Around the blogroll and elsewhere

Because there aren't enough hours in the day to read everything you should read, here are a few you must:

Driftglass on how globalization is killing us, one toy, one crib, one cheap pair of pajamas at a time.

You think they've just fucked up Iraq beyond all repair? Wait till you see what the economy's going to do. Jesse Wendel suggests bullion.

Jon Swift is taking over the blog roundup at Crooks and Liars. Shameless sucking up is encouraged, so, well, consider this, well, whatever. He also wonders if we're Tasering enough people.

Scott at World o'Crap on how Rudy Giuliani has been reduced to painting himself as being totally whipped in an effort to make himself seem like a human being. Too bad it also makes his wife look even more like the second coming of Eva Peron than she did before.

Lambert at Correntewire on the coverage of Thursday's civil rights march in Jena, Louisiana. It's appalling that over 40 years after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights act of 1964, such marches are even necessary. Meanwhile, Mychal Bell is still in jail despite the setting aside of his conviction, and the FBI is investigating a white supremacist web site listing the home addresses of the six black students prosecuted when they tried to stand up for themselves after white students hung a noose from a schoolyard tree they deemed a "white tree." So the next time someone like Tony Snow says that racism is a thing of the past, let's remind said misguided individual of the Jena 6, and of the racists who still think lynching is perfectly OK.

Hoffmania says it all about Bush's plan to kill the SCHIP children's health insurance program. And make no mistake; this veto doesn't just keep its costs at current levels, it kills the program. It is interesting to note, however, how Bush is framing this as "risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point." This is exactly what he's doing with war funding. But in sticking to their guns on SCHIP, the Democrats are making Bush own the deaths and illnesses of the children who will suffer as a result of his intransigence. Why can't they do the same on war funding? If they know that Bush will leave troops in Iraq without funding, then let them say so.

THIS you've got to click over and read to believe it. You know that old adage that chutzpah is a man who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy because he is an orphan? Well, there's a new, more accurate definition now.

Steven D has some questions for our Democratic leaders.

Libby is just a wee bit nervous that Dubai, to whom the Bush Administration wanted to leave security of America's ports, now wants to take over almost 20% of the NASDAQ as well. It IS curious, isn't it?

Barbara at Mahablog on the right's anointment of George Soros as being as big and bad a boogeyman as Osama Bin Laden.

When I first started this blog, I wanted to call it "John Kerry Took My Shoe" -- a reference to this Morning Sedition parody of the Swiftboat ads. But as ModFab reminded me, something that in-jokey would necessitate explaining what it comes from over and over again. Well, I think this guy is going to have that problem in a couple of years. Too bad such a jerk took that blog name.