August 31st, 2006
US Politics | AMERICAblog News: Syria descends into civil war
The scenes of Assad's forces attacking Homs look very familiar . We saw the same thing over and over in Iraq when US forces used 'shock and awe' tactics. They didn't work for Bush and they probably won't work for Assad. The pro-Assad forces are claiming that the opposition is now firing back, but that is a natural consequence of a regime that fires on unarmed protesters. Eventually the protesters return with guns and start shooting party officials and clerics that support the government. Assad is precisely the type of dictator that the US has been more than happy to keep in power if they are considered to be on 'our' side. Russia is still playing that game and so it is hardly surprising that they see the US position on Syria to be yet another opportunistic power grab. From the US point of view the US has invaded two countries in the region, toppled the regimes in three more and is looking to do the same in Syria and Iran. As with unemployment, Syria is a topic that the GOP simply does not want to talk about. Mitt Romney attacked Obama for not calling for Assad to go quite quickly enough for his taste back last year but only wanted rhetoric, not actual military action . Meanwhile there is a steady demand to start a war with Iran , a war that would inevitably be three times the fiasco of Iraq. If there was any actual sense or strategy to the GOP campaign against Iran they would be all for military action against its only significant ally when the Assad regime is possibly on the brink of collapse. The fall of Assad would be a real defeat for the regime in Tehran. Instead they demand a war on a … [Link]
US Politics | AMERICAblog News: Appeals court: Prop 8 UNCONSTITUTIONAL – full text of the decision
Here's the decision. This decision, if affirmed by the Supreme Court, could strike down state anti-gay ballot initiatives, and even anti-gay legislation at the local and federal level. [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Todd Brewster: Of Another Day and Another Romney: The Year When Conservative Republicans Proudly Accepted "Defeat"
It was 48 years ago and in the annals of American presidential election lore, but looking back at the campaign of 1964 reveals some dramatic differences and striking similarities to this year's contest, as well as some familiar last names. Read More… More on Tea Party [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Adam Winkler: What's Next for Same-Sex Marriage?
Today's landmark decision of a federal appeals court striking down California's Proposition 8, which denied marriage rights to same-sex couples, is cause to celebrate. While there have been a few state courts to rule that gays and lesbians are entitled to equal marriage rights under state law, never before has a federal court of appeals – the level just below the Supreme Court – declared that gay marriage is protected by the U.S. Constitution. Today's decision has the potential to benefit not only thousands of gay Californians, but could establish the foundation for extension of marriage equality to all Americans. So what's next for Proposition 8 and the supporters of same-sex marriage? In the short-term, gay couples still cannot marry in California. Although the ban on same-sex marriage has been invalidated, the court is likely to stay its decision pending appeal. While this is disappointing to couples eager to marry, issuance of a stay is normal procedure for a court ruling on a controversial issue in an unsettled area of law. The stay prevents gay couples from marrying until a higher court determines whether to hear the case. If there's no appeal, the stay will eventually be lifted and gay couples will be able to wed. Read More… More on Marriage [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Robert Teitelman: Andrew Lo and the Wisdom of Reading 21 Crisis Books
Playing catch-up here. MIT economics professor Andrew Lo has written a paper for the Journal of Economic Literature summarizing, with a few general points, some 21 books on the financial crisis. This is a task I, a certified lunatic, also tackled several years ago; at last count I've managed somewhere past 25 of them ( there are links to them on The Deal Economy blog ), although toward the end the subjects of the books grew broader and deeper, leaving the facts of the specific crisis behind and examining more what to do than what happened, though the two are, of course, related. Lo divides his books roughly into academics and journalists, though in the latter camp he also includes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's memoir. He includes some books that came too early in my labors — William Cohan's House of Cards , about the fall of Bear Stearns Cos. — or those that I simply never got to or wasn't aware had been published; I particularly regret missing Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly and Raghuram Rajan's Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy . For his part, Lo skipped both books that Federal Judge Richard Posner published in 2009 and 2010, The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy and A Failure of Capitalism (my review of the latter is here ), which commendably wrestled with many of these issues of causation that Lo raises, and he passed over a number of volumes written on the fall of Bear and Lehman Brothers, some of which feature interesting perspectives. If there's one thing we've learned in the Internet age, it's that the quest for comprehensiveness and universality is a form of folly. The question to ask about a paper like this … [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Govindini Murty: As Egypt Fights for Democracy, New Documentary 1/2 Revolution Goes to the Front Lines
