Supremacy of the Stupid

In the wake of a study finding right-wing ideologues not the sharpest tool in the barn, a fine rant from George Monbiot in The Guardian on a too-timid left that coddles and enables "crackpot outliers" and "social vivisectionists of the right" with an "ever more extreme, fantasy-based ideology" - proving "there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it." Great stuff. "But when I survey this wreckage I wonder who the real idiots are. Confronted with mass discontent, once-progressive major parties...triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate...They fail (to) make an uncluttered case for social justice, redistribution and regulation. The conceptual stupidities of conservatism are matched by the strategic stupidities of liberalism."

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On A (Wholly Untenable) Ledge: Don't Let Jesus Navarro Die

Jesus Navarro, a 35-year-old father, husband and metalworker in Oakland Ca. with health insurance, needs a new kidney. He waited six years to get to the head of the transplant list. His wife will donate her kidney. But doctors won't do it because he's undocumented. Is there something grotesquely wrong with this picture? Over 130,000 people think so; petition here.

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Hate Loses: Bring On the Sock Discounts

Tide (Slowly) Turning Dept: As in, the ruling striking down Prop.8, J.C Penney standing firm in support of Ellen DeGeneres as spokesperson, and even Bill O'Reilly blasting an attempted boycott by wingnuts as a "witch-hunt." Atypically, DeGeneres confronted on air the notion that Penney was "hopping on the 'pro-gay bandwagon'; typically, she was funny and classy. "Being gay or pro-gay isn't a bandwagon. You don't get a free ride anywhere. There's no music. Occasionally we'll sing 'We Are Family.' But that's about it."

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