Dinner with the Family. Not.

Via skippy:  A Walmart Thanksgiving, by Charles Dickens.  Because apparently that bunch (the Walmart Execs, and yes, that's a lousy name for a band) missed the message the first time.  (Crooks and Liars is a terrific resource.)

I understand there is a Walmart somewhere in the region.  I will not be going there.

Death Wish

"How the GOP Is Literally Killing Its Voters," Alex Henderson, AlterNet.  Because you only have to fall through the net once.

Older news, but as teabaggers have been studiously ignoring it (probably because they think they'll benefit.  They're wrong):  The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the reasons to oppose it.  Jim Hightower, AlterNet.

Mass Hysteria

Well, no, more like temper tantrums.

Charles II at Mercury Rising links to and excerpts Ed Pilkington's article in the Guardian, adding his own coda:

These people are evil. There is no other word to describe the attempt to deny health care to people who are uninsurable because they are sick or poor. 40,000 American die every year because of their past efforts. To continue to cause people to die needlessly in the face of having lost the argument and two national elections is, very simply, murder.

Not pro-life, despite the rhetoric. But you knew that.

ALEC does not support legislation in people's best interests.  Remember that.

Working

Driftglass on the employment situation in these United States.

And yes, his headline is deliberate.

ETA:  Jurassicpork concurs.

Four For Texas

• Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.  I am linking to the article at Transgriot by Monica Roberts, found via Red Light Politics, as part of my remembrance.  No one should be murdered for their gender presentation, their jobs, or their sexuality.  Ever.
• You know, one of the things that apparently needs to be taught in kindergarten is "Never sell or buy drugs from an undercover cop."  Really.  It's been fairly obvious for years now is that the crime is not the buying (or selling) of drugs, but the buying of drugs from undercover cops.  Read any article about someone busted for illegal pharmaceuticals.  If a search of premises is not involved, somewhere the words "undercover police" are guaranteed to appear.  Rep. Trey Radel (Republican, of Florida, of course) is merely the latest slow learner.
• Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast talks about her sister and their relationship over the years, and then weighs in in strong terms on Liz Cheney's dismissal of her sister Mary's marriage.  Frankly, I hope Liz Cheney's ears are hotter than jalapeños.  No decency and no shame.
• Greg Prince shakes hands with Dwight Gooden.  (And writes about meaning.)

Early Sorrow

• In memoriam:  Doris Lessing, Nobel Prize-winning author.
• Batocchio (Vagabond Scholar) on war and human stupidity around war.  A taste because otherwise I'd just quote the whole thing (it's that good):

  Tragically, it's easier to start a war than to end one. And it's easier, in national "debates" on war, for the wiser voices to be drowned out by the foolish, the vain, the frightened, the posturing, the political ambitious, and the greedy.
  
  […]
  
  And here's the thing. The national discourse will never be lacking in Richard Cohens and Megan McArdles eager to sacrifice other people's lives because they feel scared. It will never be lacking Tom Friedmans hungry to have others fight in a war to prove their own toughness. It will never lack Ann Coulters filled with rage and driven to prove their dominance, or George Bushes and Bill Kristols enthusiastic to taunt their political foes and live out macho fantasies. It will never lack highly pedigreed but foolish pundits such as Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, who try to sell (to themselves and others) blithe imperialism as sober-minded realism. That leaves it to the rest of us to oppose these fuckers and build mechanisms so they can't start more unnecessary wars, not so easily. And that will be the work of sustained effort over many years. [Emphasis added.]

  The old-fashioned term is "vainglory." 
• [ETA: This morning over at Comrade Misfit's place, I saw a post announcing that one of the blogs that had been silent for a year was so because the blogger, Jeff Huber, had died, so I ankled on over and I'm still reading, but this post supports what I've been thinking about war for a while now. A sample:

  Every place we have bombed, boarded, bludgeoned, beheaded and bloodied, from Iraq to the Bananastans to Libya to Somalia to Yemen, looks like a big-city zoo ten minutes after the force-ten earthquake hit it.
  
  Our generals and the sycophant politicians who grovel at their spit-polished feet would have us believe that we now have to dedicate the next 80 years or so into rounding up all the critters we let loose and putting them back in their cages. Well guess what, folks. All them loose critters are making new critters faster than we can give Dick Cheney's pals no-bid contracts to build new cages to put them all in. You cannot win un-winnable wars. The longer you pursue them, the longer it takes to lose them.

  By the way, he has a lovely line in euphemism. "Unrefined used horse lunch," indeed.
  

AlterNet Is Totally On Fire Today

Who's got the marshmallows?

• Why you should be concerned about that global warming climate changing stuff.
• "Anarchist" as substitute for "commie" in the scare-monger arsenal.
• Capitalism's discouragements.
• People who lack empathy--nature or nurture?
• Breaking bad, er, habits.

Weekend…The Long Version

Thank you, Don Pardo.

• It turns out that the head of CBS News is a former Faux News honcho, and that there's a wee bit of possible conflict of interest with the eyewitness who wasn't.  (News Corpse, via Mercury Rising.)
• Ta-Nehisi Coates (Atlantic) and Abi Sutherland (Making Light) dissect Richard Cohen's unconsciously revealing column in the Washington Post; Mr. Coates calls it what it is, and Ms. Sutherland makes of the offending paragraph a pantoum.*  [ETA:  Lance Mannion has another take on that column.][EFTA, 11/24: Chris Clarke, who is probably not the Chris Clarke in my elementary Russian class in college, damnit, composed a pointed parody.  Courtesy of in medias res at Making Light.]

* "pantoum |panˈto͞om|(also pantun )

nouna Malay verse form, imitated in French and English, consisting of quotations with anabab rhyme scheme linked by repeated lines."

It Seems...

that one of the witnesses to the Benghazi attack…wasn't there.

"Careful With That Axe, Eugene"

Still meditating on that generosity thing.  And pondering what it meant that Mom left all that luggage in front of the seat on the train and then disappeared (another dream, more weirdness).  In any case, all these tabs have got to go.

• Via Echidne of the Snakes, another conservative misapprehension.

  For note that a good economy, a safety net which encourages entrepreneurship (and stops the vortex that results in extreme poverty), fair wages and retirement systems would NOT create "a permanent majority demanding government hand-outs." Because the majority of people would be paying federal income taxes and sharing in the expenses of our shared concerns.

• Republic of T on the peculiar things conservatives believe about the Employment Nondiscrimination Act.  With videos.  Bonus:  "Speaker Boehner, Job Discrimination Is Not "Frivolous."  With examples and personal testimony.
• Good news!  Illinois voted to allow same-sex marriages!  (OK, so this is a day or so old.)
• Mills River Progressive on restraining the NSA and on the Farm Bill.
• Fancy that:  Obamacare gaining positive attention in the polls.  Gee.  And in spite of all that negative attention, too.  Gosh!
• Music!  Music!  Music!

We Fight On

Pvt. Chelsea Manning's ongoing struggle to live as a woman (and the obstacles in the way).

The military has said it does not provide treatment for gender dysphoria. Pentagon policy dictates that transgender soldiers are not allowed to serve, but Manning can't be discharged until she's released from prison and exhausts appeals of her criminal convictions. The Army Medical Command has said prisoners cannot receive hormone treatment at Fort Leavenworth, though Manning is apparently the first to request it. Prison officials have said Manning won't be allowed to dress as a woman.

The case may have to go to court.