Here is the continuation:

And here are some good exercpts:

History is littered with the corpses of great empires and economies that were toppled when their people got distracted from their shared identity and goals, and gave in to internal culture wars that weakened their countries to the point of eventual collapse or conquest.

...the hard core ( Read more... )

This was a good opinion piece:  Us Vs Them

Some excerpts:

Where people -- from families to nations -- see themselves as one unified group, where everyone's in the same boat together rowing toward a more-or-less agreed-upon future shore, and where there's enough mutual trust and respect to allow people to cooperate in achieving their common goals, the ( Read more... )

Here are the raw numbers ( Read more... )

There are many Dicks in the current administration.

Click to view

Here is a nice confluence of two subjects that interest me deeply: politics and Myers-Briggs personality types.  A writer compares the personality types of the 3 presidential candidates:

The Supervisor, the Champion, and the Promoter

Well, Mitt Romney has made a speech where he utters the phrase ""Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom."

What complete bullshit.

What religion requires is acceptance of its dogmas.  And those who do not accept are dismissed, shunned, ridiculed, coerced, or persecuted (depending on how tightly the religion controls the ( Read more... )

A conscientious Republican?

Coburn: Deficit spending is bigger moral issue than abortion

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Congress’s deficit spending has become a moral issue surpassing abortion because it saddles future generations with massive debt before they’re born.

“The greatest moral issue of our time isn’t abortion, it’s robbing our next ( Read more... )

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.   --Robert A. Heinlein

Bush plans to make himself dictator.

And this is a conservative web site that is squaking about this.

President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.

The "National Security and ( Read more... )

This bothers me:

Democrats Reject Key 9/11 Panel Suggestion

This part really bothers me:

Democratic leadership dust-ups this month severely limited the ability of House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) to implement the commission's recommendations, according to Democratic aides.

Pelosi strongly backed Murtha for House majority leader, only to see ( Read more... )