Monk's News Reel

Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms “are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman at NYT


That slight dizziness you’re feeling is a contact high from the clouds of left-wing nostalgia in New York City and Washington. The anarchists, anti-globalization activists, student radicals, and sympathetic journalists gathered at Occupy Wall Street desperately are trying to recapture the protest spirit of the 1960s. Meanwhile, Democrats from Paul Krugman to Barack Obama pine for the economy of the 1950s, when the distribution of incomes was much more equal than today. At the same time, high unemployment, lackluster growth, and austerity have led these Democrats to attempt to restore the politics of the 1930s, pitting “economic royalists” against the downtrodden masses. We knew liberals believed in recycling, but this is getting ridiculous.

-- Matthew Continetti at Weekly Standard


The world's seven billionth baby has been born in a packed government-run hospital in the Philippines.

-- LJ


A few years back Representative Barney Frank coined an apt phrase for many of his colleagues: weaponized Keynesians, defined as those who believe “that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.”...

So I welcome the sudden upsurge in weaponized Keynesianism, which is revealing the reality behind our political debates. At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they don’t want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay.

-- Paul Krugman for NYT


WASHINGTON -- We may be reaching an inflection point, the moment when the terms of the political argument change decisively. Three indicators: An important speech by Rep. Paul Ryan, the increasingly sharp tone of President Obama's rhetoric, and the success of Occupy Wall Street in resisting attempts to marginalize the movement....

Ryan offered the classic defense of inequality, arguing that what really mattered was upward mobility, and that the United States had more of it than those horrible welfare states in Europe. "Class is not a fixed designation in this country," he declared. "We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups."

The only problem is that upward mobility has declined as inequality has grown, and social mobility is now higher in Europe than it is in the U.S. That's shameful. And don't believe me on this: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum brought this up at a recent debate, backed by a study from the Economic Mobility Project.

-- E. J. Dionne


Politico drew swift right-wing fire for its Sunday article on Cain, which alleged that two female employees had accused him of sexual harassment in the 1990s. (The article also initially drew a fair amount of criticism from some journalists, who said that Politico's piece was flimsy.)...

"Our blacks are so much better than their blacks," she [Anne Coulter] said, speaking of Democrats. "To become a black Republican, you don't just roll into it. You're not going with the flow...and that's why we have very impressive blacks in the Republican party."

-- LJ/Huffington Post


For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

-- LJ/The Guardian

Monk's News Reel

Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms “are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman at NYT


That slight dizziness you’re feeling is a contact high from the clouds of left-wing nostalgia in New York City and Washington. The anarchists, anti-globalization activists, student radicals, and sympathetic journalists gathered at Occupy Wall Street desperately are trying to recapture the protest spirit of the 1960s. Meanwhile, Democrats from Paul Krugman to Barack Obama pine for the economy of the 1950s, when the distribution of incomes was much more equal than today. At the same time, high unemployment, lackluster growth, and austerity have led these Democrats to attempt to restore the politics of the 1930s, pitting “economic royalists” against the downtrodden masses. We knew liberals believed in recycling, but this is getting ridiculous.

-- Matthew Continetti at Weekly Standard


The world's seven billionth baby has been born in a packed government-run hospital in the Philippines.

-- LJ


A few years back Representative Barney Frank coined an apt phrase for many of his colleagues: weaponized Keynesians, defined as those who believe “that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.”...

So I welcome the sudden upsurge in weaponized Keynesianism, which is revealing the reality behind our political debates. At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they don’t want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay.

-- Paul Krugman for NYT


WASHINGTON -- We may be reaching an inflection point, the moment when the terms of the political argument change decisively. Three indicators: An important speech by Rep. Paul Ryan, the increasingly sharp tone of President Obama's rhetoric, and the success of Occupy Wall Street in resisting attempts to marginalize the movement....

Ryan offered the classic defense of inequality, arguing that what really mattered was upward mobility, and that the United States had more of it than those horrible welfare states in Europe. "Class is not a fixed designation in this country," he declared. "We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups."

The only problem is that upward mobility has declined as inequality has grown, and social mobility is now higher in Europe than it is in the U.S. That's shameful. And don't believe me on this: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum brought this up at a recent debate, backed by a study from the Economic Mobility Project.

