Read more…

Today is Bill of Rights Day. To Americans, the Bill of Rights are key amendments to the U.S. Constitution, that protect our individual rights.

[Source, Holiday Insights]

I find it without irony that the US Senate has passed a bill allowing the indefinite detention of US citizens and that the House of Representatives appears ready to pass the bill, and on this very day the House Judiciary Committee is ready to make a vote on SOPA which will dramatically alter the Internet and people’s rights on the Internet.

I like this quote:

It is a curious way to celebrate the 220th anniversary of the Bill of Rights.

[Source, JONATHAN TURLEY, Happy Birthday, Bill [of Rights]: Obama Breaks Promise To Veto Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention of Americans]

See also:

• National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 on Thomas
• NDAA moving forward in Congress
• Stop Online Piracy Act
• Kill SOPA, save America’s Internet and American jobs: ACT NOW, bill goes to the House TOMORROW

Let me rephrase:
Ron Paul speaks, we have bases on their sacred land, we mistreat the Palestinians, over the past decade we’ve killed thousands of their people. Audience reacts with boos.
Rick Santorum, Republican poster child, speaks, they hate us because of our lifestyle. Audience reacts with cheers.

Are the American people really that full of themselves?

In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.

[Source, The New York Times, The President Surrenders by PAUL KRUGMAN]

I am deeply troubled by the state of politics in America. Our Congress is embarrassing. Our President needs a backbone transplant. The Tea Party needs history and economic lessons. The Republicans need morals. The middle class and poor need a champion. And I need antacid.

Maybe this would help!

And here’s some more:

Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics.

[Source, Business Insider, Anyone Who Thinks The Debt Deal Is A Victory For America Understands Neither Economics Nor Politics by Robert Reich]

See also I’m a Canadian watching the whole "debt crisis" from the outside – I was just wondering: Why aren’t there mass protests over what is happening? Your politicians are blatantly subverting your democracy for a quite blatant corporatist agenda. Good question!

And from CNN’s Republican David Frum:

I’m a Republican. Always have been. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation and limited government. But as I look back at the weeks of rancor leading up to Sunday night’s last-minute budget deal, I see some things I don’t believe in:

• Forcing the United States to the verge of default.
• Shrugging off the needs and concerns of millions of unemployed.
• Protecting every single loophole, giveaway and boondoggle in the tax code as a matter of fundamental conservative principle.
• [Read more...]

There was another way. There still is.

1. Unemployment is a more urgent problem than debt.
2. The deficit is a symptom of America’s economic problems, not a cause. … Cut the deficit first, and the economy will get even sicker.
3. The time to cut is after the economy recovers.
4. The place to cut is health care, not assistance to the unemployed and poor. … The problem is that Americans pay too much for the medicine they use.
5. We can collect more revenue without raising tax rates.
6. Passion does not substitute for judgment.
7. You can’t save the system by destroying the system.

[Source, CNN, Wake up GOP: Smashing system doesn't fix it]

See also: Star Wars explains the debt ceiling

Seen at http://imgur.com/3prAG

It is comforting to know that am emergency team of 8th-grade civics teachers has been dispatched to Washington!

WASHINGTON—With lawmakers still at an impasse over increasing the debt ceiling, a special team of 40 eighth-grade civics teachers was air-dropped into Washington earlier today in a last-ditch effort to teach congressional leaders how the government’s legislative process works. [READ MORE]

[Source, the ONION, Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington]

The size of male organ is found to have an inverse U-shaped relationship with the level of GDP in 1985. It can alone explain over 15% of the variation in GDP. The GDP maximizing size is around 13.5 centimetres, and a collapse in economic development is identified as the size of male organ exceeds 16 centimetres. Economic growth between 1960 and 1985 is negatively associated with the size of male organ, and it alone explains 20% of the variation in GDP growth. With due reservations it is also found to be more important determinant of GDP growth than country’s political regime type.

[Source, Helsinki Center of Economic Research, Male Organ and Economic Growth: Does Size
Matter? by Tatu Westling, University of Helsinki, ISSN 1795-0562]

See also.