Good Morning.

Today is our 3,908th 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: 2,009
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,040

We find this morning's Cost of War passing through:

$ 1, 343, 894, 000, 000 .00

It's a little thin on the veteran's front this week, so we'll actually turn to our friends at IAVA for their fine Daily Briefing.
Continue reading...

52 comments (Latest Comment: 06/20/2012 02:03:43 by Will in Chicago)

Mitt Romney is one super rich motherfucker! There is just no way around it; he can't keep trying to act like "Joe Regular-guy" with his $250 Givenchy jeans. No one buys the act. And it doesn't help that he doesn't know how to speak like a commoner:
"I mean, I, figured he had to be in sport, but he wasn't in sport.", well laaa-deeee-da! Mr. Fancy Pants who knows which fork to use at a fancy dinner.
Continue reading...

3 comments (Latest Comment: 06/17/2012 23:27:20 by AuntAzalea)

Looking back over the last 10+ years, it's easy to see Sept. 11, 2001 as a turning point in America's history in so many ways. The phrase popularized during the Bush Administration that "9/11 changed everything" as an excuse for fascist-style excess was aggravating as we watched jingoism replace thought, and terrorism become the focus of any and all political discussion. We make jokes about the phrase, but it has actually proven to be quite true.

A lot has faded since then, such as "Freedom Fries" and people pouring out French wine, the rash of "patriotic" claptrap such as yellow ribbon magnets "We Stand United" decals (and why was it changed from "United We Stand"? I blame Yoda), as well as the accusatory "I support the troops - do YOU support the troops??" Someday, there will be a museum exhibit at the Smithsonian, with a sober analysis of how America essentially lost its mind.
Continue reading...

42 comments (Latest Comment: 06/16/2012 01:20:20 by TriSec)

Another Tuesday, another primary day... what have we learned? Mostly, we learned that despite the noise about replacing incumbents or making big changes, the results show that voters selected the candidates that seemed to reflect what we already knew about them.
Continue reading...

73 comments (Latest Comment: 06/14/2012 00:16:25 by BobR)

This is an excerpt from a post made by Angry Black lady at Raw Story. The entire post is worth a read, but this statement stuck with me.

Mitt Romney is campaigning against a fictional version of President Obama. It's not just spinning what is being said, it's literally running against someone who doesn't exist. Often when when debating (on the internet or in real life), it is easy to encounter what is known as a strawman argument. According to wiki, A straw man is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position. A simple example:
Continue reading...

60 comments (Latest Comment: 06/12/2012 00:17:38 by Raine)