I found a quote about gay marriage I like at Daily Dish (Sullivan apparently took a break from drooling on himself about TEH CLIMATEGATE):
“The time is never right for civil rights. The economy, wars. The troubles we’ve had here in the senate. It’s never ever the right time. But [...]
Only been up for a little bit and today is already turning out to be a mess. Really weird weather- about 40-45 degrees, but the wind is just whipping around like it is April, and the sky is gun metal gray. Even Lily said “to hell with this” about ten [...]
Two stories, from two different sources (neither of them explicitly political), about two quite different men who share one thing: They are each very, very angry at the American government for its handling of the Iraqi occupation.
In Vanity Fair, Adam Ciralsky tells us of Erik Prince, “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, [...]
It was disappointing—but not surprising—that the New York State Senate rejected the gay marriage bill today. It was especially disappointing that there was almost no support for the bill among Upstate New York Senators.
I don’t understand the politics of the issue up here that well. Neither of my local [...]
This sucks to watch:
I can understand both sides of this- there is a lot on Obama’s plate, but how can you deny that Savage and the gay community has every right to be pissed? With a few exceptions, it has been a really bad year for gay rights, with another [...]
There was shaking, barking, whining, yelping and streaking. It was almost like being an undergrad again, but with less booze:
Consider this your open thread for the evening.
[...]So Manu Raju has a multiple page piece in the Politico explaining that Republican Senators are mad, very mad, that the Franken amendment a few months ago to stop contractors from contractually mandating employees from going through arbitration when they are raped or sexually assaulted. There is all sorts of [...]
Alright, I’ve thought about Afghanistan for the day, and here is where I am right now. I understand the country is a mess, and I understand that many believe the real problem is what is going on in Pakistan. I understand that Obama has always thought this is the good [...]
Thanks to all of you who hit the paypal link last week, we raised close to 2k for the website. The best part of it, though, was that commenter EnderWiggin (it is ok, no one could have known what a wanker Orson Scott Card would turn out to be) [...]
There are those who say that I am overdoing it about the toxicity of the Obama-as-Spock narrative. So let me explain: characterizing Democratic leaders as weird, as different, as other, is a tool that has worked well for Republicans. Remember Kerry is French, Gore is a robotic nerd, Clinton is [...]
Cheryl, Bryce Canyon reimagined in pastels.
Paul, Pray Lake.
Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a [...]
Via Jason Linkins:
“Sarah Palin is a great friend to the bowling industry and we’re so proud and honored to welcome her as our keynote speaker at International Bowl Expo 2010,” said Steven Johnson, executive director of the BPAA.
I’m crying.
[...]I’m pretty sure this—carrying the byline Seth Borenstein AP Science Writer—isn’t sarcasm:
He shows a fascination with science, an all-too deliberate decision-making demeanor, an adherence to logic and some pretty, ahem, prominent ears.
They all add up to a quite logical conclusion, at least for “Star Trek” fans: Barack Obama [...]
Yesterday morning, former Bush adviser Karl Rove went on NBC’s Today Show and said that if President Obama decides to send 30,000-35,000 troops to Afghanistan, he would be “among the first to stand up and applaud.”
Immediately after President Obama’s prime-time address last night — in which he announced [...]
This is really more John’s territory, but here’s McCain’s schedule yesterday (from his website via NoMoreMisterNiceGuy):
**U.S. Senator John McCain will be appearing on the following television programs TOMORROW December 2, 2009, beginning at approximately 7:00 am ET.
7:00 am NBC’s TODAY Show with Matt Lauer
7:00 am ABC’s Good [...]
It must have been super hard for David Gregory to secure President McCain for this week’s Meet the Press. What, with McCain running the country and all that, on top of his big list of legislative initiatives.
I, for one, have no idea what he might say. I wonder if [...]
This sounds like an excellent use of stimulus funds:
When Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston on Sept. 13 last year, the storm buried nearly 8,000 acres of oyster reefs in sediment from the Bolivar Peninsula, state wildlife officials said. Half of the oyster habitat was wiped out, destroying the livelihood [...]
Now for something different:
Adopted babes Ronin + Bella. Ronin (black-ish) came from a great organization here in Portland called Second Chance Companions – http://www.sccpets.com/ He’s plott hound(bear hunter)/lab and needless to say hes…. Assertive. Bella(redish brown/black) came from the humane society – http://southwesthumane.org/. We know she [...]
What are the right-wingers upset about? They got everything they wanted. I could understand why some on the other side of the aisle are mad, but not those on the right. McChrystal made a request, Obama gave him everything he wanted, and the troops are going to be there [...]
Which of these tweets is more annoying- Major General Josh Trevino:
You can go to his feed where he repeatedly claims Bush won his war. I guess that means we can withdraw from Iraq now without being called traitors. Josh is now busy making fat jokes. [...]
I missed the speech and now have to rush to Walgreens to get bandages because I sliced my thumb open while taking out the trash.
Reactions (to the speech, not my thumb dripping blood into the keyboard).
[...]I’m going to miss the speech because I have something else to do, but I do want those of you watching the speech to do a couple things as he speaks. Every time Obama says something like “We need to finish what we started” you need to yell out loud [...]
This sounds like a bad Law & Order episode waiting to happen:
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has [...]
Via Atrios, more wisdom from Ben Nelson:
In lieu of a “war tax” to pay for a troop increase in Afghanistan, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) is proposing war bonds.
