Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we’re only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we’re considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that’s a pretty narrow vision.President Obama, in an interview with Rolling Stone, when asked about Paul Ryan’s “obsession” with Rand. source
What’s on C-SPAN (1,2 & 3) today? CATO! Day-long discussion on the economy, politics, public policy, origins of government, and more.
http://www.c-span.org/ - scroll to the LIVE TV/RADIO, and click C-SPAN3 for live coverage.
Overheard on the SPAN. Overheard on the SPAN. Overheard on the SPAN.
Americans Elect, a well-financed group that aimed to help a viable third party candidate enter this November’s presidential race, has announced it is ending its web-based push to break America’s two-party system.
The organisation, which was founded with millions of dollars from its initial wealthy backers, had little trouble in organising a push to get on the ballot across America. It managed to secure ballot access in 29 states and was on track in all the rest. But it failed to attract a big-name candidate to join it or generate enough popular support from ordinary Americans to fulfil its own requirements to accept a candidate. [more]
Americans Elect couldn’t elect anyone, despite funding and a spot on the ballot in most states. So now they’re gone. A shame, but not one without lessons.
From Mother Jones:
A 718-page digital document obtained by Mother Jones contains names, phone numbers, neighborhoods, and alleged activities of thousands of dissidents apparently targeted by the Syrian government. Three experts asked separately by Mother Jones to examine the document—essentially a massive spreadsheet, whose contents are in Arabic—say they believe that it is authentic. As Bashar Al-Assad’s military continues a deadly crackdown on dissent inside the country, the list appears to confirm in explicit detail the scale of the regime’s domestic surveillance and its methodical efforts to destroy widespread opposition.
“The way it’s organized looks similar to other documents I’ve seen,” said Syrian expert Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It organizes people in such a way that it would allow the security services to be able to track them down.”
When viewers in the UK attempt to watch videos of the protest, they are met with the message, ‘This content is not available in your country due to a government removal request.’Paul Watson on YouTube’s new partnership with the UK government over protest videos • The British government is hoping the removal of certain protest images from the popular video sharing website will prevent copycat demonstrations from forming in the future. The British government isn’t the only one requesting YouTube pull demonstration videos: A geographic search reveals the US government has also requested YouTube remove certain videos along with keyword searches. (EDIT: Due to the source of the article, we did a fact-check and confirmed that videos were in fact banned by YouTube due to a UK government request.) source (via • follow)
What Congress Would Look Like If It Were Demographically Representative of America
(clickthrough for full size)
The most fascinating one is the religion segment, where “unaffiliated,” which has no representation in Congress, would be the third-largest slice of the pie in the reflective section. Why is atheism so verboten in Congress, anyway?
The scene in Yemen: The depressing, daily drumbeat of violence, upheaval and power struggle continues, and in this case, things are looking like they could get a lot worse before any better. The airport in Sanaa has closed, amidst some of the most sustained, violent clashing in Yemen since the initial protests against the Saleh government. source
We didn’t know! In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s killing in Pakistan last week, one pressing question has been this: how on earth could a U.S. ally (made so by the billions in aid America gives them each year) acting in competent good faith not have known that bin Laden was living less than a mile from a huge military academy? In a town swarming with retired military officials? Pakistan denies any knowledge or wrongdoing here, but that’s just it — this is a situation in which any admission of wrongdoing is so diplomatically catastrophic that no government would ever cop to it, regardless of how it would make them look. What do y’all think? source
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. government, on Saturday, released five videos found in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, showing the al Qaeda leader preparing a message to the United States and watching himself on television. The first was a previously unreleased message from bin Laden directed to the United States that was believed to have been filmed between Oct. 9 and Nov. 5 2010. In the video he appears to have dyed his beard black.
The second video, which runs over a minute long, shows bin Laden watching himself on television and holding the remote control to change the channel. It is unclear when this video was made and whether bin Laden was watching a live broadcast or a tape. [more]
“Not even for one week”: A glimpse of what’s going on in Yemen as the tour of Middle East upheaval continues. President Ali Abdullah Saleh clearly doesn’t care for these movements against him, and isn’t being particularly coy or diplomatic about it. Yemen’s death-toll is thought to have grown to double-digits of late, and protests against Saleh continue to rage in Aden. source
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Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
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Why do you turn to violence? Why do you turn to the destruction of things? This is an infection, it’s not in our culture, it’s not in our tradition.Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh • On the groundswell protests against his government. He also referred to the protest movement as being “like a flu,” which while a rather crude way to describe the forces stacked against him is not wholly without merit. The middle east appears to be reaching a critical mass of anti-ruling party mentality, as the victories and adversities of protesters in other states provide limitless fuel and momentum for still more revolution. So, disrespect aside, the pathological reference bears some fruit. source (via • follow)
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