The Way We Live Now

"We live now with dishonest politics, disinformed and disinforming media, disconnected cultures, disjointed economics, dysfunctional communities and disrespected citizens. To attempt to repair such conditions without a morally conscious politics makes as much sense as trying to revive a body without a heart. This is not romanticism, idealism or naivete, just basic political anatomy. That we have come to accept a politics that offers no choice save between our acquisition of abusive power or our submission to it speaks only to the depths of our delusion; it says nothing about that which is possible." - A Pocket Paradigm of Sam Smith

God Will Be Mocked

Since the tragic murders last Friday in Norway, there've been a lot of blame and accusations thrown about. Loads of speculation about what/who made Breivik do what he did. Was it from the left or right?; Is he Christian or not. Is he a terrorist or some deranged whacko? I don't always like Jon Stewart's humor, especially after what happened in Norway, his schtick on his show can be taken as bit crass and insensitive, but even Stewart made some important observations regarding Breivik's Christian zeal and how the right-wing pundits have tried to disconnect his faith from his massacre.

The above title is from an addendum to a post by Doug at his blog, Counterlight's Peculiars.

God Will Be Mocked.

The people who truly mock God are not the people who don't conform to whatever template we make for them. The people who mock God are those who kill and harm, or who advocate harm in any form, to those created in His image. People like Anders Breivik and people who have similar sympathies spit in God's face just as surely as did the soldiers on that first Good Friday.

French Exceptionalism...

From THE GUARDIAN

A high-level diplomatic spat has broken out between France and Germany, but this time it is not about saving the euro or European integration. Instead, it is foie gras that is causing the fallout.

Angry missives have flown between Paris and Berlin after the decision by organisers of a leading German food fair to ban the French delicacy, which is made from the liver of fattened geese or ducks.

Foie gras producers are incensed after being told their liver pâté will be not welcome at the biennial Anuga food fair in Cologne in October.
[...]
About 37 million ducks and 700,000 geese are slaughtered each year to make French foie gras. The force-feeding practice is said to date to 2,500BC, though it is unlikely the ancient Egyptians took to fattening their fowl on the industrial scale found in France, where foie gras and its controversial production method is enshrined in law as part of the country's so-called cultural exception. Article L654 of the 2006 rural code states: "Foie gras is part of the protected cultural and gastronomic heritage of France. By 'foie gras' is meant the liver of a duck or a goose specifically fattened by force-feeding."

Our Cowardly President

To dump Elizabeth Warren, the most qualified, most motivated and most articulate candidate for the directorship of the Consumer Financial Regulatory Bureau is an act of political cowardliness by President Obama and a boon to anti-consumer Republicans and their corporate paymasters in Wall Street.

Elizabeth Warren apparently is just too good, too smart, and too able to arouse the just concerns of millions of American families about the need to put the law-and-order wood to the corporate criminals, defrauders and reckless speculators with the savings and pensions of millions of Americans.

President Obama should realize that his back-of-the-hand attitude to his liberal and progressive supporters – who sent him to the White House – can have consequences. He believes they have no where to go. But they do. They can stay home in 2012, as so many did in 2010 to the detriment of the Democrats and many Congressional races.

[Nader - "Dumping Elizabeth Warren" - CounterPunch]

Who would shoot a pet horse?

WCAX-TV

"Police are investigating the shooting of a pet horse in East Montpelier. And the family who owned the horse is left wondering why it happened."

HSUS is offering a $2500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the responsible party.