LEAGUE OF MELBOTIS: The League (Finally) Watches: Watchmen

LEAGUE OF MELBOTIS: The League (Finally) Watches: Watchmen: 

"I won't belabor what is a lengthy post here with a plot synopsis, but in re-reading Watchmen and seeing the movie, its fascinating to note that we should be starting our second generation at this point who has no concept of the Cold War as a fact of life, and how and why it influenced so much of culture. I, for one, fully believed I would be nuked at some point in my life, probably before I was old enough to drink. The very specific fear of a terrorist driving a plane into my office building seemed rather small in comparison. I do not know if the Cold War means anything to those in their twenties or younger."

TomPaine.com - E. Coli Conservatism

TomPaine.com - E. Coli Conservatism: 

"The Associated Press studied the records and found that between 2003 and 2006 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 47 percent fewer safety inspections. FDA field offices have 12 percent fewer employees. Safety tests for food produced in the United States have gone down by three quarters—have almost ground to a halt—in the previous year alone. What does that mean, in practical terms? Consider the peanut butter."

Let's hear it for the strong moral principles that lead to the poisoning of the American people and their pets!

GO CONSERVATIVISM!!!

Daily Kos: Not Quite Liveblogging Glenn Beck

Daily Kos: Not Quite Liveblogging Glenn Beck: 

"50 mins or so: Well, I have no idea what the overall 'plot' of Beck's little program is supposed to be, other than John Galt Pity Party."

ok...  who's ready to form another band?

John Galt Pity Party - Live at Super Happy Fun Land...

The Washington Monthly

The Washington Monthly: 

"A group of people are working diligently to put out a raging fire, and the failed minority party, which helped set the blaze, can't imagine why no one is taking their more-lighter-fluid agenda seriously."

perfect.

Mutual Assured Destruction - the 80's and the world of The Watchmen

Watchmen Review: Watchmen Proves The Cold War Is An Alien World

Watchmen Review: Watchmen Proves The Cold War Is An Alien World
This article is pretty right on.
I'll be 39 at the end of this month.The 80's were all about Reagan and AIDS.

Reagan never of course said the word,but it was there.
When people today think about Reagan they think about economics (FAIL) 

or maybe Bedtime for Bonzo

 but Reagan was all about the cold war.

I remember having nightmares about nuclear war.

Reagan escalated the rhetoric.

The Evil Empire.  

Dr. Strangelove became War Games.

Things were out of control.  

Matthew Broderick could've killed us all with a 300 baud modem.

Then we would have never been blessed with Project X.  

Anyway, yes - as this article states - the cold war was madness - as is the war on terror... it is rhetoric used to scare and control us. To make us accept the ever growing police state.

But in the mind of a teenager in the 80's (or at least this teen), the threat of nuclear destruction seemed very real.
I believed, like Sting, that the russians loved their children too - but if a crazy general or a teenager with a commodore 64 could start a nuclear holocaust then what did that even matter?  and then there were people like Kissinger and Reagan.  

We've outlawed the soviet union - the bombing starts in two minutes.  

80's nostalgia is weird to me.

Sure we listened to The Cure -but we were also full of fear

in a world out of control...

We were crazy.

We are crazy.

End of an era: Touch and Go Records will stop distributing smaller indie labels - Jim DeRogatis

This is sad.

End of an era: Touch and Go Records will stop distributing smaller indie labels - Jim DeRogatis: "In a move certain to have a wide-ranging negative impact on the independent music scene in America, Chicago-based Touch and Go Records has announced that it's eliminating the part of its operation that has provided manufacturing and distribution services to dozens of smaller record labels across the country for the last two decades."

File Under: The New Deal Worked! SUCK IT!

Paul Abrams: Winning the Economic Argument: Show Opponents This Graph, and Ask Them to Explain: 

"As pointed out in the above-referenced article, the key observation in this graph is the downturn in 1936-37. This is as close to a 'scientific experiment' as there can be in macroeconomics: from '33 to '36 Roosevelt unleashed the New Deal and what passed at the time as massive spending. The GDP grew every year by double-digits.

Then, in a reversion to his true roots as a fiscal conservative, FDR decided that it was time to slash spending to balance the budget. The economy contracted. Then in '38, realizing the error of his ways, Roosevelt started spending again, and GDP grew every year thereafter."