I read Ayn Rand (We The Living, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) in high school and was a devotee until my late 20s. I sometimes think of that period as being the early adult equivalent of the terrible twos: just say “no” to the values and political philosophy of your parents. For the past decade or so I’ve wondered aloud how America’s “Christian” and “family values” politicos would react if Jesus were to be reincarnated (as, perhaps, Hashim) and...

The short answer is no. Here’s the long one (at Storify). Remember this: when a headline or tweet sounds too good or too bad to be true … it probably isn’t! Neither is this meme. (Storify should appear below as an embed – please be patient!) [View the story "Is The Obama Administration Sticking Its Nose Into Farm Chores?" on Storify] Is The Obama Administration Sticking Its Nose Into Farm Chores? According to the DailyCaller, Sarah Palin and a host of conservative politicos,...

memeorandum with color annotationOne of my favorite sites for seeing what’s hot in the political blogosphere is memeorandum. Fortunately, it’s a favorite haunt of Andy Baio, too. Baio is a writer and tech entrepreneur in Portland, OR. He’s fashioned a cool tool that illustrates the political leanings of the blogs featured in discussion on memeorandum. Research (Glance and Adamic) in the early days of blogging suggested very little cross-linking. In other words, liberal blogs rarely...

I laughed out loud — in a sick sort of way — when I read the first line of the AP story about Sunday at The Masters: New IBM chief Virginia Rometty was at the Masters after all. Attention reporters and headline writers: women aren’t banned from sitting on the grounds at the Masters. They are banned from being a member. IBM is a major sponsor; the current CEO is Virginia Rometty. She’s a woman. Her four male predecessors were all made members of Augusta National Golf Club....

Polls about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case reveal the deep divide among Americans that many of us pretend does not exist. According to a Newsweek/Daily Beast poll, “just 19 percent of whites say that racism is a big problem in America, vs. 60 percent of blacks.” For two weeks running, the Martin/Zimmerman case has been the most closely followed story in a weekly survey run by Pew. My hypothesis: it’s news because Zimmerman admitted to shooting and killing the unarmed Martin...

Stand Your Ground laws, which extend the “Castle doctrine” to areas outside the home, are under fresh scrutiny due to George Zimmerman’s shooting and killing Trayvon Martin in February. Martin, a teen, was killed in a suburb of Orlando, FL. Florida Sen. Chris Smith (D-Fort Lauderdale) opposed Florida’s 2005 legislation and is leading an investigation into the statute. Florida’s was the first such law; 23 other states followed suit. Philosophically, it’s a variation...

Midnight and the close of the 2012 legislative session were around the corner (10:02 pm) when the Georgia Senate passed HB 875 on a 48-2 vote. The bill that the Senate voted on was substantially different from the version it passed less than 12 hours earlier; however, the Senator didn’t share that bit of information with his peers. By the time the House rejected the bill, only an hour later, word of the deceit had bypassed circumvented the mute Republican leadership via the magic of zeros-and-ones. Has...

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Tom Owen, forensic consultant, court-qualified expert witness and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, analyzed the 9-1-1 recording of the night Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. His conclusion: “you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that [the person calling for help is] not Zimmerman.” The technology Owen used to analyze the Zimmerman tape has a wide range of applications, including national security...

In the “I missed this in real time” category: On Thursday March 22, U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) spoke at a rally commemorating Congressional passage of the Equal Rights Amendment 40 years ago. According to the Huffington Post, Hanna said that women’s rights are under “assault.” Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message. You need to remind people...

At the 11th hour, Republican leadership reached a compromise on Georgia’s controversial “fetal pain” bill. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, HB954, appeared to be derailed after the Senate “practically gutted” the bill on Monday. But, like the zombies in The Night of the Living Dead, the bill came back to life and “passed with just minutes remaining in the 2012 session.” Moreover, Senate leadership called for a vote after allowing only five minutes...

