Hey, I’m a Person Too!

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Arizona, class action lawsuits, climate change, Fox News Channel, Fox Noise, Humor, immigration, John McCain, JonStewart, Keith Olbermann, Media, MSNBC, philosophy, science, SCOTUS, Simone Weil, WalMart, Women's issues

Fresh from the invigoration of being granted personhood for purposes of financially buying its own congressmen and women, corporate persons have moved on to even greater heights today.

The SCOTUS, judicial biggie of the land, has effectively made them lawsuit-proof, by knocking down the million-plus-plaintiff discrimination suit filed against Wal-Mart.

You know that they meant business when they let Scalia write for the 5-4 majority. It seems that the women, did not have one single common claim among them, since DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEX was deemed not to qualify.

 It appears that all a corporation must do is have a “stated” policy of non-discrimination at the head office pinned to the wall. It’s actual store managers are left to promote and pay as they deem fit *wink wink nod nod*. Yep, pretty darn slick wouldn’t you say?

But one more reason to make every effort to avoid spending your precious dollars at Wal-Mart.

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Time to change your diapers again Johnny McCain, you dirtied yourself once again. I should have known some such crap was a coming when I saw his Tweet that he and Kyl were going to “tour” his beloved fire-devoured Arizona. They did, and then held the proverbial press conference to show their civic concerns.

McCain, older than Eve herself, and who cannot possibly think of running again, sucked up to the racist element in his state by blaming the fires of “illegals who were out there starting fires to signal each other.”

He could, of course, point to no specifics. Later, his minions explained that they had got their information from the state’s forestry department. Funny thing. The Forest Service has no freakin’ idea about what Johnny was talking about. “You know, sometimes he forgets his meds,” they chortled. (Oh, I made that last thing up, but not the rest!)

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Some scientists in Australia have gotten piqued at the continuing “debate” over climate change. They claim that there is really no debate at all. It’s a done deal. The climate is changing, and we are responsible. They run a really excellent site called The Conversation and there is a section with numerous articles on climate change. Take a look. It seems filled with the arguments and with explanations of the games the pseudo-science right light to play to obscure the true facts. Oh and they have plenty of other subjects. The website is an EDU domain. (h/t to Think Progress.)

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Some times I think there is a failure in my generation of really great women. I’m talking about women who were out side the norm in every way, who walked alone, unafraid of being defined as “odd” or not being subject to being slotted into some category. Simone Weil comes to mind, who lived in the same place and time as Simone de Beauvoir. There is a lovely bio of her at Lapham’s Quarterly. Go read it. It’s worth it.

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Don’t know if you got a chance to see it or not, but Jon Stewart was on Fox Sunday with Chris Wallace. Wallace did his best to start things off belligerently, implying that Stewart had dodged the interview (presumably out of fear). But as you might expect, Stewart walked all over Wallace who never had a clue.

What went unanswered was Wallace’s claim that their “audience” was very happy with them as being fair and balanced presumably. Stewart went unchallenged when he remarked that every poll and study also suggested that Fox news watchers were the most misinformed people of all news watchers. You can see excerpts and links to actual polling at above link.

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In case you didn’t hear, Keith Olbermann is back on the airwaves again starting today. His new show is on channel 358 (Current TV) on most cable networks. We have sure missed him on MSNBC. Shultz has been a belligerent disappointment and so frankly has O’Donnell, both of whom come from the “if I don’t like what you say, I’ll yell over you” school of interviewing, made so popular at Foxy Noise. His list of sidekicks looks like fun too. Be sure to watch.

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What’s on the stove? chicken stir fry with homemade spring rolls and crab Rangoon.