As the Egyptian military government prepares to put 19 American employees of pro-democracy NGOs on trial, and thousands of Egyptians continue to demonstrate, 1/2 Revolution offers a striking look back at the Egyptian revolution of one year ago. Read More… More on Arab Spring [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: John Polly: RuPaul's Drag Race Video Recap: Drag Ya Later with Jon & John Takes On Season 4, Ep. 2 (VIDEO)
Read More… More on Video [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Louisa Leontiades: Why Customer Delight Is So Important in Online Business
'Purple,' said my daughter holding out a ball of hardened plasticine. 'Shall we make it into a sausage?' I said rolling it painfully between my palms. 'Look Freya, a purple sausage!' 'A purple sausage' she said in wonder. I admit, it wasnt one of my most artistic feats but it didn't merit the amount of sniggering that came at me across the breakfast table. 'Hey.' I protested. 'I made her a parrot out of the damn stuff when we unwrapped it.' 'Oh..a parrot ! Well then I award you 5 Mummy points.' Said my boyfriend laughing harder. I did it a couple of times but then had to thow most of it away because my daughter took the bird (with a red beak, yellow comb and green feet) and mushed it together, creating a nondescript brown color. What a waste of money. Good for a certain type of sausage perhaps, but not parrots. Plasticine sells itself to 3+ kids on the fact that it is re-usable time and time again. But it isn't. Its principle usage is actually modeling clay for stop motion animation which is for far older (and bigger!) kids who sculpt it. The makers of Plasticine therefore don't need to listen to the segment of their very young customers: because they have a virtual monopoly on their market because the 3 year olds can't speak anyway Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: The Daily Meal: Taco Bell 'First Meal' Breakfast Menu Reviewed
This week, Taco Bell rolled out its long-awaited breakfast menu at 750 locations in 10 states across the country. The Tex-Mex titan of fast food, whose parent company is Yum! Brands Inc., spent the past five years developing the 11-item menu, known as "First Meal." Slideshow: Reviewing Taco Bell's New 'First Meal' Breakfast Menu Read More… More on Photo Galleries [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Sonya Denyse: 650 Miles — The Legacy of Ossie Davis
Legacy begins with vision and is sustained with commitment and persistence. I was honored to participate in sustaining Ossie Davis's legacy. Ossie's walk continues in the footsteps of the scholars that bear his name. Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Ellen Cannon: Surf's Up! Balance Transfers Are Back
Balance transfer deals became scarce following the financial crisis of 2008 as credit card issuers pulled back on their offers. In 2011, though, this started to change, and many new balance transfer offers are anticipated this year. Read More… More on Citibank [Link]
Gay Politics | AMERICAblog Gay: Appeals court: Prop 8 UNCONSTITUTIONAL – full text of the decision
Holy cow. So a few big questions, from friends I'm talking to. 1. Will this appeal now go to the full 9th circuit, en banc, or will it go to the Supreme Court? 2. If it goes to the Supremes, when would it go – as early as this fall? 3. If it goes to the Supreme Court, will the Obama administration be forced to take a position – will the President? 4. If the President demurs, gives his "I'm still evolving" answer, will that be enough to significantly damage gay support in the coming presidential election? For some reason it's not possible to copy and paste quotes. So here's a summary as I go through it: Prop 8 violates the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. No "legitimate reason" for Prop 8 to treat gays differently as a class. Prop 8 had no effect on religious freedom or on parents' right to control their children's education. "Prop 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples." The official sponsors of Prop 8 are entitled to appeal the decision in court, they have standing to bring this case before the court. "The People may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group for unequal treatment and strip them, without a legitimate justification, of a right as important as the right to marry." "We also affirm – for substantially the reasons set forth in the district court's opinion – the denial of the motion by the official sponsors of Proposition 8 to vacate the judgment by former Chief Judge Walker, on the basis of his purported interest in being … [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Christine Arylo: When Love Isn't Enough: 3 Rules for a Drama Free Divorce
