#po

They're so broke that they've actually cut essential services. In many places, they've cut policemen, because, who the fuck needs them? Or firemen, son of a bitch, it's much more fun watching something burn down. ↗

— Lewis Black

#budget #comedy #economy #fire #police

Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way from not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to not caring–to the carelessness of both producers and consumers that characterizes our economy today. Of course, the global economy couldn't very well function without this wall of ignorance and the indifference it breeds. This is why the American food industry and its international counterparts fight to keep their products from telling even the simplest stories–"dolphin safe," "humanely slaughtered," etc.–about how they were produced. The more knowledge people have about the way their food is produced, the more likely it is that their values–and not just "value"–will inform their purchasing decisions. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#dilemma #food-chain #food-regulation #food-safety #ignorance

This story is the ultimate example of American’s biggest political problem. We no longer have the attention span to deal with any twenty-first century crisis. We live in an economy that is immensely complex and we are completely at the mercy of the small group of people who understand it – who incidentally often happen to be the same people who built these wildly complex economic systems. We have to trust these people to do the right thing, but we can’t, because, well, they’re scum. Which is kind of a big problem, when you think about it. ↗

— Matt Taibbi

#government #politics #thievery #united-states #economy

Some people gave up on their wishes and dreams because they’d been disappointed too many times in life and just didn’t have the courage to keep hoping things would change ↗

— Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson

#positive-thinking #change

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#shakespeare

There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game. (Act 1, scene 4) ↗

— William Shakespeare

#shakespeare

The real satanist is not quite so easily recognized as such ↗

— Anton Szandor LaVey

#politics #power #economy

It's August, which means Congress is on recess and Mitch McConnell has shimmied back into the ocean to seek a mate. ↗