Related articles

• Jon Stewart LIVE On Fox News, Tells Host ‘You’re Insane’ (VIDEO) (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Jon Stewart Uses Big Words on Fox News [Video] (gawker.com)
• Daily Show’s Jon Stewart Chats With “Insane” Fox News Host (eonline.com)
• Fair, Balanced and Wrong (gocomics.typepad.com)
• Wal-Mart’s negative impact on the world’s economy (To be marked) (macnomics.wordpress.com)
• Arcelia Hurtado: The Women of Wal-Mart (huffingtonpost.com)
• The Clock’s Ticking for Wal-Mart Women – Be Among the First To Know …Fatima Goss Graves, National Women’s Law Center (ynative77.wordpress.com)
• John McCain’s Illegal Immigrants Started Arizona Wildfires Disputed by U.S. Forest Service (politicore.wordpress.com)

Patting Myself on the Back

Tags

atheists, Barack Obama, Fox News Channel, Franklin Graham, fundamentalists, Muslims, nature, paleontology, Politics, racism, Republican, science

The truth is, I believe in dressing well, even for a day at the computer. As you can see, even a hat is de rigueur in my world.

I went on yesterday about veiled conspiracies to subvert the economic recovery by corporations (banks and otherwise), giving up short-term gains to insure a Republican victory this November. I think I’m mostly right.

Veiled or unveiled, I suspect they don’t much care at this point. Fox certainly doesn’t after it’s gift of a cool mill to the GOP. They don’t bother any more with even a pretence at “fair and balanced.”

Why? Oh quite simple really.  They know that their simple-minded audience can’t add two and two and come up remotely close to a correct answer. They can and do lie at will. The right doesn’t listen to the left, preferring to roll in the swill of their moral rightness on everything. Their base doesn’t care one whit that they are playing politics, in fact they agree with it. Just as they agreed with Fox’s promotion of all things tea partyish.

Why I disagree with parts of the next article, especially as to who is owed all the blame, I think there is something to be said for RCP’s article The Lost Promise of Barack Obama. Democrats bear a good deal of blame for their own downfall, which seems more and more likely this November.

 Nobody can get a snark on better than our friends at Urantia Sojourn. This one particularly struck me as both cogent and well researched. The branding of all non-whites as “other” is reaching epidemic proportions in America. Will we stop it before it is too late?

It seems to me that part of being responsible as a human beings is to be willing to criticize yourself, as American, Democrat, religious believer, etc. Being an apologist is simply dangerous, and once discovered takes all the power from your voice. The must read of today is this one: [note that this link is weird–the text is half way down, it looks like a Pakistan military site, but the full text is in a comment–3quarksdaily had no better linkage]

Harvard University offers an award known as the Robert F. Kennedy Public Service award. It’s first Muslim recipient and only second South Asia one, went to Mir Ibrahim Rahman. His remarks are food for deep thought for all of us in the US. They were made at Harvard Commencement. As I said, the text is embedded in a comment I believe, but still it is worth the effort to get to it.

Goodness knows I’ve had my problems with atheists. The NEW ones at least. I find them about as irrational and pompous as fundamentalists. More and more I keep finding that many equate, and frankly always have, the rabid atheist with the fundamentalist. Both talk of certainty about things that are anything but certain.

A great post by Reza Aslan at the Washington Post lays this out extraordinarily well. Much thanks to Mystical Seeker at Find and Ye Shall Seek. Much whine from the atheists in the comments.

The profession of butcher is older than we thought! At least 800,000 years to be exact. Ha! And to think that butcher shops are going out of style and have been for decades now. You would think that they would be revered places, beginnings of our illustrious history as tool makers and users. Read it all at Butchering Dinner 3.4 Million Years Ago.

And then there are times when it’s very embarrassing to be a Christian–when you have to be in the same religion as Franklin Graham. This Muslim hater is beyond the pale. Even his father had enough sense to at least apologize when caught being anti-Semitic. The son now drivels on about how Obama came from “Muslim seed” and “says he has accepted Jesus Christ”.  What a piece of work.

Amy Sullivan has a most interesting take on why polls claim that 1/4 of Americans “think” Obama is a Muslim. Worth your time to read this one.

Meanwhile, James Taranto, writing for the Wall Street Journal (Murdock’s baby remember) writes a convoluted piece that suggests that liberals do these polls all for the purpose of calling the right names for their beliefs, and in the process fail to do it, but make themselves look mean and small for calling out the right wing nuts. Understand that? Neither did I. If you got to comments you will find that ALL believe Obama is a Muslim there. Too funny.

And that’s a wrap.