Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Entries Tagged as 'Politics'

Jerome a Paris on the Politics of the Market Crash

August 22nd, 2007 · 1 Comment · Activism, Blogs, Fair Trade, Infrastructure, Media, News, Politics, The Economy, Stupid, Trade

I’ve been meaning to point out this excellent diary Jerome a Paris posted on Daily Kos last Friday, entitled “Politics of the Market Crash.” Jerome is one of my favorite posters at DKos (and at the European Tribune), and when he’s on, he’s really on. So even though I’m nearly a week late mentioning this, […]

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Uganda Burning: Anti-Gay Bigots Rally to Keep Hatred Alive

August 21st, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Human Rights, Journalism, LGBT, Media, News, Politics, Religion

Anti-gay bigots in Uganda rallied today in support of the country’s draconic anti-gay laws (which punish “sodomy” with life imprisonment), carrying signs saying charming things like “Arrest all homos.” They also howled for the firing of a reporter who dared to write an objective story about the experiences of gay people in Uganda, calling her […]

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Olbermann on O’Reilly, Colbert on Huckabee, and Stewart on Kristol

August 17th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Comedy, Culture, Foreign Policy, Journalism, Media, Politics, TV, Video

Keith Olbermann explains why Bill O’Reilly is no less than two of the three worst people in the world. (Hint: It includes defaming someone as being anti-semitic … who was actually attacking anti-semitism!)   I Stomach Huckabee: Colbert on the Iowa straw poll. Oh, and watch for the moment when the Governor threatens to break […]

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Roundup: Skydiving Baby Giraffe Edition

August 15th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Skydiving Baby Giraffe Edition · Activism, Apple, Books, Chicago, Comics, Culture, Death Penalty, Fantasy, Fiction, Film, Food, Health, Human Rights, Internet, iTunes, Journalism, Lit, Media, Meta, Nature, News, Politics, Roundup, TV, Ursula K. Le Guin

Out, damned spot! Fox News caught red-handed, laundering entries on Wikipedia. Keep on scrubbing, Lady MacFox, but those stains belong to you always. The GOP’s California strategy: winning the 2008 election by undoing California’s winner-take-all electoral system. Once the state goes piecemeal, the Repubs gain at least 20 electoral votes from safe GOP districts. Arianna […]

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Rolling Stone: John Edwards is “the Real Liberal” in the Race

August 13th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Climate Change, Healthcare Crisis, Journalism, Labor, Media, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

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Roundup: Ronald Reagan Memorial Bridge Edition

August 9th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Activism, Apple, Comics, Culture, Human Rights, Infrastructure, Journalism, LGBT, Lit, Macintosh, Media, Nature, News, Poetry, Politics, Religion, Roundup, Science, Tech, Torture

This is brilliant. Peter Smith at the Huffington Post has a proposal for renaming the new I-35W bridge in Minneapolis that will replace the one that collapsed: “For a while there, back when the Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress, they were naming things after Ronald Reagan everywhere. Airports. Aircraft carriers. […]

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Bridge to the 21st Century

August 6th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Infrastructure, Media, News, Politics, Public Transportation, TV, Video

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow say pretty much what I’ve been wanting to say about the Minneapolis bridge collapse story.   I hate to say it, but I feel like we’ve just had a “welcome to the 21st century” kind of moment, and this isn’t going to be the last time this kind of preventable […]

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The Money Power: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama at Yearly Kos

August 5th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Activism, Blogs, Chicago, Culture, Media, News, Politics, Video

From a story in the Washington Post on the Yearly Kos convention taking place in Chicago this weekend… I can’t believe Hillary actually said this out loud. Clinton came under attack for declining to join former senator John Edwards (N.C.), who is quite popular with bloggers, and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in pledging not to […]

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A Message from Ian McKellen

August 1st, 2007 · 5 Comments · Activism, Culture, Film, Human Rights, LGBT, Media, News, Politics, Theater, Video

… to the people of Singapore.  

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Good Morning, Day 14

July 31st, 2007 · Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 14 · Activism, Culture, Essays, HCC-DDT, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Human Rights, Media, News, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

So I’ve been slammed with work for the last week or so, and I haven’t had a chance to update this count in a full seven days. During that time, about 350 more Americans have died because they couldn’t afford health care. That brings the total count to approximately 700 people who have died just […]

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John Edwards on Universal Health Care

July 25th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Politics, Video

Here’s a good example of why I like this guy so much. He gets it. And he lets you know that he gets it. This is Edwards speaking at the Gnomedex Tech conference in 2006:   … and from Monday night’s debate:   Via this most excellent diary at Daily Kos.

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Music: Catching Up to Yoko

July 24th, 2007 · 9 Comments · Chicago, Culture, Feminism, Human Rights, Journal, LGBT, Media, Music, New Wave, News, TV, Video

Something I’ve been meaning to post for a couple of weeks now … I’ve long thought that Monica Kendrick is the best music writer at the Reader and the spot-on writeup she turned in just before Yoko Ono’s appearance at the recent Pitchfork Music Festival only reinforces that notion: 9:00 Yoko Ono For decades her […]

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Good Morning, Day 7

July 24th, 2007 · Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 7 · Activism, HCC-DDT, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Human Rights, Journalism, Media, News, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

About 50 Americans have died since yesterday because they couldn’t afford health care. That brings the total to 350 people who have died thanks to our profit-focused health care system just since I started keeping this count, six days ago. If 350 US citizens had died in a plane crash this week, we’d be hearing […]

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Roundup: Picketing Flamingo Edition

July 23rd, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Picketing Flamingo Edition · Apple, Blogs, Chicago, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Design, Essays, Foreign Policy, Health, HIV/AIDS, Illinois, LGBT, Music, Nature, New Wave, News, Politics, Roundup, Science, Tech, Travel

“Iraq hasn’t even begun”: Writing in the LA Times, Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University, examines the long-term consequences of the debacle in Iraq, and concludes, “Looking back over a quarter of a century of chronicling current affairs, I cannot recall a more comprehensive and avoidable man-made disaster.” Digby on […]

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