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Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, one of the finest oratories in American history, six score 120 years ago yesterday. Would that more writing were so powerful and eloquent. (Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address comes close.)

NPR aired Sam Waterston’s reading of the Address on Morning Edition, but I confess that his delivery did not impress me much. Also, ever since Saturday Night Live showed that damned Old Glory Robot Insurance sketch, I have trouble imagining him in any other role.

The Los Angeles Times has another excellent article about Wal-Mart and the harms it inflicts on American workers. (Use “pinchydotorg” as the login and password.)

All Wal-Mart, all the time: That’s the pinchy dot org promise!

Fast Company has a great article about how Wal-Mart’s relentless push to lower its prices has forced its suppliers to move even more manufacturing jobs overseas. The whole article is worth reading, but there are a couple of paragraphs that absolutely nail the biggest problem with the way Wal-Mart does business, and with American capitalism in general:

Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don’t change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.

Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to “Buy American,” has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That’s nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

Oh, and it gets worse: Even Chinese companies are neglecting safety and reducing wages to keep prices low. (To read that last article, use “pinchydotorg” as the login and password.)

Bill Lockyer, California’s attorney general, has revealed that he voted for Schwarzenegger. Bill Lockyer is a big ol’ Democrat. He helped run the state campaign for George McGovern in 1972, for Christ’s sake. He is (or maybe was) contemplating his own run for governor. And he voted for Schwarzenegger. Why? Here’s part of his explanation, quoted from the article: “I want to see principled leadership. And yes, [Schwarzenegger] may be naïve about that. But you know what? It is real. …He said, ‘Bill, you listen to my heart, not my party.’ Now how can you not love somebody that feels that way about it?”

Holy fucking Jesus on a rocket sled. What is wrong with this state? Have the many hydrocarbons in our air melted our brains? How long before we are all overcome by the mysterious Teutonic powers of seduction that left so many crying out for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sweet, sweet governance?