There's a Tea Party... and Everyone is Mad

Frank Rich of The New York Times reiterating the true colors of what the Tea Party movement puts out there, as well as the true colors of those in the Republican Party who egg them on.

Vox Clamantis in Insanity

So close, Shep! So close! Next time, don't forget to look at the camera and say, 'I'm talking to you, Glenn Beck, and you, Sean Hannity, and all you pseudo-journalistic bimbos on Fox News.'

Caught With a Dick in Your Mouth?

Here's some advice on how to deal with that situation:

(via The Huffington Post)

Shqipëria falimenton

Ministri i Financave, Ridvan Bode, i ka kërkuar Fondit Monetar Ndërkombëtar kredi për të larë borxhin që ka arritur tashmë në 59,5% të PBB-së.

Një editorial tek gazeta Shekulli vë në dukje jo vetëm mangësitë që tregoi Ridvan Bode si Ministër i Financave duke e lënë ekonominë të përfundonte këtu ku ndodhet pa vepruar më parë, por edhe dështimin e qeverisë që e ka atë si anëtar.

Me mbarë Shqipërinë të përmbytur, me prodhimin vendas gjithnjë e në ulje, me kokëfortësinë dhe papërthyeshmërinë që ka treguar qeveria Berisha politikisht, si dhe me gjendjen e mjeruar në të cilën ndodhet pjesa dërrmuese e popullit Shqiptar, më vjen keq të them se i druhem një grusht-shteti alla-1997.

Jon Stewart Does Glenn Beck

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Good Thing Out of the Vatican

Perhaps the best thing to come out of the Vatican is this all-around 360° virtual view of the Sistine Chapel. The resolution is pretty high. Here is a preview.

(Found on BuzzFeed)

Why We Are Better

This is, in part, why we are better off nationally and internationally with a president like Barack Obama than a bellicose one like Dick Cheney—I mean George W. Bush... I mean both.

Enough!

I must admit I liked Sen. John McCain before the idea of becoming a president went to his head. He was, indeed, a maverick, a moderate Republican who, albeit in disagreement with my general views, voted on his principles and common sense. Then the hallowed day came when it became clear that he would become the Republicans' nominee for president and he was transformed. His hunger for the presidency took the best of him and brought forth a John McCain I definitely couldn't like and could possibly no longer respect. He remained in that position throughout his campaign. I could forgive him for that and even make excuses for him; you know—he was too passionate about it, he got carried away, and the like. What I cannot forgive him for is the transformation he brought to American politics and civilized debate by unleashing upon the nation a dangerous individual like Sarah Palin.

It is no secret Sarah Palin is a power-hungry politician (voracious or ravenous could work here, as well; superlatives are not an exaggeration in her case). It should be no secret either—and, to my chagrin, this still hasn't reached a lot of people—that she is as incapable a politician as she is a devoid of conscientiousness. Not that the latter and politics go hand in hand; far from it. Time after time, she has easily proved herself wrong on many things she has said, done, or purported to have said or done. In a normal political climate, those many, many, many lies she has fabricated and embellished to unprecedented levels would have brought her political career to an end even sooner than she 'ended' it herself by resigning from her position as Alaska's governor. How many people have asked themselves the question, 'why did she do that?' If you have, here is my answer: because Alaska was not big enough for her. Once her notoriety reached national levels, Alaska was a backyard game for her and she'd have none of it. Her next mission: the lower 48, as she calls them (lucky for Hawaii, huh?).

To succeed in that mission, to climb up the ladder of a political career, she was and is determined to tread on anybody she comes across; she was and is prepared to lie and mislead the American public to places that help her to better shape her political future. THAT is my biggest problem with her. At a time when our president—in great part thanks to what she started and perpetuated during the McCain-Palin campaign—is under a multitude of attacks whose only purpose is to portray him as an outsider, she is actively feeding those flames and, in the process, she needs and never hesitates to appeal to the worse angels of our nature. She exploits the frustrations, fears, indecisiveness, hatred, resentment, misinformation, and insecurities of the American people—some of which I share myself!—in order to turn them into gain for her future political career. She does not care about the American people. She never did. She likes the attention. She likes the national attention, I should say, and she is going to be a fixture (an ugly, ugly one) of American politics for at least two more years until the 2012 presidential elections.

Have no doubt, she will run for president that year. Have no doubt, also, that she will continue along the same path that she forged during the McCain-Palin campaign and is carrying to date. Have no doubt that she will maintain the same rhetoric, the same divisive vitriol she puts out there and that is repeated manifold by Fox News and the pseudo-conservative-but-actually-hate-mongering media. Have no doubt, as well, that, by the end of the campaign and after the presidential elections of that year, the country will be more divided than it will have ever been since the Civil War. You think the latter Bush did awful things for the country and divided and polarized people, turned neighbor against neighbor, friends into enemies? Just wait and see how we will all be thanks to her. Or wake up and smell the rankling winds of the Alaskan front that is Sarah Palin and rise above it and say

ENOUGH!

Math in Nature

Beautiful video animation showing the presence of mathematical sequences, ratios, relations in nature. I know the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio, but the others are foreign to me.

(Found via boingboing)

Cutest Thing I've Seen in a While

It takes a lot to make me laugh and I find very, very few things endearing and adorable. This is one of the few times where I've had some hearty laughs and felt some inner 'awwwwws' in response to the humor and cuteness behind the Young Me - Now Me project. They are side-by-side displays of people's childhood pictures (young me) and the recreations of those pictures in their later years (now me). Some people have gone to great lengths to recreate details present in the picture; some show no reservations about disrobing or looking silly; some are just funny because of the height and weight differences. Anyway... just go there and flip through them. You'll find yourself tempted to send your own.

(via BuzzFeed)

On Translation

David Bellos, a renowned French-to-English translator (with whom I have some beef for having translated Ismail Kadare's from their French translation), has written an editorial on the art of translation as it's being done by Google Translator. It basically says it's good, but not good enough and I happen to agree. You will never match the human brain, Google!

Perspective

Rachel Maddow echoes and puts into perspective what I have always believed about the role of government.