Fantastic round table lead by Stephen Fry on the out of control incarceration rate in this country. We imprison more people, per capita, than any nation in the history of the world. Fortunately for the Prison Industrial Complex, the coming double-dip recession will surely provide ample opportunity to sweep thousands more into our penal/human chattel holding cells, that we may create more wards of the state and more productive slave labor. Huzzah for free societies.
The Greatest American Five Fingers, The Teabag Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree for Rand Paul, We Like Ice Cream Because It’s ICE CREAM!, What if We Just Lightly Sear Them?, Lakers Fail at Immigration, Invading Arizona for Fun, Profit, and Golf Courses, Greg Roots For the Insurance Company to Win the Bet, and the BuddhaFather.
In case you’re not as into sports as we here at The Mep Report are, you might have missed this little gem from last night: the worst call in the history of professional baseball. Not that we ever engage in hyperbole anyway, but just in case you’re tempted to think that’s what I’m engaging in here, I give you umpire Jim Joyce and one hard luck pitcher called Armando Galarraga.
If anyone’s wondering why I once compared New York City to Darfur, maybe a bit of it has to do with the fact that both are absurdly inhospitable to outsiders. And the “art installation” depicted above and discussed here provides good insight into said inhospitability.
Seldom do we ex-debaters at The Mep Report get the chance to watch our political leaders, who tend to be woeful both in constructing arguments and refuting them, lay the smackdown on people who desperately deserve it. So it’s a breath of fresh air on the rare occasions when it happens.
The thought that Congress serves not the interests of its constituents, but those of its corporate benefactors, used to be reserved for cynics and conspiracy theorists. Now this line of thinking is so banal, so obvious, that it goes without saying. A huge majority (roughly 4 out of 5 Americans) now believes that the game is rigged, and there is virtually no real institutional reform possible without the complete overhaul of our campaign finance system.
All Hail President Obama, King of Freedom, Protector of Citizens from Ex-Patriot Clerics who happen to worship the wrong Invisible Man in the Sky. In His great wisdom, our Handsome Genius Progressive Champion has finally figured out a solution to the Bush era problem of excessive Enemy Combatant detention. Why, asks our Beloved Mocha-Skinned Sultan, detain these dangerous individuals for years on end? Why deny these freedom fighters their right to a quick and unexpected death?
If you’ve got a free hour and a half, check out redlettermedia’s series of Star Wars Episodes I + II critiques. They fully expose the prequels as the worthless schlock that everyone suspects them to be.
I was going to post this as a comment on Russ’ post, but I have enough to say that it warrants one of these ranty point-counterpoint things we love so much on TMR.
What’s truly astonishing about the Sarah Palin story is not her complete lack of qualifications to run for any office, let alone President–beauty pageant contestant, mayor of a town smaller than the one I grew up in (no mean feat), half term governor of Alaska, and teabagger phenomenon. No, what’s astonishing about the Sarah Palin story is the breathtaking way in which a pathological liar gets drunk on one giant feedback loop of fairy tales, thrown so headlong into the mirror of her own ego that she won’t be done picking up the shattered pieces until after she’s crushed in the general election (and probably not even then). Or how hypocrisy–“[Obama’s] a guy with a teleprompter,” from Palin’s speech at the Teabagger convention–gets publicly revealed in the most delightful ways:
Oops!
Yep. It’s Sarah Palin’s hand, and those are notes from the EXACT SAME SPEECH WITH THE “OBAMA AS TELEPROMPTER GUY” LINE.
We here at The Mep Report are begging, nay, pleading with you, Sarah: the teabaggers need you. The Republicans need you. Your country needs you. And most of all, and as always most importantly, YOU need you. Please, please run for President. It would truly be a year of wonders.
