Scratching an itch

"Why is the TPP draft treaty such a big secret?: President Obama in his last State of the Union address said that he hopes to see the United States ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, an proposed treaty among at least 12 nations on both sides of the Pacific that would set rules of what members governments could and couldn't do in regard to financial regulation, intellectual property rights and much else. But the Obama administration refuses to disclose precisely what is in the draft treaty or what the United States is asking for. That's classified information. That is to say, the classification system, whose original stated purpose was to make it a crime to disclose military secrets to foreign enemies, is being used to make it a crime to reveal the government's proposed trade treaty to the American public."

Pelosi booed at NN over Snowden. Just start about halfway through the video to see that. Personally, I wanted to smack her every time she said "bipartisanship". A chill went up my spine when she said, "...and now it's urgent to give him a legacy." WTF? Why should any of us care about that? That may be Obama's concern, but there is absolutely no reason in the world it should be mine or anyone else's. And when she said the right-wing complained that she'd rammed Obamacare down their throats and she responded that if she'd done any ramming we'd have single-payer, I would have said, "So why didn't you do that ramming?" (I also think she's forgotten that "poison pill" means you can't vote for it. Don't give me, "...but they're not lethal because there are other good things in the bill." Yes, they are lethal. Don't vote for them. Don't vote for any bill that has even one "poison pill" in it, let alone plurals. Jeez.)

RJ Eskow's Father's Day message: "9 Ways the Right's Cradle to Grave 'Randian State' Is An Assault on Millennials: Conservatives keep claiming liberals want a 'cradle-to-grave nanny state.' That rhetoric has distracted us from the real social re-engineering taking place all around us. The right, along with its 'centrist' collaborators, is transforming our nation into a bloodless and soulless Randian State. Their decades-long assault on our core social values is on the verge of consuming its first complete generation of Americans. Born at the dawn of the Reagan era, Millennials were the first to be fully subjected to this all-out attack on the idea that we take care of each other in this country, and they'll pay for it from the cradle to the grave."

Matt Taibbi, "The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis: It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it.

"NYT Pays Tribute to Hastings by Attacking Him After Death: When a journalist dies, how can you tell if they've had a career that's upheld the proudest journalistic traditions of challenging the powerful and fearlessly exposing the truth? The New York Times will attempt to piss on that career in the journalist's obituary."

"The Pathologies of Politico" - Actually, I'd say these were the pathologies of pretty much the whole Washington press corps, with some variations for partisanship but not much in terms of real ideology. (I left a comment here, but I was late to the party.)

"Ted Rall: Keeping calm and carrying on was an appropriate response to the Blitz. Short of moving away from the targeted area, there's nothing you can do about bombs. Living or dying is a matter of happenstance. Keeping calm might help you make smart decisions. Panic is usually more dangerous than self-control. The same is true of terrorism. Terrorists will kill you, or not - probably not. You can't fix your fate. But that is decidedly not true about the economy. Not when what is wrong with the economy is not something no one can control - a giant meteor, bad weather, panic in the markets - but something that most assuredly can and indeed should be, like the systemic transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the rich that has characterized the class divide in Western nations since the 1970s. The appropriate, intelligent and self-preserving response to mass theft is rage, demands for action, and decisive punishment of political and economic leaders who refuse to change things."

Joss Whedon in conversation

"Iain Banks: Raw Spirit" - long interview by Kirsty Wark.

Bloopers for Amazon Women on the Moon

Ruth's supermoon