The bloody repression on Friday in Syria, with as many as 100 citizens killed, led to mass funerals protesting the slaughter on Saturday. And security forces responded to that by firing on the funerals. Bashar al-Assad has made his decision: he will not stand for a single word of dissent.

Societies collapse suddenly. Maybe the hyper-rich can find one of their trained seal economists to prove they don’t.

American politics has taken a bloody turn. Much of the Right’s agenda is punitive and built upon vengeance against those they have defined as domestic enemies. They seek to disenfranchise their political foes, deny health care to “others,” leave the elderly to die alone in the streets, and abandon public schools so the privileged can use the tax money for their exclusive private schools.

Now, you’d think a lawyer would conclude from the fact that there was no “court-worthy evidence” on the majority of men held in Gitmo that something was wrong with the selection process of those in Gitmo. You’d think that would provide an opportunity to pivot and level with the American people about what really went into the collection of a bunch of men turned over for bounty. You’d think …

I am becoming more and more convinced that there are multiple parallel universes occupying life on this one planet we call Earth. It is seemingly the only even remotely rational explanation for the disconnect between the views of most people in the United States (and the World) versus the views of the Beltway Villagers, Media Courtiers, and the excessively affluent.

And now for a traditional Easter nunchaku …

The Pink Panther — Pink Aye. This DePatie-Freleng cartoon was released on May 16, 1974.

The Althouse blog would be a fine blog except for how it contains the “thoughts” of Ann Althouse, which resemble an apartment left empty after its ancient dowager inhabitant is finally carted off to the Home: vacant and catty.

Given that there is still over a year until the election, which is plenty of time for opinions to change, probably the bigger worry for the Obama administration is that this pessimism could become self-fulfilling.

The so-called ‘Father of the Egyptian Revolution’ was the shy and relatively unknown former peace activist now turned orchid-grower Gene Sharp.