Bryan Preston: Tim Geithner should resign

ON S&P DOWNGRADE: Bryan Preston makes the case that Tim Geithner should resign."Under Geithner’s watch, the United States has not had a national budget at all, and that includes two years when the party of his president controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. As Treasury Secretary, it was Geithner’s job to make the case that living without a national budget was reckless. The fact is, Geithner has offered no leadership at all. He should resign. President Obama should consider resignation himself as well, or at least choose not to run for re-election. No US previous president has presided over a downgrading of US credit, through war and peace, growth and depression. Only Barack Obama has presided over the downgrading of US credit." The latter portion of the quote is particularly extreme; but, then again, right-wing bloggers have always had a penchant for sensationalism. Atrios takes an entirely different point of view. "Apparently we're supposed to care about what some idiots at some corrupt organization think about anything."

WHY GOOGLE CARES ABOUT REAL NAMES, CTD: Danah Boyd writes: "The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. 'Real names' policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people."