some links which are largely unrelated.

Lenin's Tomb has had more to say on Iran and Solidarity. This is something he has written in response to a previous poster on his shared site, but it would seem to have applicability to a wider audience, and does cut through a number of misconceptions I've seen thrown around about this topic of late.

This post discusses the future of my parents' generation in the United States, given the recent and ongoing wealth upheavals. (Among a number of other juicy bits, the author explains that grandparents will be competing with their own grandchildren for jobs, and their Medicare benefits will place them at an advantage when they do so.

Finally, it seems folk are 'running out' of unemployment. In large numbers. (Quote from the first part: "Rather, they are leaving because they have exhausted their benefits.... They are now unemployed AND broke. That is hardly a green shoot."

Why NPR refuses to call torture 'torture.' Very instructive. (Note that the NYT does the same thing for basically the same reason. Note as well that this is just the sort of hypocrisy that Chomsky's propaganda theory of the media predicts. Quite brazen.)