All roads now lead to two Americas

Mike Morris offers us a timely proposal at his website, Funmentionables. The article, complete with Mike's brand of Bible quoting humor, ends ominously with a declaration that there are two Americas. Here's his opening which, in his hallowed tradition, he supports with Bible chapter and verse:

On January 28, 2014, Representative Michael Grimm (R-NY-11) issued a direct verbal threat to a reporter inside the Capitol building by saying “I’ll break you in half” and “throw you off this f---ing balcony,” which was a direct violation of D.C. law (District of Columbia Official Code, Division IV, Title 22, Subtitle I, Chapter 4, § 22-407): "Whoever is convicted in the District of threats to do bodily harm shall be fined not more than $ 500 or imprisoned not more than 6 months . . ." Rep. Grimm was never arrested for his actions, and Congress has taken no punitive action against him. By its inaction, the US Congress is essentially condoning a Congressperson’s right to threaten to kill average Americans, though conversely, when average Americans threaten the life of a public official, they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In keeping with this double standard and to codify for all time this special status, I propose the following: RESOLUTION
Expressing support for designation of January 28, annually, as “Throw a Reporter “Off This F---ing Balcony” Day”.

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How Google hires.

Excellent points made in this article describing how Google hires. The title is, "Why Google doesn’t care about hiring top college graduates." These approaches dovetail well with Paul Tough's book, "How Children Succeed." Here's an excerpt:

Google looks for the ability to step back and embrace other people’s ideas when they’re better. “It’s ‘intellectual humility.’ Without humility, you are unable to learn,” Bock says. “Successful bright people rarely experience failure, and so they don’t learn how to learn from that failure.”

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Some say that good things just happen all by themselves . . .

I often think of the two main competing metaphors regarding the economy as this: Do we want a jungle or a garden? Many conservatives and libertarians insist we should just get out of the way and let amazing things happen. That is not my experience.

Kennedy speech w caption 2

I would add that the rigged free market has brought us marvels like the invasion of Iraq, where the American fossil fuel industry and the military industrial complex hijacked the American decision-making process. Corrupted government at its best, and the American media has moved on, as though that illegal war was a success.

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Pope Francis takes aim at unbridled capitalism

The Washington Post reports on the Pope's recent writing on economic policy:

In the first lengthy writing of his papacy — also known as an "apostolic exhortation" — Francis says such economic theories naively rely on the goodness of those in charge and create a "tyranny" of the markets. "In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," the pope wrote. "This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting."

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What is Quantitative Easing?

The more I hear about "quantitative easing," the more it is clear that it amounts to fucking with our nation's currency in a dangerous way. It's making me queasy, and like many things, there's very little straight talk in the mainstream media. I've recently run across a few things that amount to some straight talk. Here's one, and here's the other:

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