It Just Keeps Getting Better

Now, they're threatening to nuke Poland. You're doing a heckuva job, Dubya!

Not A Bad Idea, Actually

Arianna Huffington suggests Obama turn up the heat on McCain...on national security. She makes a convincing case. National security is the only area where McCain currently and consistently outpolls Obama, yet his pronouncements on the subject have been nothing but one long string of gaffes and misstatements (including most recently plagiarizing from Wikipedia and accusing Putin of wanting to restore the Czarist empire). The only reason McCain has gotten a pass is the MSM's man-crush on him. Obama should call McCain on it. It's a Rovian strategy, hitting your opponent where he's strongest. Maybe it can work for good instead of evil this time.

UPDATE: MSM continues to carry McCain's water on the Russo-Georgian conflict, even as it becomes more and more apparent that he has no idea what he's talking about.

Free Market, My Ass!

Kos has a great piece that encapsulates in one story the bitter truth that all that Republican rhetoric about the wonders of the "free market" is just so much hogwash (or in this case, mad cow wash). In reality, the GOP, as the official mouthpiece for corporate America, actually favors a sort of crony capitalism, an oligarchy like that of Singapore, Russia or China. Government intervention in the "free market" is perfectly fine, as long as it supports the continued dominance of the wealthy and powerful entrenched interests.

The Company You Keep

The United Nations is close to adopting the long-awaited Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Unfortunately, the proposal is bitterly opposed by a coalition of industrialized countries with horrible records on Indigenous rights; namely, the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia and New Zealand. These nations fear the completely toothless and non-binding resolution's call for "self-determination" might give oppressed and marginalized Indigenous people the ridiculous idea that maybe they should have some control over their own lives.

Milton Friedman: Champion of Liberty

Was he really the fount of all liberty in the Twentieth Century? Or just a shamelessly hypocritical academic who favored free markets over free people and flirted with free market authoritarianism of the sort we now see rampant in China, Russia and Vietnam? You make the call.

Authoritarians of a Feather...

Eric's Lyceum has a typically thoughtful piece on Putin and the notion of Law vs. Order. In reading it, I noticed the similarities between Putin's Russia and Bush's America becoming painfully apparent: the fetishizing of authority, the Good Ole Boy Corporate corruption, the downgrading of independent media and the stiffling of dissent, the never-ending "war on terror" as an excuse to erode civil liberties. Of course, Putin is much further along (and is wildly popular in his country), putting me in mind of Lincoln's comment, "When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."