Drama. Deceit. Devastation. It's not just reality TV, it's the reality that most of us experience when we end a relationship, because we don't and won't leave our mate until we reach the point of hating, hurting and hardly speaking Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Jeff Klima: Will Write for Food
Is it possible to sue someone on the basis of copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property if they have been dead for 131 years? I just got done reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (I know, I know, I'm late to the party, but I come from that era immediately proceeding the discovery that masturbation doesn't make you go blind, so… ) and let me just say, my thesis statement is this: Somehow, some way, Fyodor Dostoyevsky got access to a time machine and stole the just-scribed manuscript for my next book. I mean, my God, he stole it exactly — the plot, the language used, the themes described, even the very character names! Perhaps some of you are sitting there, thinking: "Yeah right, Jeff. More likely you're just trying to scam your way into fame and fortune like you always do… " that is, of course, if you're still reading this at all. I figure most of you got to the words "time machine" and just tuned right the fuck back out. For the rest of you, I know I have something of a checkered past, but this time, it's different. Why you ask, was I writing a period novel about 19th century Russian class warfare instead of, say, my latest screed to the Penthouse Forum? The answer is simple: diversification. Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Daniel Klein: Inspiring Refugees Farm In Atlanta
On our way through Atlanta we stopped at a very diverse community garden run by Friends of Refugees . It's home to the vegetable patches of Iraqis, Burmese, Nepalese and many others, including a lovely Bhutanese family that shared their story and a home cooked meal with us. But beyond the food, this episode is about the warm and awkward interaction between an unexpecting family and our camera wielding road trip. For more videos and recipes visit www.theperennialplate.com Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Nathan Manske: Black LGBTQ Stories: Bisexual Woman Recalls the Mom Every LGBTQ Person Wishes They Had (VIDEO)
Read More… More on Video [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Kevin Bell: We Are Failing Our Veterans With PTSD: The Life and Death of Sonny Mazon
For all of our rhetoric of supporting soldiers with PTSD, there is a dense, bureaucratic labyrinth in between soldiers and the help that they need. Read More… More on Beyond the Battlefield [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Judith Browne Dianis: Appealing to the Right on Anti-Immigration May Not Produce Victory
States will likely be the primary, if not exclusive, site for immigrant rights fights. Moreover, with presidential candidates brazenly using racist rhetoric, it is not hard to see how election politics will contribute to support state anti-immigrant legislation. Read More… More on Latino Politics [Link]
Gay Politics | AMERICAblog Gay: RuPaul’s "alternative lifestyle"
It's bad enough when big rich companies hire big rich PR firms who then ask relatively-poor bloggers to promote their clients for free – i.e., do their paid work for them for free – rather than simply buying ads on the blogs and showing their support for the Netroots. But when they use phrases like "alternative lifestyles" in their pitch, see below, while working for drag queen superstar RuPaul, I draw a line. It's no longer 1993. The economy is a mess. I run AMERICAblog for a living, and have been for eight years. It's my sole income. I now make 25% of what I earned before the economy crashed. The gay Netroots, like the larger progressive Netroots, provides a valuable service. And it's the reason why people like RuPaul, and companies like Absolut and LOGO ("alternative lifestyles," LOGO, really?), reach out to the blogs when they want to sell something to the public, and particularly the gay public. And that's fine. But if they think the Netroots is so important and influential, they should support it. This is a larger problem we've had with Democrats, in the party and the non-profit community, for years. While they recognize our importance and our influence, and dare I say it, even our good deeds on behalf of the party (and yes, we do do them from time to time), they rarely return the favor. For the first time in a long time, if ever, the Democratic party, all progressives really, have their own noise machine to rival, and stand up to, the GOP's Limbaugh/Fox/religious right axis. And they never really come out and fully supported us, certainly not financially. And now with the economy still in the doldrums – Paul Krugman says we're in a "Depression" – they still don't give us … [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Robert Whent: Why I Need the Cloud
I came home yesterday to copy hundreds of my recent wedding photos to my server and OMG! — Nothing. No Lights. No Hum. Nothing. I got the dreaded "Server is not available" message and my heart sank. Read More… More on Smarter Ideas [Link]