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The cognitive dissonance of the American bourgeoisie - Beat The Press (Dean Baker)

"The position of the people interviewed in this piece is that they are entitled to protection from competition to keep their wages high, while they should be able to hire workers from the developing world at low wages to save money."

NYC to revoke gun carry permits to ex-cops who retired early due to mental problems - NY Post

Yeah, probably a good idea. Either they scammed the system by claiming to be mentally unstable when they weren't in order to retire early or they really are mentally unstable. Either they're undeserving scammers or mentally unstable and in either case should not be going around armed.

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Oakland, CA police layoff talks go down to the wire - SF Chronicle

"With the average officer's salary and benefits totaling $188,000 a year, City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, a union leader himself, has described the situation as 'unsustainable.'"

No kiddin'. KNBC is reporting a list of about 40 minor crimes and offenses that the cops will no longer respond to. To us people here in the midwest, where a cop might make $70-80 a year at most, that number just seems ridiculous. No wonder they have to sack 'em. Hoist on their own petard.

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Ann Arbor homeless' tent city removed by MSP for Obama visit - Michigan Daily

Ann Arbor's progressive Democratic Party power-structure doesn't have much compassion when it comes up against property values and their national media image. They might as well be Republicans. They got the State Police to do their dirty work for them too. Nice touch folks, since it leaves the local pols at city hall with their hands officially clean. The lumpen are now dispersed to the shelters, streets and jails and bourgeoisie's delicate and easily offended sensibilities are restored to normal.

How does America get into wars that on drag forever despite their unpopularity? - American Conservative (Andrew Bacevich)

Because who you vote for doesn't matter. If elections decided anything they wouldn't have them.

Murdoch owned media outlets to go behind paywall soon - LA Times (Dawn C. Chmielewski)

The End of employment as we know it - Daily Iowan (Ron McGowan)

"We keep waiting for the Great Recession to be over and lots of jobs to come back. It’s not going to happen. For a growing number of workers, the era of the traditional job and all the stability that came with it is over. In trend-setting California, only around 30 percent of the workforce have traditional jobs. That’s where we’re all headed."

"Terrorists are adaptive, self-correcting, and cunning—except when they aren’t." - The New Yorker (Steve Coll)

Some observations on the Times Square car bomb incident.

Lessons learned from Boston's water main break - Popular Mechanics

Most cops just don't get it - Taki's Magazine (Gavin McGuiness)

"What’s really disturbing about my dinner with the cop is not that America’s big unions earn so much more than the rest of us. It’s that they don’t even realize this is happening. Like Ivory Tower academics and preach-to-the-converted liberals, they live in a tiny bubble where your values are defined by the small clique that surrounds you and nothing is ever questioned."