A Cure For The Common Tea Party?

The Article: The Cure For The Tea Party? by Steve Kornacki in Salon.

The Text: The “top two” primary system California debuted yesterday takes some getting used to, but it could be a helpful tool for combating the biggest single problem in Washington: Republican extremism.

In the Tea Party-era, the congressional GOP has pursued a legislative strategy that rejects any compromise and exploits every available legislative tool and loophole to obstruct the other party’s agenda and engage in partisan warfare. As Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann argue in their new book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” this conduct might be acceptable in a parliamentary system, but in Congress it inevitably leads to disaster – like last summer’s debt ceiling standoff, which led to the first-ever credit downgrade for the United States.

The GOP’s embrace of extremism is fueled by the far-right absolutists who make it to Congress by winning primaries in safely Republican districts (where there’s no general election penalty for extremism) and by the survival instincts of other Republican lawmakers, who choose to conceal their pragmatic urges for fear of becoming the right’s next primary victim. Those dynamics have only been reinforced by this year’s primary season, which has featured several high-profile upsets of Republican “establishment” politicians.

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The Anti-Walmart

The Article: How Costco Became The Anti-Walmart by Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times.

The Text: JIM SINEGAL, the chief executive of Costco Wholesale, the nation’s fifth-largest retailer, had all the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old in a candy store as he tore open the container of one of his favorite new products: granola snack mix. “You got to try this; it’s delicious,” he said. “And just $9.99 for 38 ounces.”

Some 60 feet away, inside Costco’s cavernous warehouse store here in the company’s hometown, Mr. Sinegal became positively exuberant about the 87-inch-long Natuzzi brown leather sofas. “This is just $799.99,” he said. “It’s terrific quality. Most other places you’d have to pay $1,500, even $2,000.”

But the pièce de résistance, the item he most wanted to crow about, was Costco’s private-label pinpoint cotton dress shirts. “Look, these are just $12.99,” he said, while lifting a crisp blue button-down. “At Nordstrom or Macy’s, this is a $45, $50 shirt.”

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A Guys’ Demise

The Article: The Demise Of Guys by Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan in CNN.com.

The Text: – Is the overuse of video games and pervasiveness of online porn causing the demise of guys?

Increasingly, researchers say yes, as young men become hooked on arousal, sacrificing their schoolwork and relationships in the pursuit of getting a tech-based buzz.

Every compulsive gambler, alcoholic or drug addict will tell you that they want increasingly more of a game or drink or drug in order to get the same quality of buzz.

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Less War, More Cyberattacks

The Article: Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran by David Senger in The New York Times.

The Text: From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.

At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised.

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Don’t Thank Me For My Service

The Article: Don’t Thank Me For My Service by Camillo Mac Bica in TruthOut.

The Text: I do not want to appear disrespectful or ungrateful, but should we meet on the street one day, do say “Hello,” or “Fine day” or other such nicety, but please do not thank me for “my service” as a United States Marine. I make this request because my service, as you refer to it, was basically, either to train to become a killer or to actually kill people and blow shit up.

Now, that is not something for which a person should be proud nor thanked. In fact, it is regrettable, and for me a source of guilt and shame, something I will have to live with for the rest of my life, as the past cannot ever be undone. So, when you thank me for my service, it disturbs me … a lot. First off, it brings to mind my wasted youth and lost innocence, and the horrible and unnecessary deaths of good friends and comrades. Second, it reminds me of my responsibility and culpability for the pain and suffering I caused innocent people, again something I would rather forget, but cannot. Third, it reinforces my belief that you have absolutely no idea about the nature and reality of the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, because if you did, you would understand that thanks are inappropriate. Fourth, it reminds me that many of those who feel the need to offer thanks were apathetic about – or even supportive of – the war, while they refuse to participate themselves or did little or nothing to end it. And lastly, I have to admit that I doubt the sincerity of these expressions of supposed gratitude, as “Thank you for your service” is just something to say not because you care about what I did or sacrificed, but only to demonstrate your supposed good character, or patriotism and/or “support” for members of the military and veterans.

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