Welcome to The Now

Dave has a very interesting post where he ends with, "It's no wonder the nation is in decline (and don't let anyone tell you it's not); it's not just our citizens that are bankrupt." But my friends, it's not just Hollywood that's suffering, oh no; it's also our government : We've gone from being able to articulately argue key differences in ideology while still maintaining the long-term goal of getting something -hell, anything- accomplished to the verbal equivalent of pounding our chests and flinging poo.   And people wonder why education is being mocked and attacked now.

  ( link )

( h/t Talking Points Memo )

The more I learn about the Patriot Act, the more it seems like some twisted, bizarro version of the Freedom of Information Act, where instead of the government being upfront with the American people what it's doing, the government is empowered to learn and know everything they want about every single citizen, regardless of whether or not they actually did something (or plan on doing something) wrong. Check the infographic and see if I'm being paranoid about this. One thing's for sure: it's not being used to fight terrorism (and if it is, it's failing miserably).

( pic via ) If we could somehow use the military to educate our youth, improve our health care system and create more jobs I would say that the percentage is fair. (Well, the military could always just draft the unemployed so they can fight the wars, but there's something not quite ethical with that proposal). And don't get me started on the table scraps tossed to "Science, Energy and Environment" or the irony that "Diplomacy and Needs Abroad" is 1/40th of our war spending.