From NPR:
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95 comments (Latest Comment: 05/07/2013 01:28:26 by Raine)

Ah, spring at last!

'tis been an unusual winter around these parts. Lest we forget, it was calm and mild up through the holidays and into January. But then a series of storms nailed us just about every weekend through late January and February.
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2 comments (Latest Comment: 05/05/2013 02:29:40 by Raine)

Almost a decade ago, author Thomas Frank wrote "What's the Matter With Kansas?". It described how a formerly populist-democratic state in the midwest slid into a conservative backwater. Using emotional social issues, voters were turned away from "elitist" liberals and voted against their own economic interests. That has happened time and again in southern and midwestern states.

Arizona is another one of those states. From its inception until the late 1940s, it was primarily a Democratic state. Since then, however, the only time the state voted for a Democratic president was in 1996 (Bill Clinton). Unlike Kansas, however, they have become known for their extreme conservative state laws that induce incredulous jaw-dropping gapes every time, with the outside observer certain that this was the furthest they could possibly go.
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78 comments (Latest Comment: 05/03/2013 03:02:09 by livingonli)

Good Morning.

Today is our 4,223rd day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing war, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 2,200
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,081

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 435, 280, 650, 000 .00

Let's talk about buildings and machinery today. We very much focus on the human elements of war, but war doesn't happen without infrastructure. Usually, it's something that happens in the background and off everyone's radar screens....that is, until it becomes hazardous to our troops and our allies.
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78 comments (Latest Comment: 05/01/2013 01:38:23 by TriSec)

Velveeta is angry this morning. How is that different from any other Sunday you ask? I don't have an answer for you, sorry.

I've been thinking lately - [Note: it's really not good to allow me to think for too very long] about terrorism, flag waving and republicans and I can't help finding some very scary similarities. I did try to find some comparisons with liberals, but other than going to an extreme, extremes liberals just seem to be quietly tending their gardens instead of making bombs. And really, someone needs to do that- tending gardens is a lot more therapeutic than bomb-making.
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4 comments (Latest Comment: 04/28/2013 22:07:13 by Raine)