Saturn Smith
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “Great comments, and
thoughtful as always,
everyone. I've
missed you. I
want to…”
October 29, 2009 12:18PM - “It does have that ring
to it, doesn't
it?
And thanks,
Stacey. I'm still only
ab…”
October 28, 2009 06:37PM - “Um, wow, everybody.
Thanks for the amazing good
wishes and
outpouring of
kindness…”
October 02, 2009 01:42AM - “Thanks, all. I'm trying
to think of it as a break, not
a
break away, and I
hope…”
September 29, 2009 11:32PM - “Great analysis, Liz, and
thanks for pointing me toward
it. I
think we don't
actu…”
September 27, 2009 05:08PM
Saturn Smith's Links
- My Posts On:
- Foreign Affairs
- Military/Defense Issues (Iraq, Afghanistan)
- Journalism
- Congress
- The Obama Cabinet
- The Auto Industry
- The Economic Crisis
- Image Use Information
- Images used are in the Public Domain,
- or used under Creative Commons Licenses,
- or under GNU Free Documentation Licenses.
- Me, Me, Me
- I tumblog. Sometimes.
- Intermittent blogging elsewhere
- The Skypeview
- Tags I Use
- How I Blog
- Still a Planet, After All These Years
- Also, I Twitter.
I'm slightly less impressed than Andrew Leonard is with the Seattle Times' two-part series on the extremely high crimes and misdemeanors of Washington Mutual. The pieces paint the executives at WaMu (quite rightly) as evil opportunists who threw risk-management to the wind and invented incenti… Read full post »
Joe Biden is well known for two things: 1). being vice
president and 2). being loquacious ("Literally!" as he would say).
But there are a few words we have yet to hear from Vice President
Biden for which I, not literally, am holding my breath: "I shall
not seek, and… Read full post »
I'm still hiatusing, but old habits
(like staying up too late) die hard. And this at least deserves
some pictorial comment.
Here's the top of the NYT home page right now:

Yeah, the biggest news in the world right now revolves around two
wealthy white guys… Read full post »
Away
I have a job. In fact, as of this week, I have two new jobs, an embarrassment of riches in a state where 1 in 8 people is unemployed. Hooray. I am excited about every part of this except for the part where, starting now, I'm going to be in an… Read full post »
The Washington Post announced Sunday that it's put restrictions on its staff members use of Twitter and social networks:
When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation
… Read full post »I read of Representative Steve King's
tirade against President Obama and ACORN today with great
interest. I was, you might say, inspired. Here's what I
learned:
+
Some achievement of success
=
Responsibility for anything bad that organization does
Fascinating! What this…
The FDA Report: One Small Step for Better Health Care
Menaflex: I am a scandal.
We're getting close to the one-month mark on the two major 2009 elections: New Jersey, which we walked through a bit before, and Virginia, which I'll stroll through today (with, I promise, Bonus Joe Wilson at the end).
Bob McDonnell
Net Neutrality is one of those long-term geek desires that has seemed, like Starcraft II, both tantalizingly within reach and impossible to ever have. What's Net Neutrality? It's the idea that broadband carriers -- both wired and wireless carriers, that is -- should allow all legal content… Read full post »
I love this:
You don't really need sound to appreciate what happens, but you might need a little context. So: At the Value Voters meeting, an MSNBC reporter was heckled by attendees until he had to quit his broadcast. That's not the clip above, though -- the… Read full post »
Recently, a friend on Open Salon asked how I managed to keep
reading and writing about politics, when the last few months have
been so full of disappointment and frustration. Part of my answer
was simple dorkness:
On this anniversary of the Fall of Lehman, I'd like to
take a moment to discuss one of the big "villains" of that era: Mr.
Hank "King Henry" Paulson, the former treasury secretary.
About a week ago, I stayed up late to devour Todd Purdham's
lengthy, three-years-in-the-making
piece on Pa… Read full post »
Vice President Biden returned to Iraq to visit some friends
today, and as a "welcome back" present, the Green Zone where he's
staying was hit with four mortars. The Green Zone -- officially,
the International Zone -- is the heavily fortified zone where
coalition (read: U.S. and British) troops… The hardest argument the Obama administration has to make, and the one that I feel the president is still not making to the best effect, is that things must change. It's evident to the 40 million uninsured Americans that we need a fix, and it's evident… Read full post »
OK, everyone. I'm going to collect my thoughts and come up with something more, ah, cogent to say, less piecemeal. I have enjoyed greatly the company, the comments, most of the controversy, and I'll be checking in as the night goes on, too.
Hooray! You know, I'm feeling happier afte… Read full post »
Five Reads for a Rainy Sunday
It's raining here, and I am celebrating the last day of my 20s with coffee and virtual newspapers. The big news so far this weekend is Van Jones' resignation, but there are other big pieces in the world that also deserve a Sunday look. So, here's… Read full post »
Van Jones Resigns: Bad News for Activism?
The Associated Press reports tonight that Van Jones, the so-called Green Jobs Czar in the Obama administration, has resigned. Though Jones has always been a bit controversial to conservative pundits, the tipping point for the White House seems to have been the revelation this week of… Read full post »
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this sucks:
It seems to be a big week for war reports. I don't mean journalists standing in front of blazing cityscapes (we've got enough of that within our own borders at the moment). Instead, I'm thinking of several big written reports that have hit the desks of the nation's war deciders… Read full post »
The President
will address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday to
discuss the ongoing health care reform bills. In a way, I'm
glad to hear that someone's going to talk to Congress about health
care, because, well, these people need to be sat down and given the
what-for. As I… Just when you thought it was safe to go outside again, there are elections looming. Not just the 2010 elections that are suddenly being chattered about: there are elections coming up this November. Both New Jersey and Virginia hold their gubernatorial elections in "off" years, and if ever… Read full post »
As summer winds down, I'm trying to get a bit more discipline into my days. One of the things I want to do is get better at marking what's happening each week, with an intent to, y'know, revisit the things happening. I thought today sounded like… Read full post »
A Lament For Ted Kennedy
You are born into a family that's already on the way up. You have eight brothers and sisters; you will survive seven of them. Your life will careen between the charms and the perils of being the youngest: By the time you're sixteen, you will lose a brother and a sister,… Read full post »
Ted Kennedy. I can't, yet. Saturday. So,
something else, for today, since all the good words are taken at
the moment. Let's talk escape: reading.
Earlier this week, Bill Burton, deputy White House press secretary,
offered a list of which books President Obama brought on va… Read full post »
Let me try to kill two birds with one funny little stone. I've been having a bit of the political blahs of late, which is probably par for the course in August. My own blahs come mostly from healthcare reform, which seems at… Read full post »
Saturn Smith's Favorites
Updates
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Halloween Images One Week After
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May All Your Dreams Come True (fiction) p2
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Sample of Non-OS Writing: Signs of Life ;0)
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Open Salon Weekends: I Thought I'd Write a Little Villanelle
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In Which I Give David Mary or Mary David A Million Dollars
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I'm in the LOW RISK Group for H1N1...Are YOU?
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Is Ft. Hood like Columbine?
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The Yankees Win; Let the Whining Begin
Salon.com