“We didn’t have a war tax in the second World War,” Nelson said, and instead the government sold Americans bonds.”People [...]
No photos today; the post below took all of my non-science time. I promise more tomorrow.
Chat!
[...]Apparently Ben Nelson wants to join Bart Stupak and make sure there are acrimonious debates about cultural issues in a bill designed to improve health care:
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) will attempt to strengthen language in the healthcare reform bill prohibiting federal funding of abortion, he said.
Nelson, a key swing [...]
A week or two back NPR gave some guy about three minutes to complain about how the climate community silenced his breakthrough research on snow patterns in the Sierra Nevada mountains. You see, most warming models predict that snowfall will eventually go up in the Sierra Nevadas. The guy (I [...]
Yesterday, I thought Sully was finally getting it, but then today he dumps this on us:
Accusing the president of giving aid and comfort to the enemy is such a disgusting charge, such a deeply divisive, unAmerican tactic, it would be excoriated if it came from some far right [...]
James Fallows and Marc Ambinder both have good pieces up about the Politico’s absurd meta-narrative piece that came out yesterday. Fallows:
This is about as destructive a case of “who cares about the realities?” press mentality as I remember since miscoverage of the Clinton health care plan 15 years [...]
It appears now the press is camping out at Cheney’s house in order to find the next quote to undermine current policy:
On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned [...]
An article in the New York Times (We May Be Born With an Urge to Help) suggests that the ongoing anthropological argument about the relative importance of aggression versus cooperation on the development of human society may be swinging in favor of the DFH preference. As a blogger, I [...]
One of my favorite things about the current media world is the way that pundits can be such complete assholes while complaining that it’s sad how uncivil our discourse has become. Here’s Krauthammer attacking Andrew Sullivan:
Sullivan’s post merits reading as the quintessential Sullivan, leaping from nonexistent fact to blanket [...]
I have nothing but bad feelings about the addition of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Watching Michael O’Hanlon on the evening news was like a punch to the gut- we’ve been down this road before.
At what point are O’Hanlon and Pollack every going to be discredited enough that their expert [...]
Am I the only one who gets pissed off when people send me emails marked as urgent? Isn’t that pretty damned presumptuous? Shouldn’t I be the one that gets to determine it is urgent? And if it is so damned important, call me.
And it really pisses me off when it [...]
This story was hand-made for DougJ:
Chelsea Clinton, the 29-year old daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has become engaged to her longtime boyfriend, investment banker Marc Mezvinsky.
***
Mezvinsky is a son of former Pennsylvania Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and former Iowa Rep. Ed [...]
You can’t fight a successful war unless the commander-in-chief is fully committed to it. So President Obama’s chief task in his speech Tuesday night on Afghanistan is to make it absolutely clear that he is.
***
It’s true that Obama championed Afghanistan as the “good war” in his presidential campaign [...]
Steve Benen makes a good point about the Dickmentum that Jon Meacham is feeling right now:
Indeed, rank-and-file Republicans were asked in a new poll about who best reflects the party’s principles. Just one chose Dick Cheney—not 1 percent, I mean one individual person.
Republicans deserve a lot of condemnation [...]
I’d like someone to ask the folks living at the C-Street Christian Brothel about this:
Members of the Family have occupied seats in both houses of Congress going back to the 1930s, but for all but its most recent history, the hallmark of the Family has been secrecy. In the [...]
fuddmain, Anhinga.
Jeff, Black Rhinoceros Spraying a Trail.
Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short [...]
Just tell me he is wrong about this:
As Obama appears to be intensifying the lost war in Afghanistan, with the same benchmark rubric that meant next-to-nothing in the end in Iraq, he does not seem to understand that he will either have to withdraw US troops from Iraq as [...]
Can you imagine what the GOP’s own message man, Alex Castellanos, would do with commercials with this information:
Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing this morning of four Lakewood police officers, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns [...]
But I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers [...]
John Harris, in a list of ways to attack Obama that Republicans may find helpful:
Too much Leonard Nimoy
[.....]
But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.
Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of [...]
I am reading the front pages of the NYT, WaPo, and ESPN mobile sites. One doesn’t have a Tiger Woods story on it. Guess which?
[...]This time for reals, although I don’t even feel like it is game day. I sort of feel like this is a scrimmage or a pre-season game, because I honestly have no expectation that we might win. I guess this is what it is like to be a Browns fan.
In [...]
There was a request for an open thread, even though there are two fresh threads up already. I do what I’m told.
Question: I did some wine-tasting in the Willamette Valley yesterday (visiting my sister in Portland). Any interest in some wine blogging about expensive pinot noirs? I worry that it [...]
I missed this: the winner of the WaPo Next Great Pundit contest is Michelle Rhee’s ex-husband. Rhee is the chancellor of the DC schools and a darling of the Post (as well as David Brooks, Joe Klein, and the rest of teachers’ union-hating punditocratic masses).
What a fresh outside-the-beltway voice [...]
One thing that’s quite striking in the health care debate is the lack of detailed analysis opponents are presenting in their arguments. Compare Ron Brownstein’s positive analysis of the Senate bill for example, with David Broder’s meandering, senility ramblings against it. Or this MIT economist’s favorable analysis [...]
John Cole, DougJ, Tim F., Anne Laurie
