United States Officially the 'Worst of the Worst' At Everything
Guten Morgen! New York Times "visual op-ed" columnist Charles Blow has a new Blow Chart about the awful state of our union -- and it's quite revelatory, but only if you didn't already know that the United States is an impoverished banana republic with millions of non-violent offenders locked up in overcrowded prisons forever. (We suck at Maths, too.) And now there will probably be deep cuts to education and basic social services, a final "screw you" to the 99% of Americans who are not Satan-worshiping war merchants. (But actually, this is the only way to reduce wasteful government spending!) [ NYT ]
And in Libya: Protesters have taken control of Benghazi. At least 223 demonstrators have been killed by security forces, according to Human Rights Watch. Meanwhile, Gadhafi's son warned of "civil war" during a not-very-popular televised address. [ NYT ]
More violence in Yemen (twelve killed since Thursday). Protesters are marching silently in Iran, in hopes of not being murdered. [ Al Jazeera ]
i think a teabagger commemorative plate would technically be a teabagger commemorative freedom tray.*
* now offering your favorite north carolina collegiate teams.
Call me optimistic, but as bad as we keep being told we are in education, we're only 7% lower than the top country in Science (502 vs. 539), and 13% behind the top country in Math (487 vs. 562). Politicians make it sound like other countries have every child excelling in these subjects when in reality they are only barely ahead of us. In terms of other social problems, we are really lagging behind in income equality and are far out-pacing everyone in percentages of people who are poor and being sent to prison, but politicians rarely (if ever) talk about those things.