Saturday morning roundup

I've never thought much of Maxim--my former roommate in Boston would argue that it's an intelligent men's magazine that came in porn-like packaging--but this is beyond the pale:

..."...a blurb titled “Hunt the Homeless” in the current issue of Maxim, a popular men’s magazine. It spotlights a coming “hobo convention” in Iowa and says: “Kill one for fun. We’re 87 percent sure it’s legal.”"

As you know, my expectations of the (far? or is it increasingly mainstream?) right are not sky-high, particularly in the realm of level of discourse, but they've once again outdone themselves:

"The tenor of some of the debates has become extreme. Ms. Pelosi has accused people at recent protests of carrying signs associating the Democratic plan with Nazi swastikas and SS symbols, and some photographs showing such signs have been posted on the Web.

On Thursday, the talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the administration’s health care logo was itself similar to a Nazi symbol."

And then they feign surprise at the results:

"Last week, a protester hanged an effigy of Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., Democrat of Maryland, at a rally opposing health care change. This week, Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, said he had received a death threat about his support."

See Steve Pearlstein's excellent column on the matter:

"Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off."

Misogyny in America is alive and well and not pretty.

Turning now to positive developments: even "Eeyore" Roubini has hope for the economy, and the Chesapeake shows a (small) sign of recovery.