United States election logos, 2008-1960.
posted on May 15, 2008 - View this thread

The Democratic Primary Season in 7 Minutes.
posted on May 6, 2008 - View this thread

The Rise of the Rest. Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek article about a "post-American" world.
posted on May 5, 2008 - View this thread

Want to live it up at the U.S. party conventions and get access to Senators and Congressmen? USA Today has posted the campaign committee price lists:
Democratic Senate and Congress
Republican Senate and Congress

If you've got the dough, you may conveniently request a convention package online from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the NRSC have other price lists on their sites, but it seems like the DSCC and DCCC sites keep theirs under wraps.
posted on May 1, 2008 - View this thread

The Pentagon's $1 Trillion Problem. Even as the Defense Department prepares to send Congress its $481.4B FY2008 budget request, it also prepares to admit -- for the 18th year in a row -- that its finances are in such poor shape that it is effectively impossible to audit or account for over a trillion dollars in past expenses.
posted on Apr 16, 2008 - View this thread

Who said anything about a recession? Sometime between the government bailout of Bear Stearns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that America lost 80,000 jobs in March, Lee Tachman, a Wall Street banker, spent roughly $50,000 last month on a four-day jaunt to Miami for himself and three close friends.

“It was just all out — it was insane,” said Mr. Tachman. “I’m not afraid to spend money like that.”
posted on Apr 14, 2008 - View this thread

Frank Newsome leads the congregation at the Little David Church in Hayside, Va. Old Regular Baptists, they sing the way people sang when they first came to the American colonies: without instruments or notation, and following their leader line by line. It's called lined-out hymnody, and people outside the southern Appalachian Mountains rarely hear it. One of the songs Newsome sings at services is a hymn about longing for heaven, called "Beulah Land."
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

Pay to play. The children of big-donor Harvard alums are systematically given preference over legacy offspring of lesser means. Additionally David Karen, now a professor at Bryn Mawr, concluded that alumni children at Harvard lose most of their admissions advantage if they apply for financial aid.
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

A very special 'This American Life' about an administration with the endemic belief that laws only apply to the little people, and a limitless refusal to concede on even petty issues, no matter the costs. The highlight is about immigrant widows of US citizens (30:50). The program also discusses the constitutional beliefs of the presidential candidates.
posted on Apr 2, 2008 - View this thread

Something about the library inspires one to jump.
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - View this thread

Little by little, millions of Americans surrendered equity in their homes in recent years. Lulled by good times, they borrowed — sometimes heavily — against the roofs over their heads.

Now the bill is coming due.
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

USA 1940-1950 USA 1939-1969. Color photographs. [Possible NSFW ads.]
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

"It's the first time since Japanese Internment that we've imprisoned children" -- from a post displaying a letter written by a 9 year old Canadian.
posted on Mar 10, 2008 - View this thread

Is an Experienced President a Good President?
posted on Mar 10, 2008 - View this thread

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war.
posted on Mar 3, 2008 - View this thread

This is how we do it. [NSFW] Disturbing new photos from Abu Ghraib.
posted on Feb 29, 2008 - View this thread

Unflattering photos from the campaign trail. My personal favorite is this one: NOMNOMNOM
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - View this thread

A video has been posted showing the shooting down of satellite USA193 high over the Pacific!
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - View this thread

How many Presidents can you name?
posted on Feb 19, 2008 - View this thread

"In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings." Introduction to the book which arose from his "journey", which was inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich.
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

The Best Sandwiches in America Esquire magazine lists the very best examples of many very delicious sandwiches nationwide.
posted on Feb 12, 2008 - View this thread

Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University have compared the recent US subprime mortgage crisis with five downturns in industrialized economies in the past 30 years in their brief paper, Is the 2007 U.S. Sub-Prime Financial Crisis So Different? (pdf). Their conclusion: “given the severity of most crisis indicators in the run-up to its 2007 financial crisis, the United States should consider itself quite fortunate if its downturn ends up being a relatively short and mild one.” Summarized, with some data and charts, here. Via.
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

fuck yeah. Canada has joined Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in adding the U.S. and Israel to their list of countries who torture. Have we learned our lesson?
posted on Jan 17, 2008 - View this thread

In the United States, most counties conduct local legal business in a centrally-located courthouse, which tends to be located in the county seat. Here is a flickr photo set of nearly all the county courthouses in the United States. From the [oldest] to the [most densly populated] to the [most populous], from the [ugly] to the [ornate], county courthouses present a remarkable variety of architectural styles. In some ways, these buildings seem to be the equivalent of European cathedrals -- they often represent the local community's largest and most expensive building, and they're designed with that in mind. Given our remarkable capacity for observer list keeping, I wonder why more people aren't courthouse spotters.
posted on Jan 15, 2008 - View this thread

"Video of Iran ‘attack’ on three US warships released by Pentagon"
posted on Jan 9, 2008 - View this thread

The Iowa Scam. Christopher Hitchens confronts a system where "only 124,000 Democrats voted last time, less than a quarter of those eligible. So if Barack Obama, say, edges Hillary Clinton by 2,000 votes, he'll be hailed in headlines as a giant-killer despite the tiny margin."
posted on Jan 2, 2008 - View this thread

American Fascists: A CBC interview with author Chris Hedges regarding the Christians Right's onward march toward political power.
posted on Dec 26, 2007 - View this thread

TheDataWeb - a network of online data libraries on topics including census data, economic data, health data, income and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, vital statistics data
posted on Dec 26, 2007 - View this thread

Ace In The Hole. The best movie about a reporter ever?
posted on Dec 16, 2007 - View this thread

"'It's been a magical evening,' Joel says as the Great Khali hits the Undertaker with a dustbin lid." Jon Ronson (and son) journey into the world of WWE to investigate the death of Chris Benoit.
posted on Dec 8, 2007 - View this thread

