Can You Recognize A Terrorist?

See Also: Is Obama Trying to Kill the CIA?, “Tu es un terroriste”, Terrorism and Insurgency – Obama’s policies on War on Terror working – whats got Cheney worked up?, Will the Last Terrorist to Leave Gitmo Please Turn Out the Lights?, The Truth Behind the Bronx Synagogue Bomb Plot, Obama’s Endless War on Islam, What Terrorists Do In Their Free Time, and The NYC Bomb Plot: A Teachable Moment for American Security.

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Passion Pit

Passion Pit is an American electronic band from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Formed in 2007, the group consists of Michael Angelakos (lead vocals/keyboards), Ian Hultquist (keyboards), Ayad Al Adhamy (synth/samples), Jeff Apruzzese (bass) and Nate Donmoyer (drums). They may be from Cambridge but every little boy in Billysburg, NY dreams that they will live off of Lorimer on the L line and play their birthday party.

The band’s first full-length studio album, Manners, was released on May 18, 2009 in the UK and May 19, 2009 in the United States and Canada. I think you will like it.

[tags]passion pit, passion pitt, brooklyn, cambridge, manners EP, chunks of change, the reeling, sleepyhead, music videos, youtube, vimeo, Michael Angelakos[/tags]

Unrelated Tangent: Fuck the Cavs

I don’t know who in their right mind picked the Cavs to win the championships this year. Yes, they won 66 games in the regular season, but have you seen the players Lebron plays with? Exhibit A:

Do you see this guy? This guy looks like Sideshow Bob mated with Big Bird and plopped out a kid that couldn’t hit a layup. The Cavs play this guy for 30+ minutes a game. Repeat, 30 minutes a game. They are fucking doomed.

Also see: Ben Wallace, that tall white guy who is probably in his mid-40’s, and Wally Szczerbiak.

I hope Dave Eggers dies of a prolapsed ego

Oh gawd, gag me with a severe case of French ennui — Dave Eggers, now print media swami for hyper-hysteric and chronically out of touch socialites who need other people to tell them how to be super witty on the critical issues of our day at cocktail parties:

Dave Eggers to Reassure Readers Personally about Print

Richard Posner on the Failure of Capitalism

Richard Posner at the Atlantic has come out with his own blog in conjunction with the release of his new book, A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into Depression.

The most interesting discussions so far have had less to do with the book itself (I have yet to read, but judging from his entries, mostly deals with regulating banking system and its relation with a stable capitalist system), but the explanation of semantics he is forced to go through in introducing his book:

There is a sense, in short (turning to the second concern that I flagged), that capitalism has failed us, and we need something different, and that the title of my book signals support for that view. But that is not my intention. “Capitalism” is not a synonym for free markets. Capitalism is a complex economic system with many moving parts, and buying and selling and investing and borrowing and other activities carried on in private markets are only some of those moving parts.

It’s an interesting discussion that is worth having — how do you define the current American economic system? Do you modify capitalism by defining it as ‘unfettered’ or ‘unregulated’ to explain manipulation by financial oligarchs?

The most important differentiation in this sense is to address rent-seeking in the American economy. Specifically, recounting a narrative that saw a distinct break in the American political economy after the end of the Bretton Woods system. Increasing financial deregulation meant that the majority of investment and profit-seeking in America shifted from production to speculation.

The question becomes less about how do you regulate the financial industry, and more about refocusing the aim of our economy. That is, how do you move investment from predatory practices to more productive sectors, like manufacturing or services? And how do you do so when so many of those financial elites are entrenched in our political and economic system?