Not to be missed…

/roll eyes/

In all the recent hullaballoo over the not-so-subtle efforts by Andrew Sullivan and other right-wingers to rehabilitate him, let’s not forget that Charles “Bell Curve” Murray is also a known cross-burner. As City Pages editor Steve Perry wrote back in the last century:

…Near the end of his high school days in Newton, Iowa, Murray and some of his pals went out one night and burned a cross next door to the police station. To my knowledge, the reams of coverage accorded Murray for his pseudo-scientific apologia on behalf of racism have produced only two mentions of this incident. One was in a 1994 New York Times Magazine profile, the other a bit later on the Donahue show. In both instances Murray protested that he had no idea as to the racial significance of cross-burning. There were only two black families in Newton in those days, an old school chum of his added in the Times piece. Well. As it happens, I grew up just 30 miles away from Murray’s central Iowa hometown, in an even smaller farming town with no black families at all. But somehow I managed to learn what cross-burning meant by the time I finished high school, and I expect Murray did too.

Please keep this in mind whenever you see any attempts to pretend that Murray isn’t a racist pig.

Link

Oh, my heart goes out to the whiteys who can’t get a woman as hot as Michelle Obama. I think I’ll promote a conference on that topic.

If I had interns, I’d tell them to work me up a list of “American Exceptionalism”. Shall we start with “Last Major Nation to Outlaw Slavery”?

@nojo:
and end with the last major nation to provide universal healthcare?

@nojo: Last major nation to execute children and sentence them to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Oh, and last major nation to execute the mentally retarded.

Six more, and I have Friday morning’s post…

@nojo: I think Brazil freed her slaves after the US. Unless you don’t count that as a major country.

@SanFranLefty: Any more of that and I’ll be back with the Angry Birds. I call the pig in the crown Newt. It helps.

Just when you think Fux Nooz can’t slide any further into nasty racist nonsense, they demonstrate that there’s still long way to the bottom:

John Stossel whines about Bureau of Indian Affairs

@al2o3cr:
Stossel should really stick to bitching about food safety and eat a rancid spinnach and raw chicken salad.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: Plus there’s that whole thing about the serfs…

Western country?

@al2o3cr: Oh gawd. I’m afraid to click the link. It’s too nice a day outside.

@nojo: Tomorrow isn’t a tribute to the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire given all the anti-proletariat action going on?

Well, here’s some more American exceptionalism off the top of my head (I don’t have time to dig up links, you’ll have to double check):
Highest rate of child poverty of all “First World” countries
Highest rate of children killed by firearms of all “First World” countries
Highest rate of incarceration of any country in the world.

@SanFranLefty: Somebody provided a very good overview of that yesterday, but alas, I forget whom. Me, I dunno if I have an angle on it.

@SanFranLefty:

I find it bizarre that the same crowd that’s always crowing about “American Exceptionalism” is also constantly asserting that pretty much *everything* is somehow a “threat” to that. Surely if the country is so über-awesome it shouldn’t be troubled by who’s marrying who…

Bad guys are putting up The Other for downtrodden working people/unemployed/underemployed to blame as everything goes to hell. Fucking lunch meat is $4.65 a pack. Gas is bumping up around $3.45 a gallon around here and is going to go higher. Tuition at the University of New Mexico is going up 8 percent next fall. (Even ammo prices are going up in May due to the increase in the price of metals.) People here are on long waiting lists to get into so-so public schools in “better” areas of town with low enrollments to avoid overcrowded dumping grounds serving poorer parts of town instead of working to improve education for everyone here (as Mrs RML has been doing for 10 years with little to show for it).

Great forces are aligned against us, people who work for a living, and people who seek an education to better their lives. Repression of the opposition by making people scramble to survive, by dumbing down the nation and by stirring up the people against each other is a short sighted tactic benefiting the current power structure that will hurt this nation for generations to come.

@redmanlaw: $3.45? Whiner. $4.09 at the two stations I can see outside the Alternate Remote Office window.

@nojo: $4.29/gallon as of Saturday – and that was for regular unleaded, paying in cash. (Credit is 6 cents a gallon higher). I nearly fainted. Luckily I only need to fill the tank about once a month.

@nojo: Oooh, what about “More inequitable distribution of wealth than actual banana republics.
Also, highest maternal death rate from childbirth,/pregnancy complications of any major industrialized nation.

@SanFranLefty: I spent $43 to fill the Civic yesterday ($3.79/gal regular). I know we’ll hit the $4 mark in the next couple of weeks.

@Mistress Cynica: Guns easier to buy than health insurance.*

It costs me about $60 to fill my truck, a 2001 Dodge Dakota 4×4.

* Except for me. The jack booted government thugs make me wait about four business days while my name sits in a hopper somewhere because it sounds like a bad guy’s name.

@redmanlaw: That, plus the headless corpses in your backyard.

@nojo:

I love coming in in the middle of a conversation and just imagining what went before.

What’s all this about Banana Republic? I can still shop there, right? RIGHT?

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Aren’t we fortunate that we can simultaneously shop–and live–in a Bbanana Rrepublic? We’re still precariously middle class, so let’s enjoy those $58 cardis while we can!

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: I had my wallet stolen in the dressing room of a Banana Republic.

greetings from an actual banana republic. filled her up today at $5.25.
the airport is closed because protesters have blocked the airport road and our barney fife squad can’t break up a smallish crowd. the britts have taken us back because we can’t self govern after all.
(the reason for the protest:demanding an election to stay self governing) leading the protest is the ousted prime minister waiting on his trial for massive corruption, bribes, etc. HA! michael missick, he’s the one who had a bite fest with his wife–i sent that to you for a giggle. we are expecting a big backlash from across the pond. oh fun!
politics here are heelarious!

@Mistress Cynica:
and also infant mortality.