Fred Kaplan on what can be done about piracy on the high seas.
I don't have any particular opinions about any of this but I find it intriguing that issues can come out of nowhere like this. A week ago, if someone asked you to list your worries and concerns for the world, you might have mentioned the economy, the war, floods, the cost of health care, unemployment or any of about three dozen other topics. How many of us were fretting about pirates?
Matt Taibbi on the "peasant mentality" that we see in our country today. Near as I can figure out, a lot of people are being fooled into thinking that when the Obama administration raises military spending, they're actually slashing it, and that when taxes are lowered for the lower and middle class, they're actually skyrocketing.
Marc Cooper explains the inane premise of today's "Teabagging" protests. Personally, I think all that's happening is that a lot of folks who are furious they lost an election are working out their frustration and pretending that they have a chance of snatching "their country" back right away from all those evil people who cheated by getting more votes.
Timothy Noah tackles the question of when has a celebrity ever been convicted of murder? He thinks it may have been John Wilkes Booth.
My buddy Buzz Dixon thinks it may have been bandleader Spade Cooley, who in 1962 was found guilty of murdering his wife. Some people thought he should also have been found guilty of being named Spade Cooley.
Andrew Sullivan thinks that all the right-wing hostility towards Barack Obama has made him even more powerful.
Whilst flipping the news dial this evening, I happened upon some footage of an angry mob chanting, "No taxation without representation! No taxation without representation!" I assumed at first it was citizens who live in the District of Columbia and really do have taxation without representation. Turned out, it was people in Nebraska. Apparently, their idea of "no representation" is that their Senators and Congresspersons are voting on the losing side of some bills.
Read Timothy Noah on the rising cost of health care and what can be done about it. A stunner fact is how much the cost (to you) of your employer-supplied health coverage rose during the last few years. Even if you got a raise, you didn't get it because the cost of your health plan went up even more.
Joe Conason offers up an intriguing concept — that the way to neutralize a group like Al Qaeda is to divide its base, convincing citizens who might follow them that America is not The Great Satan, as it is portrayed, and that it is not out to destroy Muslims or their states. Okay, that makes sense. The point Conason makes is that Obama is uniquely qualified to achieve that in a way that someone else — say, John McCain — was not.
By the by: Back when a lot of us had the audacity to suggest that George W. Bush might not be a wonderful president, a stock way of dismissing us without rebutting us was to accuse us of being "Bush-haters." The new response from all the same people is that we're "Obama-worshippers." I don't think either was ever valid and I note how uncomfy a lot of us are with Obama's seeming policies of growing government secrecy and executive power. Sure hope we're wrong about the direction he's heading with all that because I don't trust anyone, Democrat or Republican, with the kind of omnipotence that Bush demanded and that Obama seems to be extending.
Roger Ebert vs. Bill O'Reilly.
The thing I find puzzling about O'Reilly is that he's supposed to be this important, influential voice in American politics…and I never see anyone who seems to agree with him or defend him or anything. There are folks out there who swear by Limbaugh and Hannity and Glenn Beck and their opposite numbers, to the extent they have opposite numbers, on the Left. But O'Reilly? Never. He gets decent ratings but my impression is that people tune in to watch the wrestling, not because they think they're going to hear any truth. Am I missing something?
It's Fred Kaplan again, this time discussing our options with North Korea's Kim Jong-il. One seems to be not to worry a lot about the guy.
Fred Kaplan on what Robert Gates is doing with the defense budget. It has long struck me that a certain segment of those who comment on or lobby for certain expenditures are eager for us to buy and build the "coolest" planes, as opposed to those that might be useful. Gates seems to not be doing that so good for him.
Rolling Stone picks its Dirty Dozen — twelve folks who oughta be ashamed (but probably aren't) of their contributions to the current financial crisis.
It's Fred Kaplan Time, people! Here he is, discussing how Obama did at the G20 Summit.
Seymour Hersh on the (remote) chances for peace in the Middle East.
Timothy Noah reminds us that government bailouts are not a new invention.
Harry Shearer on the war crimes of the Bush administration…and the why.