While the Roma of Europe struggle against incredible hardship, the immigrant Romany population of the US is doing quite well.

"'I do not see any socially redeeming purpose being served by these beverages. At the end of the day, they’re aimed at a young, inexperienced market for the purpose of enabling them to become rapidly intoxicated.'"

"A day in the life of the President." "Durable achievement demands a long time horizon—something that the country as a whole seems to have lost. We can’t wait for the carrots to grow—we keep pulling them up to see how they’re doing. Thus, deeply complex problems, from illegal immigration to the BP oil spill—problems that by definition have no quick or easy solution, despite their obvious urgency—become easy emblems of presumptive failure, whatever the president may actually be doing to address them."

"People don't hate hipsters, and hipsters don't hate themselves. What people hate so much is the faux-hipsters: they hate poseurs. And because it's such an irritating thing to be having to tell the real from the fake (exactly as in the matter of overpriced European handbags), the easiest way out is simply to deny any involvement in the whole business. That is why nobody, not even someone who fervently embraces hipster culture, wants to call himself a hipster."

"'I stuck her with my wang. She hit me in the balls. I grabbed her by her neck. And I bounced her off the walls. She said it was an accident and then apologised. But I still took my elbow and blackened both her eyes.' That's clearly a song about domestic violence. So your Christian message is... don't be like that man?" "Huh?" Violent J repeats, mystified.

I asked a question and it got answered: "The rally, hopefully, will get a lot of people who have become frustrated with the political process engaged again. To the extent that it succeeds in that, I’m for it. If it does it while being entertaining, I’m doubly for it."

They don't carry disease, they disappeared for forty years, and everyone is freaked out about them. And that's actually all we know.

From the guy who wrote it.

"These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class. They drove our economy into a ditch. And we got in there and put on our boots and we pushed and we shoved and we were sweating and these guys were standing, watching us, sipping on a Slurpee."

This isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policy makers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.

A sympathetic overview.

On August 4, 2010, Federal Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that California’s Proposition 8, which prohibits California from recognizing same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional. The ruling was stayed pending appeal–which means that nothing will happen until a Federal Appeals court reviews it. As you might imagine, it will be appealed. The ruling itself is 138 pages long. I’ll summarize.

"A stimulus too small to significantly reduce unemployment, a TARP that didn’t trickle down to Main Street, financial reform that doesn’t fundamentally restructure Wall Street, and health-care reforms that don’t promise to bring down health-care costs have all created an enthusiasm gap. They’ve fired up the right, demoralized the left, and generated unease among the general population."

A good summary of the actions taken and what lies ahead.

"A historian traces the moment when Boston’s dour preachers embraced the market."

An International Monetary Fund veteran explains how the US financial situation is like that of a less-powerful nation's developing economy. Oligarchy, corruption, and the financial sector's control of the government — it's not good.

This piece is incredibly sad. But it is hopeful also. The expansion of pet-based forensic science teams, the increasing intersection of psychological examinations of pet abuse and how it relates to bad home situations, and the use of animals for therapeutic practice are three wonderful things. A must-read.

"The fictional high school chorus at the center of Fox’s Glee has a huge problem — nearly a million dollars in potential legal liability. For a show that regularly tackles thorny issues like teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, it’s surprising that a million dollars worth of lawbreaking would go unmentioned." This is a very interesting look at the frequency with which this show (that I have never seen) addresses copyright issues without actually addressing copyright issues. And it's dead-on about the potential for a television show or other media of this popularity to effect social change in the realm of copyright perception.

The four most common types of healthcare that really work and don't really work and how ours is a jumble of parts of all four and all the proposals are pretty shitty.

I want to revisit this later; it is an interesting retort to Michael Pollan and others' condemnations of current farming techniques.

The infamous 'hot coffee' lawsuit.

Why the reaction to the iPhone leak reflects a much-weakened press and an Apple in bed with the authorities.

Attempting to answer the question, "what is white culture?" and reporting on those who have tackled it before.

There are two problems with this piece that I have noticed right off the bat and later would like to comment on. One, he states that no research has actually shown that going for better teachers makes a difference, but that's not true (see the Economist article I linked to earlier regarding TFA's study etc.). I think the phrasing is ambiguous anyway, but there's a straw man here. Two, he seems to imply that bettering teachers is a quixotic goal, but isn't "bettering America" just as ambitious? He is essentially suggesting that we wage a war on poverty to get our children better educational environments. I don't disagree, but I think that finding top-notch teachers to bridge the gap while we fix that problem for the next fifty years is a good idea.

On the effectiveness of teachers.

DADT is homophobia, and the denial of equal rights to homosexuals is caused by hatred and fear. Period.

"But all of a sudden, for a brief time at least, she's the only real pop star around."

"I had this vision of the future — a ruined empire, run by number crunchers, squalid and stupid and puffed up with phony patriotism, settling for a long slow decline."

Why I don't think I'm a curmudgeon for thinking the green Iran icons are a joke. "…if you believe for one minute that publicly agreeing with an echo chamber is changing anyone’s mind, behavior, or outlook, you need to stand up, locate your disused front door, walk the fuck through it, and then go spend a full (unwired) day doing something to actually help another person."

"One of the minor puzzles of American life is what question to ask people at parties and suchly to get to know them."