full video in five parts here. The first is below:" - Neal Jansons from Bookmarklet
Elmo Sesame Street 40th Anniversary [Image] - http://blog.thedudedean.com/files...
Gun owners more likely to be shot than non-gun owners (surprise, surprise) - http://mutateweb.com/archive...
"This should come as no surprise. Brandishing a gun is a good way to get yourself shot. Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05). Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures." - Neal Jansons from Bookmarklet
Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed - http://trueslant.com/matttai...
"“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”" - Neal Jansons from Bookmarklet
Behemoth – Decade of Oepion - http://www.last.fm/music...
Fort Hood Reminds Us: Our Gun Laws Are a National Disgrace - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ma...
"Our current lack of health insurance for all is a national disgrace. But so are our handgun laws - or lack of them. You'd think you might have heard a bit more about our heedless national pistolero mentality in the wall-to-wall TV coverage of the tragic shootings at Fort Hood this week. But no such luck. How many times have we seen this movie before? It's only the locations that change. There was only scant mention in all the coverage that suspected mass murderer Nidal Hasan had bought his lethal cop-killer handgun at "Guns Galore" in nearby Killeen, Texas. How charming." - Neal Jansons from Bookmarklet
While I understand the second amendment, I am for very strict regulation of gun ownership. Then again, maybe even easier access to handguns will solve some of the health care problems /sarcasm - Rene Wirtz
I understand it and think it is functionally obsolete. These aren't militias ready to defend their towns, these are people with a cowboy/rambo fantasy. I don't even see what the nutcases really think their little peashooters are going to accomplish vs. the government in their little "tree of liberty" scenario. What good is few rednecks with SKS's vs. killer drones and the US army? If... more... - Neal Jansons
I agree. It's all and only mentality. The guns per capita in countries like Canada or Switzerland may be higher than that in the US, but incidents with guns are very rare. - Rene Wirtz
However, I do think there are more important national delusions to worry about. The most dangerous is the narcissistic patriotism that states that, magically, "MY country is the best country in the world! Why? Because I was born there!" Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. As every developed nation in the world overtakes us in every possible metric except military, the rambo-wannabes keep... more... - Neal Jansons
But but but ... how can you say the US is not the best country in the world!?! ;-) I think, in a way, every citizen of every country on earth thinks their country is the best. What is lacking in a major way in the US is critical thinking. Since politicians and media keep repeating that the US is the best people believe it without even remotely thinking about questioning it. - Rene Wirtz
But they shouldn't believe that. That's a holdover from feudalism and divine right to rule. Where someone is born is luck, and so long as they believe there is some sort of inherent determinism that made someone be born in the US and another person be born in Mexico, those people can justify the idea that somehow the person in the poorer/less developed country "deserves it".... more... - Neal Jansons
It's part education, part laziness. I was brought up to question everything without regard of who or what I was questioning, just as long as I remained respectful while questioning. Nowadays, questioning anything American is deemed unpatriotic and that's because the neocon propaganda has been "brainwashing" US citizens since the end of WWII, ie guns are good, socialism is evil, abortion is murder, women are inequal to men, bottom line is be all end all. - Rene Wirtz
Nowadays? Not really...before "the terrorists!" it was "the communists!", then it was "the unionists!", then before that it was the "foreign powers" behind the evil "immigrants" and so on and so forth. Never forget this country was founded by Puritans, eager to "purify". - Neal Jansons
Again, agreed, and it seems those puritanical voices are getting louder and louder (both literally and figuratively). But what they don't seem to grasp is that the "progressive" cat is out of the bag and there's no way to get it back in the bag. Society has changed, access to information has changed, perceptions have changed. The puritans/conservatives/regressives are fighting a lost battle, and the sick part is that they are willing to actually battle the change. - Rene Wirtz
Well, that's a personality and worldview issue. I happen to prefer one side, but I can't really defend a claim that it is somehow objectively right (I am an ethics and epistemological nihilist; I don't believe that knowledge or ethical claims can ever be truly justified, only pragmatically justified from a subjective, situated view). Many conservatives believe, essentially, that there... more... - Neal Jansons
Health Care PASSES: The Scene In The House When It Happened (suck it, Teabaggers!) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009...
But you know that teabaggers will claim the bill as it passed as a victory, right?! - Rene Wirtz
That's a hard argument to defend, considering only one Repub. voted for it and they are flipping out on him. Regardless, this is just another place where the crazies are getting shown for the ineffectual force they are, which will force all of them to flip out again, like after the last two elections, and then double-down on "getting more conservative" and alienating some more possible... more... - Neal Jansons
All true, but just as with the elections on Tuesday the Repubs define winning by losing. And you are right, it may be in an effort to purify. - Rene Wirtz
Added news on socialmedian: Tim Ellis: A Question of Harm - The Legacy of Vaccination - http://www.socialmedian.com/story...
Added news on socialmedian: Photo of Carrie Fisher, Stunt Double from “Return of the Jedi” - http://www.socialmedian.com/story...
Photo of Carrie Fisher, Stunt Double from “Return of the Jedi” - http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2009...
I assert that we are all insane; some people's insanity is simply more uniform than others. Society cannot tolerate divergent realities.
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