Sunday, July 29, 2012

Sunday art blogging

This is by Andrew Stevovich. You can find it over on Wikimedia Commons.


Saturday, July 28, 2012

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Excellent

This is true. I fact checked it:


Monday, July 23, 2012

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Definitely the headline of the day

A friend of mine from Colorado called the following to my attention.

Tax Cut, Cold Cuts 


Here's part of what it says: 


"President George W. Bush's original rationale for cutting tax rates in 2001 was to get rid of a sizable budget surplus at the end of the Clinton Administration. Remember? 


"President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican Congressional leaders swore up and down that tax cuts would pay for themselves, even though such claims were disputed by the U.S. Treasury Department and Congressional Budget Office. 


"Pushed into law through the same budget reconciliation process used to pass President Obama's Affordable Care Act in 2009, the tax cuts were programmed by Congressional Republicans to expire in ten years to limit their ultimate price tag. So, how does the scheduled expiration of Republican tax cuts now become an Obama tax increase?"


There's more and it's really good. I'd like to recommend that you click through and read the whole thing. ~~~

Friday, July 13, 2012

Double standard

Here's your headline for the day:

First Lady Brings ‘Inappropriate’ Message to Florida Schools

Take a look:

The Miami event with the First Lady was held in a public high school auditorium, rented through the usual process that anyone would go through to rent the space during non-school hours. The event’s purpose? To recruit volunteers for the Obama campaign to help get out the vote.... 
[B]oard member Carlos Curbelo sent a letter to the school board’s attorney saying it is “inappropriate” and “sends the wrong message” for the Obama campaign hold a political event at the school. Curbelo has worked as a Republican strategist, the newspaper noted.
The use of public schools whose only focus should be to educate our children for political gain is downright wrong,” Diaz de la Portilla said in a statement provided to the [Miami] Herald. “Don’t these liberals have boundaries? Our schools are places for learning, not places for politicking.”

School children were not present. Hey, it's July! School is not even in session. And anyway, there's this:

The funny thing is this — when former First Lady Laura Bush actually went on campaign events held at public schools during the school year, talking to elementary school children, sometimes even with her husband,with the express purpose of bolstering George W. Bush’s re-election and fundraising efforts? Totally kosher and not a peep from anyone (at least that I could find with a relatively quick Google search).


Remember what we used to say about this sort of thing? IOKIYAR (It's OK if you're a Republican.)

Disgusting.
~~~

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Lest we forget

Look. I think draft dodging all by itself is understandable - even if it's not particularly honorable. But to be a draft dodger and then beat the drums of war so that OTHER people have to fight and die is simply reprehensible.


Monday, July 09, 2012

Completely and utterly contemptible

That "greatest nation" myth

I found this on facebook and it merits wide dissemination, I think:

"America is not the greatest nation in the world. Maybe we were at one time. Maybe we could be again but we need to tell the truth about the ways in which our nation is not the shining city on the hill of our dreams. We have replaced our war on poverty with a war on the poor. We spend more on the ineffective war on drugs than it would cost to make college free for low-income families. We wage war on foreign nations that pose no threat while telling ourselves we cannot afford to provide health care to the sick in our own nation. To ever change these unacceptable circumstances we must first be honest about them." 

 --Dr. Roger Lee Ray, Pastor of Community Christian Church in Springfield, MO
~~~

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Two Ideas of government

By the great silver-tongued orator himself. Do not dismiss Bryan because of his opposition to evolutionary theory. He was a great progressive who had problems with evolution mainly because it was even then being used to justify a "survival of the fittest" social policy which he believed was gravely immoral (as do I).

"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it." 

 -- William Jennings Bryan
~~~

Yup.


Thursday, July 05, 2012

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

What has happened to us?

I shared this over on my facebook page but I believe it belongs here as well.

(Click to enlarge)
~~~

Monday, July 02, 2012

Let's think good and hard about this one

I've offered this quotation before here on "Child of Illusion". It's time for a repeat:


Sunday, July 01, 2012