Pacific Views

Monday Reading

I've slept for a few days, retrieved my grades, and now find myself with an unwieldy collection of good links I should have been posting all this time. So here goes.

From Atrios, something every Democrat should post on the fridge to put some fighting spirit back in them, the definitive collection of refutations to Gore's critics, we also get a link to an Alterman column running defense for Soros and if you scroll down a Howler post on yet another columnist whose brain seems scrambled by Gore's very name.

And about that Gore endorsement, if you didn't see the video it wouldn't be apparent but that man was excited. If Gore had ever shown as much fire, passion, and excitement about his own candidacy as he did about Dean's, he'd be president today. It could be said that if Dean can get Gore fired up, worries about whether or not he can get voters fired up could be, to put it mildly, off base.

At Daily Kos, a chronicle of late night Republican legislation and the plan to go back to the moon. The sad thing about the moonshot entry, though, is how many commentors seem to think space travel is a waste of money. I'll digress for a moment to thump my soapbox and point out that NASA is the only government agency to ever turn a profit. The new technology they developed in trying to do what had never been done before spawned huge industries, from pacemakers to microwave ovens, from frivolous things like Tang to important things like CAT scans. Figuring out how humans could set up shop on the moon or Mars could yield a bonanza of life improving and maybe even life-saving technologies. [Climbs off soapbox.]

Bloggity-blog-blog-blog tells the story of a comic book store owner here in WA state who's being unreasonably persecuted by the IRS. Thanks to Ampersand who also has a good post round up.

Speaking of comics, the Guardian runs an editorial declaring that we are all nerds now.

Mike from Stop Bush in 2004 has a list of 10 things you can do to defeat Bush.

Orcinus gives anyone who missed it the definitive rundown on the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler's online meltdown. Also start at the link and read on down for the full awfulness of the Texas cyanide bomber case and other major weapons cache seizures, courtesy of our homegrown right wing extremists.

Pandagon highlights a Supreme Court decision that could make everyone in a car equally guilty if drugs are found in the car or on anyone in it. Unsurprisingly, Talk Left has more on this disturbing turn of events, and also another good blog roundup, and also the good news that the Supreme Court will hear the Cheney energy case.

TBogg notes that Republicans are eager to avoid subjecting Bush to press questions, and a bit ago posted a link (which you've probably already followed, but I've got to have an archive of it, you know) to the story of the fake Thanksgiving turkey.

Body and Soul reviews an article on the lives of Baghdad residents whose names we wouldn't recognize. The important ones.

Oliver Willis tells skippy where all that economic growth is coming from. Three guesses, and they'd better not be manufacturing, technology, or construction. Actually, the growth in education jobs noted by the Morgan-Stanley source is very telling. During the dotcom boom, people were dropping out of school to get good jobs, now they're heading back to hopefully be able to get a good job some day. A downturn like we're having is a seal of guaranteed employment for anyone involved in continuing education.

MonkeyX on the return home of Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian woman who recently became the first Muslim to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He also notes that China has put a man in space.

Veiled4Allah has a post up on France's ridiculous move to ban hijab, an action ridiculous by the constraints of the very rationales used to advance it. Let me sum up: You oppose the hijab as a symbol of oppression of women by fanatics, so you fight it with tactics that are sure to exclude those women from public life, essentially oppressing them. The Shah of Iran made this mistake, among others, helping to increase anger at his regime. Other governments make it at their own peril, it being as wrong to ban such a thing as to require it.

Fantastic Planet finds an article on the impressive computer wizardry that simulated 200,000 independent soldiers for the battle scenes in Lord of the Rings. There was this capper: "For the first two years, the biggest problem we had was soldiers fleeing the field of battle," Taylor said. "We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away."

Making Light brings us the bad ferret list. For people who need to have their pet ferret write 50 times on the blackboard that "There is nothing fun inside the printer."

Can't be left out of telling anyone who doesn't know, all five of you, that you should go to Wampum and check out the Koufax Awards, because it's a great place to discover interesting posts you may not have read and recognize the efforts of bloggers you admire. If you haven't perused the links for the best humor nominations, go now. Also, this post links to some important commentary on why we still need affirmative action.

Nathan Newman posts a clip from the actual response letter he received from the Kerry campaign disavowing the Osama ad that attacked Dean. Good. He also notes that there's some rightwing disapproval of Bush taking hold of the ranks, and examines whether growth is real.

Cowboy Kahlil guesting at the Left Coaster has a good piece on what Hussein's capture means.

How to Save the World brings us a link to an essay on America's dark night, and summarizes the philosophy that's driving us into the ground. Is it that he hates America, or that it defies common sense to believe that 30% percent growth can be sustained indefinitely. Looking at various boom markets would indicate to the sane that it usually can't even be sustained for a full decade.

Haven't been to Electrolite in a while, so here's some catch up linkage. Here's commentary and roundup on the suppression of union organizing in Iraq, points out the comment of someone who isn't afraid to say that it matters whether or not war leaders are morons, and seconds Atrios' point that Democrats should be making it clear that a Flintstone and Rubble ticket could beat Bush.

And, btw, this guy is the only unelectable candidate who will be running in 2004. I note that somebody's working overtime to prove he's unelectable. Also, in case you hadn't caught it, the drive to link said candidate with his miserable failures has been so successful that the BBC noticed.