Reality Check

The picture tells it all: Look at who gets the biggest slice of the pie:

Let's all thank Reagan and successors, everybody! Image source and more info here.

Makes you think of that Leonard Cohen song, doesn't it?

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor and the rich get rich

That's how it goes...

And everybody knows....

(Found via)

The North Star Empress

I finally got a chance to read Vanity Fair's report on Sarah Palin and there was nothing in it that shocked me. I am not claiming to be clairvoyant but she has shown her ugly and uglier sides time after time. I just wish those who follow her also knew how she really is. Unfortunately, they won't even bother to read this article because, why would they go on to question their belief in the 'North Star.'

Warm and effusive in public, indifferent or angry in private: this is the pattern of Palin’s behavior toward the people who make her life possible. A onetime gubernatorial aide to Palin says, “The people who have worked for her—they’re broken, used, stepped on, down in the dust.” On the 2008 campaign trail, one close aide recalls, it was practically impossible to persuade Palin to take a moment to thank the kitchen workers at fund-raising dinners. During the campaign, Palin lashed out at the slightest provocation, sometimes screaming at staff members and throwing objects. Witnessing such behavior, one aide asked Todd Palin if it was typical of his wife. He answered, “You just got to let her go through it… Half the stuff that comes out of her mouth she doesn’t even mean.” When a campaign aide gingerly asked Todd whether Sarah should consider taking psychiatric medication to control her moods, Todd responded that she “just needed to run and work out more.” Her anger kept boiling over, however, and eventually the fits of rage came every day. Then, just as suddenly, her temper would be gone. Palin would apologize and promise to be nicer. Within hours, she would be screaming again. At the end of one long day, when Palin was mid-tirade, a campaign aide remembers thinking, “You were an angel all night. Now you’re a devil. Where did this come from?”

The whole report is seven and a half pages, but take your time and go through it. I did. And I know quite well I wouldn't want someone like the person described above controlling our nuclear arsenal.

Addendum: More on the empress's new clothes.

Ruminations of a Sick Anti-Theist

Christopher Hitchens, an outspoken public intellectual and a relentless critic of religion, has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and is undergoing treatment. He continues to write for Vanity Fair and his latest article in the magazine—about a week old, but I just got to read it—expresses his view on getting sick as well as on the fact that people of different faiths are praying for him.

He has very interesting things to say. Definitely worth a read if you have the time.

There are numerous passages in holy scripture and religious tradition that for centuries made this kind of gloating into a mainstream belief. Long before it concerned me particularly I had understood the obvious objections. First, which mere primate is so damn sure that he can know the mind of god? Second, would this anonymous author want his views to be read by my unoffending children, who are also being given a hard time in their way, and by the same god? Third, why not a thunderbolt for yours truly, or something similarly awe-inspiring? The vengeful deity has a sadly depleted arsenal if all he can think of is exactly the cancer that my age and former “lifestyle” would suggest that I got. Fourth, why cancer at all? Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: it’s an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia. Devout persons have died young and in pain. Bertrand Russell and Voltaire, by contrast, remained spry until the end, as many psychopathic criminals and tyrants have also done. These visitations, then, seem awfully random. While my so far uncancerous throat, let me rush to assure my Christian correspondent above, is not at all the only organ with which I have blasphemed …And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it’s hello darkness my old friend. In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)

'Monk Business'

Vanity Fair takes an exhaustive look at Greece's financial woes and how a handful of monks on Mount Athos helped to create it and/or benefited from it.

On a related note, I have a short-term solution for Greece: have your church bail you out. Technically, the church and state are one and the same. One hand washes the other, I say.

Loon Watch

Sooooooo... does this make her a lez? Judging by her male counterparts' rhetoric against gays and their subsequently-discovered love for the cock, I'd say she's as lesbian as poetry readings!

She does say 'I want some young women; you come stand with me' and then goes on to ask for a few women by name. I'd say she's a bitter lesbian at best....

