By Walter Brasch (Moronia)–One of the fun things sports writers do is try to predict the winners and scores of upcoming games, from high school through the pros. For special “look-at-us-we’re important” bonus points, they create lists of “Top” teams and rank them, both pre-season and weekly. Sports writers have some kind of genetic mutation [...]
Stories we will still have to write in 2012
By Walter and Rosemary Brasch (Moronia) In January 2009, with a new president about to be inaugurated, we wrote a column about the stories we preferred not having to write, but knew we would. Three years later, we are still writing about those problems; three years from now, we’ll still be writing about them. We had [...]
Pennsylvania Legislators Shoot Down Pigeons—Again
By Walter Brasch (Moronia)– If the first year gross anatomy class at the Penn State Hershey medical school needs spare body parts to study, they can visit the cloak room of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That’s where most of the legislators left their spines. The House voted 124–69, Dec. 13, to send an animal [...]
Mayors and DHS coordinated attacks on Occupy camps
By Allison Kilkenny (In These Times) When a series of crackdowns on the Occupy camps suddenly occurred in, more or less, the same week, many observers wondered if perhaps the attacks had been coordinated at a national level. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan confirmed that suspicion during an appearance on the BBC – excerpted on The [...]
Paul Krassner: Sex, Corruption and the Kool-Aid Massacre
By Paul Krassner (Huffington Post) Jim Jones, founder of the 8,000-member People’s Temple in San Francisco, once asked Margo St. James, founder of the prostitutes’ rights group, COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), how he could obtain political power. She answered, sardonically, “Arrange for some of your women to have sex with the bigwigs.” [...]
Psychiatrist Loren Mosher, advocate of drug-free schizophrenia treatment, dies at 70
By Adam Bernstein (Washington Post) Loren R. Mosher, 70, who died of liver cancer July 10 at a clinic in Berlin, was a contrarian psychiatrist and schizophrenia expert who was dismissed from the National Institute of Mental Health for his controversial theories on treatment. While chief of NIMH’s Center for the Study of Schizophrenia from [...]
World Bank: US businesses not being strangled by regulation and taxation
By Kenneth Rapoza (Reuters) With the economies of the U.S. and Europe sputtering along on fumes, politicians are quick to blame regulation and taxation as the main cause of a lackluster business environment. Yet, according to the World Bank’s 212 page “Doing Business 2012? report, released on Wednesday, there is less red tape for setting up [...]
Legalize and regulate marijuana leads White House petitions
(WSJ) More than 10,000 petitions have poured in since the new initiative was announced last month in a bid to bring government closer to the people. And issues like massive federal deficits, two wars and high unemployment don’t appear to be on the people’s minds. The Top Ten Petitions Legalize and regulate marijuana in a [...]
NY Times sues government to reveal secret interpretation of Patriot Act
By Mike Masnick (TechDirt) Charlie Savage of the NY Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out the federal government’s interpretation of its own law… and had it refused. According to the federal government, its own interpretation of the law is classified. What sort of democracy are we living in when the [...]
Hurricane-stricken Vermont has to borrow helicopters because its own are in Iraq
By Sam Hemingway (Free Press) Eight helicopters on loan from the Illinois National Guard were expected to arrive Tuesday night in Vermont to help the Vermont National Guard deliver food, medicine, water and other supplies to 13 Vermont towns cut off from the rest of the state in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene. The [...]
