Around the blogroll and elsewhere

A compendium of reading for a cloudy Sunday morning with a threat of rain (which in New Jersey, really DOES mean a threat, as we seem to be turning into Seattle while Seattle turns into South Carolina, only without Mark Sanford).

Start with Brad Friedman, who liveblogged the deposition given by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds yesterday at the National Whistleblowers' Center in the case of Schmidt vs. Krikorian. And more from Larisa Alexandrovna.

Then, if you aren't cynical enough yet, check out Frank Rich, echoing what many of us wonder, which is whether in Barack Obama we've been punked by just another corporatist shill. Of course the answer is whether you expected anything significantly different from someone who was allowed to become president. You think it's about who gets the most votes? After 2000? Charlie Brown, meet Lucy. She's going to hold the football, and you kick it.

Then take a spin over to HuffPo, where if you haven't read Bill Maher's screed on Idiot America, it's time to do so. There in one place you'll see actual statistics (yes, and some made up for the purpose of humor) on just how willfully ignorant Americans are. Some people blame the teachers. I blame parents who revel in their own ignorance, thinking that packing a bag of Lunchables franken"food" absolves them from the responsibility to set an example as to why knowledge is a GOOD think, instead deciding that the only thing which matters is how many sports leagues they can sign little Jacob up for -- and then complain about having to shlep him everywhere. You don't want the full enchilada of child-rearing, including teaching little Jacob what that blob in his cranium is for? Don't have kids. Because if you are too busy with the Lunchables and the soccer to even know that your state has two Senators, something's gotta go. I recommend American Idol.

Driftglass, like so many of us, tries to get through to Washington Democrats.

I already linked to Sara Robinson's questions about just how close we are to fascism (and it's coming from the teabaggers, not from Obama the way they think it is), but if you haven't clicked through, do it now.

Susie Madrak on "persecuted" "Christian" former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt.


Jesse Taylor, like me, worries that someone will get shot.

Hunter at the Great Orange Satan takes on that stenographer for Idiot America, Politico. And more on "Demonstrate Against Health Care or We'll Kill This Baby" from Hoffmania. (Somehow I'll bet that if someone put Trig's head on this old National Lampoon cover, they'd be getting a visit from the FBI. I feel so sorry for that baby. He's going to spend his life being used as a political prop for the imagined grievances of his mother.

Linkety-linkety-links at Norwegianity.

Attempted bribery now? Time to pull Trig out of his crib again.

Sometimes you just have to step away from it all. John Cole knows how.

And finally, if you want to know how much John Hughes meant to the fans of his movies, and why the word "mensch" should be applied to him, read this.