Well, that didn’t take long [snark].

The Fianna Fail government in Ireland has released the austerity plan it promised in response for the big bank bailout the rest of Europe forced on it. The most telling aspect of it is that it lowers minimum wage from 8.65 euro to 7.65, a cut of 11.5%. But it retains Ireland’s controversial 12.5% corporate tax.

Ignoring the anger and demonizing the angry does not service liberty or security, and it doesn’t do much for the causes of progressives or the Democratic Party, either.

Over at Salon, Alex Pareene has compiled a compelling and entertaining list of the top 30 media hacks of our time, and he has been doling them out on a daily basis with the top ten due to drop on Wednesday (maybe now while you are reading this! Exciting!) Who will be the next deserving hack?

I’m surprised it took three whole days for Senate Republicans to break their earmark pledge.

Here’s the Quitter, explaining to Glenn Beck precisely what the United States needs to do right now in Asia.

Obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies. We’re bound to by…by treaty.

In what respect, Charlie?

It’s obscene that The Nation published this hit piece. There’s nothing “liberal” about using your platform to launder unsubstantiated attacks by government officials against individual citizens who criticize them. They owe everyone involved an apology, and unless they can provide proof for the claims they make, they should print a retraction.

An article in Wednesday’s New York Times noted how residents of Seoul are taking Tuesday’s artillery shelling of a South Korean island by North Korea in stride, viewing that event as “largely contained and unthreatening.” How different that is from the panic-driven banning of toner shipments to the US after the failed attempt to bring down airplanes with toner-bombs. Using the toner-bombs as buildup, TSA now is forced to “justify” its eight month delay in its over-response to the failed Mighty Underpants Eagle bomb. Oh, and returning to the Korean situation, the Times notes that the Korean attitude is “We don’t want war.” That’s not quite the position of prominent right-wing nutjob Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds, whose response to the shelling was “I say nuke ‘em. And not with just a few bombs.” The calm resolve of our Founding Fathers has given way to panic driven by hate and fear, producing a nation of xenophobic cowards. Enemies of the US need not even be successful in killing a single person to be able to drive us into hate-filled screeds and billions of dollars in useless “security” measures.

If it weren’t for everything about Afghanistan, we’d be winning in Afghanistan.

How in hell could the government give those who have been harmed redress if the government is only reviewing a select subset of the loan files? Is the government going to provide everyone who believes they were screwed some legal aid to prove their claim?