Andymatic

Month: December 2009

  • Seeing "Arbeit Macht Frei" for the First Time

    On a Metafilter thread, a few were wondering what prisoners thought as they arrived at the concentration camp to see the sign: Benjamin Jacobs, a Jewish dental student from Poland, spent five years in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz. “As we were driven further, we heard an orchestra playing and people singing. ‘Today Poland. Tomorrow […]

  • Poland Declares State of Emergency After Auschwitz Sign Stolen

    There’s few things I consider truly obscene but this is one of them: A state of emergency was announced in Poland today involving tightened border controls and random police checks as a nationwide hunt was launched for the infamous bronze sign to the former German Nazi death camp Auschwitz after it was stolen. The sign, […]

  • Knives, Guns and The Dutch

    From a discussion on Reddit: There is more of a social stigma here in Holland on knives and guns then anywhere else I’ve ever been (I consider it a good thing). Knives especially are associated with criminal behavior and carrying a pocketknife is a big no-no. I don’t think I know anyone who would carry […]

  • Michael Feinstein on Jewish Composers and Christmas

    Musician Michael Feinstein recalls a Christmas concert from his past: Minutes before I walked onstage the second night, a nervous representative of the orchestra board appeared in my dressing room to tell me that my program was “too Jewish.”… My laughter turned to disbelief when the stuttering gentleman said that there had, in fact, been […]

  • Cap Credit Cards at 16%

    House Rep introduces bill that would limit credit card interest rates to 16%. Cap Credit Cards at 16% The American financial system is in dire straits- from top to bottom. The House in May passed legislation to curb the worst abuses of credit card companies- and just this month we created a new consumer protection […]

  • Obama's Tepid Leverage

    From Glen Greenwald: Why didn’t they [the White House] do any of that to the “centrists” who were supposedly obstructing what they wanted on health care? Why didn’t they tell Blanche Lincoln — in a desperate fight for her political life — that she would “never hear from them again,” and would lose DNC and […]

  • Millions of Missing Bush Admin. Emails Found

    Burn it to a CD, mail it to your grandma: “The liberal groups CREW and National Security Archive litigate for sport, distort the facts and have consistently tried to create a spooky conspiracy out of standard IT issues,” Stanzel said in a statement. The 22 million e-mails “would never have been found but for our […]

  • Blair on Iraq: WMD Weren't the Point

    More revelations from the UK: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found a justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction. “I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had […]

  • 26 Asian Students Attacked at Philadelphia High School

    From the city of brotherly love: Tian, 19, of South Philly, and five other students who are recent immigrants are staying home today because they were among 26 Asian students who were attacked by a gang of other students throughout the day yesterday, said Xu Lin, of the Chinatown Development Corporation, who works with victimized […]

  • On Obama's sellout

    Taibbi responds to the criticism of his latest Rolling Stone article. On Obama's sellout This is pernicious for a lot of journalistic reasons- but politically it's bad for progressives beacuse conspiracy theories stand in the way of good policy analysis and good activism- replacing them with apathy and fear. via TAPPED Archive | The American […]