Many trees have died in the service of the words “GOP Southern Strategy.” But their death was unnecessary. All we had to do was look at this very simple infographic from Georgia’s Like the Dew: Jim Cobb, who teaches history at the University of Georgia, writes: [This] is a snapshot of the GOP’s coming-out party in Georgia, an event simultaneously celebrated and bemoaned in four other southern states in 1964. Striking as it seems, even in retrospect, this day had been coming...

On Friday, Microsoft seized web servers in Pennsylvania and Indiana under a civil action authorized by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Two financial industry associations — the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center and the National Automated Clearing House Association — were part of the civil action. According to the NY Times, it was Microsoft personnel who “gathered evidence and deactivated Web servers ostensibly used by criminals.” Microsoft’s...

Georgia’s HB954, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, hit a snag in the state Senate on Monday. The Georgia bill, introduced by Rep. Doug McKillip (R-Athens), was “all but gutted” by a bi-partisan coalition, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Senate bill would provide an exception to the 20-week rule: In a major shift, the Senate adopted a last-minute change that would allow women to get an abortion even after the five-month mark if a doctor determined...

Sometime in the last month, a friend told me that Margaret Atwood said her dystopian novel, A Handmaid’s Tale, was not supposed to be predictive. When the Canadian author wrote this book in the early 1980s, could she have imagined that her fictional theocracy would foreshadow, in her lifetime, the environment south of the 49th parallel? The Georgia General Assembly is on the verge of prohibiting almost all abortions after 20 weeks, even if a pregnancy resulted from rape or incest or in the...

It’s a great juxtaposition of the absurd. Trayvon Martin was killed on February 26 and the man who confessed still walks free, no arrest. Kim Kardashian was “flour bombed” on Thursday … and the perp was arrested … right? Wrong, despite what Piers Morgan, LeVar Burton, Think Progress and a host of other celebrities, entertainers and normal folks say. My Storify tells all. (The Storify embed no longer works?) Detaining for questioning, at the scene != arrest! [View...

Update: 3:17 pm Pacific In this ABC News Video, at about 2:40 the reporter states that Trayvon Martin made a 9-1-1 call just before his death and the call captures Zimmerman’s voice in the background. This allegation has not been corroborated by any other media. [Tip to Educator @Anti_Intellect] Travyon Martin, Via FacebookWhen I read Newt Gingrich’s comments about Trayvon Martin this morning, I was incensed. And not just because of what he said. I was angry because suddenly (yes, suddenly)...

George Zimmerman (28, age first reported as 26) gunned down Trayvon Martin (17) the evening of Sunday, February 26, 2012 in a gated neighborhood (The Retreat at Twin Lakes) located in Sanford, FL, a suburb of Orlando. On March 19, the state attorney general told media that a federal grand jury will convene on April 10. Read more in Part 1: The Three Week Old Story, Politics and Florida’s Right-To-Kill Law. How The Story Unfolded In The Media (Mainstream and Non-Traditional) Monday, February...

And Sometimes Managers Directed The Behavior Update 3. Last month, the DOJ and 49 State Attorneys General proposed a $25 billion settlement with Bank of America, CitiMortgage, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Wells Fargo Bank and Ally Financial after allegations that these “national mortgage servicers were engaged in widespread questionable foreclosure practices involving the use of foreclosure ‘mills’ and a practice known as ‘robosigning’ of sworn documents in thousands...

The Rush Limbaugh Show runs on the Armed Forces Network, which is also one of the show’s advertising sponsors. On Wednesday, Sen. Carl Levin, Armed Services Committee chair, said he hopes the military “drop[s] it on their own volition.” VoteVets has a petition calling for the show to be pulled. It is not likely to happen, however. On the other hand, advertisers continue to flee. For example, Goodwill told Politico: “A PSA about Goodwill was aired on a DC-area station that airs...

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, at least when it comes to political speech. In a well-written, humorous and very pointed fact-filled satire, Jessica Winters explores how recent controversies color when a woman is, according to law or certain parts of society, a person. You see, like most women, I was born with the chromosome abnormality known as “XX,” a deviation of the normative “XY” pattern. Symptoms of XX, which affects slightly more than half...