Tea Party Politics: Introducing Rick Parry (or Rick Perry?)

Today's Fresh Air was as scary of program that has been aired on NPR, including earlier this year when Terry had a guest that described the insane Plumb-bob tests in the Nevada desert in the 1950s. This program was at least as scary because it described a planned religious war between Christians and Muslims. The first plank in their platform: tolerance is the greatest evil on planet Earth. You've been warned. Listen at your peril.

Download mp3.

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Barack Obama, Sr. (the president's father)

Dave Davies interviewed Sally H. Jacobs about her new biography of President Barack Obama's father, The Other Barack. This was an interesting show- the part about racial issues with immigration forcing him out of Harvard appears to have been a pivotal point in his life.


NPR audio, mp3. Let me know if you'd like the audio cached.

p.s.Here is a post about another interview about Obama's mother.

Interesting Radio Broadcasts

Terry Gross discusses the financial meltdown with author, Michael Lewis, on her daily show, Fresh Air.

Update:Lewis' book is mentioned by Frank Rich in the New York Times.

Most everyone was happy to cheer along with Greenspan and keep the housing bubble properly inflated. That worked, until the bubble burst starting with the failure of CountryWide. This discussion focuses on those people who saw through the financial double-speak, and effectively shorted the entire financial system. Perhaps, this type of shorting should be outlawed, just to keep the potential liabilities in the range of the world's ability to pay. In poker, you can't bet chips you don't have. It's too bad that this meltdown didn't go to its conclusion. Government came riding to the rescue in the form of bailouts to cover bets which exceeded the combined world product by several multiples. In this case, these bets should have just been declared null and void beyond an entities ability to pay (i.e. to the point of their individual bankruptcies.) Everyone with stakes in the game should have been forced to pay first. By bringing "new money" to the table from governments to cover these private bets was the big mistake. Privatize profits! Socialize liabilities! Oh, yeah! No one paid the price, so risk is still not properly valued in this economy. Savers are being rewarded with 0% interest. Thanks, for nothing! This low interest is reinforced because the US is allowed to "just print" the difference. This philosophy will come to a tragic end. It is only a question of, when not if.

Also, Michael Moore appeared on Diane Rehm's show today. He discussed the two topics which are on everyone's mind (and the topic of his recent documentaries): the greed in our system, and that the richest nation on earth has no social safety nets.

Sighted, a clutch of rare birds : neocon hawkus gallus

I went kayaking in the salt marshes of Sea Island, Georgia last Thursday. The departure point was the Cloister Hotel. While kayaking, we saw some beautiful sea birds (all illustrations from other sources):

Brown Pelican

Snowy Egret

However, the rarest birds were seen immediately after leaving the salt marsh. As walking through the hotel lobby, I spotted an entire clutch of neocon hawkus gallus, more well known as the "common chicken hawk."

Karl Rove

Bill Kristol

In retrospect, the sighting wasn't that rare or spectacular. Rove and Kristol were in "their natural habitat." Really, is there a better location to troll for right-wing groupies? They could impress potential mates by crowing about the hosting of the 30th annual G8 summit.

It's just too bad these birds are still allowed to so freely and casually wade about. They barely got their feet muddy at all-- the public has such a short memory. In the end, no one paid the price for the outing of Valerie Plame; no one paid the price for the lies leading to the Iraq war;
or for violating the Geneva War Convention; or for being active participants in nearly causing the

collapse of the entire foundation of the world financial system.

It's just too bad they continue to enjoy their "natural habitat," when they should all have been cast out, and many should be doing time in another habitat instead, a federal prison.