"Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive, if only we open ourselves to him."
Francis I, Easter Vigil, 2013
Links For Today
Bill Moyers: The Hypocrisy of 'Justice for All'
David Stockman: We've Been Lied To, Robbed, and Misled (podcast)
Afghan and Iraq Wars To Cost US From $4 to 6 Trillion
Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of the Three Strikes Law - Rolling Stone
Inside the Three Strikes Project: An Inmate's Letter - Taibbi
Cyprus Depositors May Have Up to 60 Percent Seized
SAC's Steinberg Gets a Perp Walk - NYT
A Tale of Two Londons - Vanity Fair
Wall St Burden's the Public Debt - Michael Hudson
$600 Million Ponzi Scheme Collapse in North Carolina
Lesser Known Aspect of Currency War and the US Dollar - Rubino
Nation's Only State-Owned Bank the Envy of Wall Street
How G. W. Bush Won the Iraq War - Palast
Median Household Income Down 7% Since Start of Recession
Every empire in its official discourse has said it is not like the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest 'mission civilisatrice.' Edward W. Said