Links to the landlord-tenant law of every state in the US from Consumerist.
posted on Dec 5, 2007 - View this thread

Pictures from hitchhiking across America. {via}
posted on Nov 29, 2007 - View this thread

End of Empire : A collaboration of all areas of geopolitics affecting countries of the world in relation to the 'Empire' of the United States of America, and the 'sub-Empires', such as the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and any other country which seeks to exploit poorer nations and their people in the quest for domination.
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - View this thread

Crazy Rulers of the World: The Men Who Stare at Goats - A rather clear look at attempts to use the paranormal in the US military. (Part 2: Funny Torture, Part 3: Psychic Foot Soldiers)
posted on Nov 26, 2007 - View this thread

U.S. Public Service Academy : A proposal by two Teach for America alum to provide fully-funded top-notch undergraduate education in public service in the style of military academies, but with a mandatory 5-year local/state/federal service work requirement. A bill for this school was put into Congress by Senators Hillary Clinton and Arlen Specter.
posted on Nov 24, 2007 - View this thread

"Together they panhandled with Nam Vet Needs Help signs at the highway entrance, converted their proceeds into Icehouse beer and Rich & Rare whiskey, and shared their nights in the perpetual dusk beneath the elevated highway, taking turns seeking the full sleep that never came, so loud was the traffic above, so naked were they below, in addled vulnerability.

Every Sunday Dan Barry writes about America in his This Land column for the New York Times.
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

Yesterday, Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party for conspiring to prevent him from running for president in 2004. The lawsuit alleges that defendants used “groundless and abusive litigation” to bankrupt Ralph Nader’s campaign and force him off the ballot in 18 states, and names as co-defendants the Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Service Employees International Union, private law firms, and organizations like the Ballot Project and America Coming Together that were created to promote voter turnout on behalf of the Democratic ticket. According to attorney Carl Mayer from the team that filed the suit, interviewed this morning by Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, "what this lawsuit will do, and the importance of it is, is to set a precedent so that the two-party monopoly system that shuts out minor parties in a way that other Western democracies never do, that this will set a precedent to prevent this type of intimidation and harassment."
posted on Oct 31, 2007 - View this thread

Haven't you ever wished the US Government had an official blog? Now they do. It's called Gov Gab.
posted on Oct 29, 2007 - View this thread

Texan Larry Kilgore is running for a seat in the US Senate. Agree or disagree with the man, he certainly has the courage of his convictions.
posted on Oct 10, 2007 - View this thread

Dipnote. Official weblog of the U.S. State Department.
posted on Sep 26, 2007 - View this thread

37% beleive the media shouldn't be allowed to "freely criticize the U.S. military about its strategy and performance."; 55% believe the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. The State of the First Amendment Survey.
posted on Sep 12, 2007 - View this thread

The US Clean Air Act makes it illegal to sell highly environmentally-friendly cars in 42 states. Apparently.
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

Shaolin [Wiki] is having a difficult time lately. A combination of the silver screen and the small screen cemented the ancient school in most peoples' minds as a surefire way to kick ass most stylishly. Its introduction in the US has since been fraught with problems and complications, most notably in 1992 when a tour of Shaolin Fighting Monks returned to China minus one Shi Yan-Ming - who has since started the USA Shaolin Temple. Then the Chinese government tried starting their own Shaolin-approved schools. But various attempts haven't gone right either. What is the state of Shaolin now? Everyone's trying to make a buck in this game. You can buy anything from Shaolin Secrets in scroll form to the opportunity to "live the life of a warrior monk". Shaolin cachet is at a premium. Its name fame is such it's even ruining things back home. Immigration scams, ballet classes, Lollapalooza, the RZA? Can it get any worse? Now people are even saying one lone ninja can defeat a whole temples' worth of monks!
posted on Sep 3, 2007 - View this thread

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. This Saturday will mark this article's four year anniversary. Frankly, I was mildly surprised not to have found it mentioned before in MeFi. It's a good read about a sad state of affairs; how our government is turning its own people into outlaws, because freedom has been traded in for an illusion of security. ...but then we already knew that. Don't we?
posted on Aug 29, 2007 - View this thread

Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart does stand-up. Text, or if you prefer there is some audio at the 51min mark from This American Life.
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

Debtor Nation. The rising risks of the American Dream, on a borrowed dime.
posted on Aug 14, 2007 - View this thread

Statetris is Tetris with European countries or American states as blocks.
posted on Aug 7, 2007 - View this thread

“‘Keepin’ it real’ is one of the most dangerous phrases in our language.” "This is the misguided notion that the only way to appeal to the young demographic (.pdf) of the sneaker-buying public is to adopt the negative attitudes of the thug life popularized by black gangster rappers. It is all part of the systematic hijacking of the Black American culture."
posted on Aug 6, 2007 - View this thread

Knob Creek Gun Range , a former military-munitions test range situated near Fort Knox is home to the "World's Largest Machine Gun Shoot and Military Gun Show". Run by private citizens excercising their second amendment rights (Kentucky has no state-level gun laws) the focus is on Class III firearms - things like assault weapons and anti-tank rifles, but also the occasional high-caliber sniper rifle and cannon. Hold my bourbon and watch this! (more)
posted on Jul 26, 2007 - View this thread

Happy fourth of July! One thousand people "realize the dream of becoming United States citizens" during a naturalization ceremony at Walt Disney World. Meanwhile, thousands of legal immigrants are prevented from filing green card applications because of a last minute flip-flop by USCIS. The chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, Zoe Lofgren, writes that the action "seriously undermined the stability and predictability of U.S. immigration law". The American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) has been authorized to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of the affected petitioners. God bless America.
posted on Jul 4, 2007 - View this thread