pun Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Monday Evening News Roundup

I was working really late last night and I didn’t get home until about nine o’clock this morning. I was kind of exhausted. Now, finally, I think the cobwebs have cleared…

I don’t know about you, but I find it funny that Mitt Romney several Republicans have decided that they are champions of American manufacturing. Remember, Mitt Romney has made millions of dollars by dismantling American manufacturing and sending the pieces overseas.

For me, one of the problems with Rick Santorum is that he doesn’t make any sense. Last week, he decided that he was going to jump on the social wars bandwagon. He was going to attack Barack Obama and his administration for their “war on religion.” He stated that Barack Obama followed a theology that was “not based on the Bible.” First of all, I truly hate playing the game I’m more Christian than you. Because truly the only one who can ultimately decide whether you are playing the game right or not is God. The rest of us are simply guessing. Santorum then went on the CBS Sunday morning talk show and said, “I just said when you have a worldview that elevates the earth above man and states that we can’t take those resources because were going to harm the earth – things like that are not scientifically proven like the politicization of the whole global warming debate.” What? How does that even come out of your mouth? I guess he got an A in gobbledygook.

I truly don’t understand Governor Christie’s stance on same-sex marriage. It seems to me that he wants to have his cake and eat it, too (pun intended). Basically, he stated that he believes in same-sex marriage, but that he’s going to veto a bill that’s been passed by the New Jersey Legislature legalizing same-sex marriage. He’s going to veto the bill because he believes that this issue needs to be brought up as a referendum. Really? Isn’t the issue as simple as either you believe in equality under the law or you don’t? To me, in the eyes of the state, this is a civil rights issue. From a religious standpoint, you and your pastor figure it out. From a legal standpoint, I just don’t see how any state can continue this legalized discrimination.

Conservative Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu, who has been thrown in the national spotlight has decided that he is going to openly support gay marriage. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to wrap my mind around any sentence that includes Arizona, conservative, gay and Sheriff.

Under the heading Lying with Data, George Will looked at the following data and stated that there was no recorded evidence of global warming for more than a decade.

When you step back and look at the data (below), the trend is clear. I would like to congratulate George Will on a fabulous job of lying with data.

Nuclear officials are traveling to Iran to meet with Iranian leaders to see if they’re building a nuclear weapon. No, seriously. Stop laughing. Okay, I can’t help it. I’m laughing, too. What a waste of time. We know that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. The question is what to do about it. Nobody seems to have any reasonable answers.

Joan Baez met with protesters before her concert. This is clearly an example of people talking to each other instead of, as we do most of the time, talking past each other. Very nice to see.

Here’s a nice list for PC Magazine of 10 apps that you need for your android phone.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-02-20T20:30:23-04:00February 20th, 2012|Business, Civil Rights, Economy, Environment, Iran|Comments Off

Monday Morning News Roundup

I find it hard to believe that it was just six or eight weeks ago that we were talking about the last possible government shutdown. Tempers flared. There was a lot of finger-pointing but, in the end, Republicans backed off from their extreme positions and the government continued. Once again, we’re looking at a government shutdown. In a terrible game of déjà vu, Republicans have again decided they need to use the American economy as a bargaining chip. Democrats cannot agree to any short-term measures, in my opinion. Republicans are playing a game of death by 1000 cuts (pun intended). They want to hold the economy hostage in order to get not just some of what they want, but all of what they want. The fact that their demands were unreasonable, shortsighted and harmful to the economy (long-term) doesn’t seem to matter to them.

Elena Kagan has now been on the Supreme Court for year.

Average weekly hours worked in the private sector has plummeted over the last several weeks.

Gas prices at the pump continue to decline.

The European Union is still struggling to come up with some rational way to save Greece.

The mainstream media seems to be ignoring protests on Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street could turn into a huge movement. We need Wall Street to begin to work for us again. Currently, they only seem to work for themselves.

Remember when Republican candidates attacked Barack Obama for not supporting Israel? According to the Israeli president, Barack Obama is a great friend of Israel. In fact, Barack Obama has essentially embraced the policies of George W. Bush, who embraced the policies of Bill Clinton. There’s been no discernible movement in America support for Israel for more than 50 years.

What stories are you following this morning?

By ecthompsonmd|2011-09-26T06:42:16-04:00September 26th, 2011|Economy, Israel, Obama administration, Party Politics|Comments Off

Why Goldman Sucks

Besides being very proud of myself for the pun, I’m still distressed at Goldman Sachs raking in record profits. I heard on Left, Right and Center, Mike Murphy say something like what is good for Sachs is good for the country. What? Wall Street has divorced itself from the rest of the country. They are living in the lap of luxury while the rest of America has been really struggling. As usual, Paul Krugman puts all of this into perspective.

Krugman (emphasis is mine):

First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.

Second, it shows that Wall Street’s bad habits — above all, the system of compensation that helped cause the financial crisis — have not gone away.

Third, it shows that by rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.

Let’s start by talking about how Goldman makes money.

Over the past generation — ever since the banking deregulation of the Reagan years — the U.S. economy has been “financialized.” The business of moving money around, of slicing, dicing and repackaging financial claims, has soared in importance compared with the actual production of useful stuff. The sector officially labeled “securities, commodity contracts and investments” has grown especially fast, from only 0.3 percent of G.D.P. in the late 1970s to 1.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2007. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2009-07-18T03:46:04-04:00July 18th, 2009|Economy|Comments Off