Here are a few stories that floated by my aggregator over Christmas +/- 1 day, all obituaries, of a sort: James Brown died of pneumonia on Christmas mornng. Gerald Ford died today, reminding me of a very funny Saturday Night Live sketch — probably tasteless to mention just now, but there it is. And to top it… Continue reading

ActForChange is running a campaign to Support the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006. The Act is intended to preserve so-called Net Neutrality, rather than allow ISPs to block or limit traffic to Internet resources that they don’t like for political or competitive reasons. If you believe in free speech, email your Senators now. It’s… Continue reading

Read the story for yourself: “The released notes document Donald Rumsfeld’s 2:40 PM instructions to General Myers to find the ‘[b]est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time – not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]’ (as discussed on p. 334-335 of The 9/11 Commission Report… Continue reading

I was just listening to Meet The Press from last Sunday, and the point was made that New Orleans is nowhere to be found in the White House agenda … already. So I went to WhiteHouse.gov, just to see if New Orleans is even in the top-10, and it’s not there. Not there at all!… Continue reading

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an… Economic Liberal (18% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. loc: (99, -119) modscore: (11, 46) raw: (1543) Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Continue reading

My, oh my… “In another gesture symbolizing the continued confusion of the federal response, the man President Bush immediately named to succeed ‘Brownie,’ proves to have been the same FEMA official who, two-and-a-half years ago, suggested that Americans stock up on duct tape to protect against a biological or chemical terrorist attack.” Continue reading

If you didn’t catch This American Life’s After The Flood over the weekend, go listen now. “In the days following Hurricane Katrina, Denise Moore was trapped in the New Orleans Convention Center, with her mom, her niece and her niece’s two-year-old daughter. There she witnessed acts of surprising humanity by armed thugs, taking charge and… Continue reading

On ‘The-Truth-About-Michael-Brown’ front, Scott Rosenberg comments: “If you … reward people who tell you what you want to hear and fire people when they tell you unpleasant truths, you should not be surprised when truth becomes a scarce commodity… “… Any organization run on such principles is, of course, a juggernaut of dysfunction, headed for… Continue reading