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POPSObama Killed Michael Jackson! The first paragraph is from the cigar-sucker's own web page. The rest, and below, is from politicsusa.com. Rush’s comparison does not work. It doesn’t make sense. Partisan politics can’t be applied to something as random as a celebrity death. Ronald Reagan had as little to do with Jackson’s success, as Obama did with his death. Jackson’s talent made him the world’s biggest star in the 80s, not Ronald Reagan, and Obama did not cause Jackson’s heart trouble. The wingnut pundits are doing everything they can to cast Obama in a bad light. He's a tyrant and a dictator, but they descend to trivialities like his choice of mustard or his reaction to a reporter's intrusive ringtone. The cognitive dissonance it takes to agree with these people is becoming more conflicted every day. What's next - blame Obama for the Teapot Dome Scandal?
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POPS"That's Just Wrong" So, I was at a Little League baseball game today watching my son play. I was standing next to another father while the opposing team was warming up on the field. We were chatting away about our sons' team, the Yankees, the halcyon days of our own little league baseball youth, etc. when he turned to me and said "man, look at the other team's uniforms, they're wearing navy blue pants with light blue shirts - they look like freakin' pajamas! That's just wrong." I got a chuckle out of it for sure, because they did look like pajamas, but it made me recall some horrible uniforms from the 70's and eighties (below): the 1976 Chicago White Sox uniforms featuring shorts (they looked like a mens slow pitch softball team) and the NHL's Hartford Whalers and Philadelphia Flyers of the 80's who wore pants. Shorts on baseball players? Pants on Hockey players? Now That's just wrong. Who do you think has the worst uniforms in professional sports today?
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POPSLondonTimes: Death of social conservatism in the USA "America is imperfect. It has no divine right to be the world's leading nation. And yet - in this glorious political year - something about it sings. And as the American Olympic team reminded us when we looked at it and wondered at its multicolour, multi-ethnic vibrancy (more than 30 members were born abroad) this nation is ours. There is nothing wrong in wishing it well."
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POPSPre-RNC raids: so who hates freedom now? Doesn't look like any evidence has been uncovered thus far of intent to commit anything beyond non-violent protests. Kind of an unnerving story if you ask me, but, hey, it's a post-9/11 world, and the cops are just trying to keep us all safe, right? (It's funny, when I was a kid growing up in the eighties, there used to be after-school specials about how this kind of thing happened in apartheid South Africa.)
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POPSSmall Steps Are a Start No one has ever suggested that I am a friend of religion. Yet, for positive progress in the Middle East it apparently needs people that share that mindset to take a positive approach to deal with this issue.
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POPSI hope so... If even a small percentage of republicans go for Obama -- it'll be a landslide.
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POPSHijab is a personal choice not state law in Turkey In the early eighties, Iran imposed the hijab on its female citizens, while Syria banned it from schools during the same period. Syria gradually came to terms with the hijab, as the number of Syrian women who chose to wear it increased drastically during the nineties. The hijab is enforced today in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and banned in Tunisia . France banned the hijab in 2004, and far right politicians and pundits are calling for similar bans in other European countries . The Turkish parliament passed a constitutional amendment that practically repealed early constitutional provisions that allowed the Turkish government to ban the hijab from government buildings, universities, and schools. Although the lifting of the ban is not in force yet, the confrontation over this issue with secularists who control the military and the courts has already started. Secularist Turks are up in arms, protesting the new amendment .
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POPSUK MP: USA Executions INHUMANE "I think the State has a right to exact retribution and in the worst cases that means paying with a life," he says today. "I still do believe in it – I switched my position because of several miscarriages of justice, not because of any change of heart. "However, I feel very strongly that if the State is going to kill someone, it should do it in a way that is as unlike murder as possible. It should be painless. "There's not an animal from a beetle to an elephant that you can kill without a series of protocols worked out scientifically to make sure the creature does not suffer. "Yet when it comes to capital punishment, we are far less concerned about whether it is humane or not. "I wanted to discover whether the science of killing offered an alternative." That is why Portillo, who has carved out a respected TV career for himself since leaving politics, finds himself at the grandly titled Centre for Man and Aviation in Soesterberg, Netherlands."
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POPSThey don't grow on trees, you know – China says goodbye to free plastic bags "China, which produces many of the world’s plastic bags, already has to refine five million tonnes of crude oil a year just to keep pace with the demand for plastics used in packaging at home. It urged rubbish collectors to do more to recycle waste by separating plastic for reprocessing and reducing the amount to be burnt or buried." Such a small thing, such a big impact, such a good idea.
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POPSThe Watchmen set is built! The Watchmen, by nearly everyone's account, is one of the all-time best graphic novels. It's a complex and well written literary work combined with art that helps bring the story to life. It's always felt very movie-like to me, so I'm excited for it's transition to the big screen. Warnerbros has released some pictures of the backlot, and it looks amazing. These snaps look just like the NYC depicted in the Watchmen - a gritty early-eighties New York with a very particular look and feel.
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POPSStudy: Americans More Isolated Now Than in Eighties A sociology study, soon to be published in the American Sociological Review , finds that Americans have fewer confidents with whom they discuss important matters than they did in the 1980s. The number of Americans with no such confidants has increased dramatically, and is the modal response. Via Kieran Healy at Crooked Timber , who has a nice discussion of the study.
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