-- E. J. Dionne


Politico drew swift right-wing fire for its Sunday article on Cain, which alleged that two female employees had accused him of sexual harassment in the 1990s. (The article also initially drew a fair amount of criticism from some journalists, who said that Politico's piece was flimsy.)...

"Our blacks are so much better than their blacks," she [Anne Coulter] said, speaking of Democrats. "To become a black Republican, you don't just roll into it. You're not going with the flow...and that's why we have very impressive blacks in the Republican party."

-- LJ/Huffington Post


For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

-- LJ/The Guardian

Monk Gets Banned

"What's so funny?" Pi asks.

"I just got banned. From that 'Made for Love' community about short petite numbers."

Daimon asks, "Did you get too fresh? Or too pornographic?"

"Nah, something more fundamental. The mod said, 'You are now banned for being a moron.' Toot Sweet."

Daimon laughs, "Wow, it really is amazing how atuned people are to what is on the other side of their Internet!"

"Yeah, there's no hiding behind an avator and well-turned phrases anymore. It's pics or shut the fuck up. Cyberspace just isn't the fun it used to be. I'm still glad that I caught some of that window of happy anonymity before it shut. It fortified me for the rest of my life, to have gotten a little bit of that social life."

Pi asks, "But why were you called a moron?"

"That's the good part! The mod posted some pictures of Salma Hayek and said she was half Asian and half European. In the interest of encouraging her efforts, I commented, but the only thing I could think to say is, 'Wow, I would've thought half-latino rather than Asian.' And that was it."

Pi exclaims, "You were banned for that!?"

"And called a moron. She is right, of course."

Daimon says, "About you being a moron."

"Perhaps. But I mean about Selma. Wikipedia does say that one of her parents is Lebanese with the other being Spanish. You would think, though, that one could be understood for raising the question. And Wiki also does say she is a Mexican-American actress, since she was born in Mexico and lives and works in the States. Our mod seems to have some issues herself.

"But one just rolls with these things. No biggie. It's not like I paid a lot of money to get in. Besides, what made this oddly appropriate - a kind of poetic justice - is that this message popped up just after, well, just after I sort of popped off with my Internet porn, and porn of the rougher, nastier sort, ultra-misogynistic, so that I felt like I may have deserved to be told off by a woman, which is why I was laughing."

Monk Gets Banned

"What's so funny?" Pi asks.

"I just got banned. From that 'Made for Love' community about short petite numbers."

Daimon asks, "Did you get too fresh? Or too pornographic?"

"Nah, something more fundamental. The mod said, 'You are now banned for being a moron.' Toot Sweet."

Daimon laughs, "Wow, it really is amazing how atuned people are to what is on the other side of their Internet!"

"Yeah, there's no hiding behind an avator and well-turned phrases anymore. It's pics or shut the fuck up. Cyberspace just isn't the fun it used to be. I'm still glad that I caught some of that window of happy anonymity before it shut. It fortified me for the rest of my life, to have gotten a little bit of that social life."

Pi asks, "But why were you called a moron?"

"That's the good part! The mod posted some pictures of Salma Hayek and said she was half Asian and half European. In the interest of encouraging her efforts, I commented, but the only thing I could think to say is, 'Wow, I would've thought half-latino rather than Asian.' And that was it."

Pi exclaims, "You were banned for that!?"

"And called a moron. She is right, of course."

Daimon says, "About you being a moron."

"Perhaps. But I mean about Selma. Wikipedia does say that one of her parents is Lebanese with the other being Spanish. You would think, though, that one could be understood for raising the question. And Wiki also does say she is a Mexican-American actress, since she was born in Mexico and lives and works in the States. Our mod seems to have some issues herself.

"But one just rolls with these things. No biggie. It's not like I paid a lot of money to get in. Besides, what made this oddly appropriate - a kind of poetic justice - is that this message popped up just after, well, just after I sort of popped off with my Internet porn, and porn of the rougher, nastier sort, ultra-misogynistic, so that I felt like I may have deserved to be told off by a woman, which is why I was laughing."

Quote of the Day

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not."

-- James Joyce

Hah! You were just lucky in that, my man.

Quote of the Day

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not."

-- James Joyce

Hah! You were just lucky in that, my man.