Morning No: Funny. Ha, ha.

by: Natasha Chart

Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 09:00

... Although people often bemoan political apathy as if it were a grave social ill, it seems to me that this is just as it should be.  Why should essentially powerless people want to engage in a humiliating farce designed to demonstrate the legitimacy of those who wield the power?  In Soviet-era Russian, intelligent people did their best to ignore the Communists:  paying attention to them, whether through criticism or praise, would only serve to give them comfort and encouragement, making them feel as if they mattered. ... - Dmitry Orlov

- Clearing the old tabs: Would you like a side of boiled frog with your mancession?

- They're talking about cutting a lot of city jobs in Philly and perhaps cutting trash collection to every other week. As I've been pondering the ramifications, I ran across this essay about what happened to New York City in the late 1970s when the city's credit dried up and they had to drastically cut back on services.

- Remember how the bailout money for financial institutions' gambling debts got to the people who needed it with a mighty quickness? The process hasn't been so speedy for troubled homeowners. And here's the punchline: the lenders complaining that they're understaffed to handle the mortgage alterations has successfully convinced Congress that the power to alter loan terms should not be handed over to bankruptcy judges. Who knew they were so opposed to outsourcing? Ba-dum-bump.

- You know, there are other countries where they just give you healthcare because you're a citizen.

- California's prison system has become such a human rights travesty that they're being ordered to reduce the inmate population by 40,000. Though wtf everybody thought would be the end result of three-strikes laws and double-dog-dare type 'toughness', I just don't know.  

- Ahmadinejad takes the oath of office.

- India reports another swine flu death, local residents freak out, clog medical services with demands to be tested.

- You can totally stop worrying about comets. Asteroids, on the other hand ...

- You may recall that there was a huge immigration raid with an accompanying kangaroo court in Postville, IA last year. An American paralegal traveled to Guatemala for a follow-up with some deportees and reported back on the conditions there that lead people to risk coming north.

- This kind of batsh*ttery (eek, gays! eek, healthcare!) is almost enough to put me off coffee. Almost. We shouldn't get too hasty about assigning that blame.