(via BuzzFeed)

E vërteta na vjen nga jashtë

Që shqiptarët ta kuptojnë se ku ndodhen në lidhje me historinë e tyre, duhet që pasqyrën të na e mbajnë nga jashtë. Një profesor amerikan i quajtur Bernd Fisher (jam ende në kërkim të CV-së së tij) na vë në dukje tiparet e udhëheqësve që kemi pasur deri më sot, që nga Enver Hoxha e deri tek Saliu I dhe Saliu II. Ai nuk harron të tregojë këtë të fundit dhe Fatos Nanon si pasardhës të Enver Hoxhës, në saje të mentalitetit të tyre politik, por edhe të mënyrës se si ata kanë vepruar dhe veprojnë politikisht.

Who's to Blame

I'm not Obama's biggest fan right now and, honestly, never was. But I do think the guy has faced blame that was unjustly thrust upon him. It appears that even blaming him for the high unemployment in this country is also not just at all, because it is not his fault. In great part, he is responsible only for the unemployment that occurred during the time when his policies combatting it were put into effect. (Any logical person would not claim that he is responsible for all job losses post-20 January 2009.) Taking that into consideration, the result is astounding, as this blogger finds.

If you're more inclined to like pictures, behold this:

In other words, it is the Bush policies that are responsible for the loss of 7,796,000 jobs, and the Obama policies that are responsible for the loss of 41,000 jobs. That's Bush for 99.48% and Obama for 0.52% of unemployment.

This picture also illustrates it well. Or maybe it's just a cool picture that I want on my blog.

(Graph Source & via)

(Image Source)

Truth Be Told...

I am glad that at a time when most are discussing America's exit from Iraq (sort of), somebody stops and looks at the reason(s) that got us there in the first place. Those reasons were as fickle as they were false. What we didn't find there, the thousands of Iraqi victims, and the current state of political and social instability also go to show us that the war was in vain. Those dead did die in vain; they died in the hands of leaders who, led by their own reasons, sent thousands of them to fight a useless, unnecessary, unpopular, destructive war.

Revisionism is a Republican philosophy of life. Sadly, many Americans buy into it time after time. Good thing Rachel Maddow is around to shed some light where light is due, and give credit where credit is due.

Bonus clip:

Dituri

PYETJE:

Mitologjia shqiptare: Çfarë besonin paraardhësit tanë?

PËRGJIGJE:

Mes të tjerash: «Të bardhat janë një lloj shtojzovallesh, vajza të bukura, pra, diçka si zanat. E Bukura e Dheut, edhe kjo është njëfarë zane. Kjo figurë mitologjike është e njohur jo vetëm në Ballkan, por edhe në botën arabe, nga duhet të ketë ardhur ndër ne. Dragoi, kuçedra, syri i keq, lugati, shtriga etj..»

Për artikullin e plotë, ndiqni këtë lidhje te gazeta Standard.

Phallic Polls

The picture really is worth a thousand words in this case.

Outing Bigotry

It's all out, folks!

The Judge in the Perry et al. v. Schwarzenegger case has released all video evidence presented in the court. That means that now you can find the mendacious and misleading ads for Proposition 8 in one good ol' web page.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Everyone is entitled to his or her view of morality; no one is entitled to imposing it on another human being.

Get over it!

'Little Terrorists'

Aaaaaaaah! This Texas representative seems to suggest that children born to illegal immigrants in the United States leave the country, become terrorists, and then come back and are a threat to our security. Yes.... Because only U.S. citizens can (re)enter the country, right?

This woman is an idiot. She cites dubious sources devoid of proof and, what's more, pushes down our throats the image of illegal immigration as a direct threat to our security. Security! It's one thing to say it's a fiscal problem, but to make any suggestion that they are 'little terrorists' serves only the purpose of eliciting images of brown babies with dynamite strapped to their bodies. And that is certainly the image that the fear-mongering Republicans want people to have in mind when voting this year.

Election years are depressing but also a good test for the sanity of our representatives. This woman has failed it.