White House Year in Photos

White House photographer Pete Souza's favorites from this year. Some wonderful frames.

Landslide Harry

I've never really liked Harry Reid ... but maybe that's because I never (like most Americans) really knew anything about him. This Esquire piece is a great background on his life and demeanor.

The North Star President

Obama's press conference last week, announcing his much derived tax-cut deal with republicans ended on a massive note. This Daily Beast article sums it up. Essentially Obama took to task idealists on both sides and made the case for long view ("north star") goals that allow for short term concessions. And - brilliantly - he reminds us that our union was built on compromise .... and that he couldn't have "walked through the front door" at the nation's inception.

I was really moved, even though I thought that he should have made the GOP explicitly and publicly fight for the rich. But he reminded me I'm not President ...

Watch - starting at 26:00 - here.

If Productivity Has Been Rising - Who's Benefiting?

(via Syd O) Check out Charles Hugh Smith's post on Baumol's Disease and productivity. It's a tour de force describing how productivity over the last quarter century has actually increased the debt, rising cost of education and service sector salaries, rising health care costs, corporate profits, and income disparity. Check it out.

The Christian Argument for Vegetarianism

I found this Pauline argument for a meat taboo based on global warming to be very convincing (unfortunately, because I love meat). Take a read. The author was a friend's Ph.D adviser at Durham University, England.

Our Banana Republic

(via VH1) Nick Kristof's op-ed describes how the inequality found in the US rivals that of any 3rd world nation.

Mid-Term Wrap Up

(via Medium) Why are Steele and Palin not ok with anonymous quotes, but ok with anonymous donors?

(via VH1) Krugman destroys the myth that "Obama didn't focus enough on the economy."

Best concession speech wardrobe: Tancredo's western pearl-button.

Best concession speech closing: Feingold quoting obscure Dylan.

A under-commented on result of the elections: GOP wins at the local level will give them an advantage in redistricting and also may gum up the wheels of health care implementation.

William Saletan has a wonderful article in Slate describing how Democrats actually won - by enacting historic legislation. They actually used their power to pass laws ... and actually sacrificed some of their power for long-term accomplishments. Majorities come and go, but Obamacare is here to stay.

Take Aim

(via Meals) The NYT reports on a new type of hunting competition where hunters compete using video scopes that allow judges to watch the tape and determine who is the most accurate shot by the amount of "kill shots" a hunter would have had (shooting real bullets) during the event. The sponsors are hoping to spur interest in hunting by emphasizing the skill needed to take down an animal ethically and without killing a bunch of animals on TV. The event will be aired on the Outdoor Channel.

Live Free or Drown

Wired magazine has a short spot highlighting a group of Libertarians who are dead-set on creating floating communities out in the ocean where they'll be out of any Nation's reach. Sex, drugs, rock and roll ... and no taxes! Milton Friedman's grandson is one of the leaders - and the PayPal millionaire is a financier.

The Education of Barack Obama

NYT Mag has an exceptional article looking back on Obama's first 1/2 term and revealing some of the lessons learned - as Barry sees it.

As the World Burns

Ryan Lizza has an extraordinarily depressing article in the New Yorker about how the Kerry-Grahm-Lieberman climate change bill got scuttled. Read em and weep.

Roberts Court Magic

Slate has a good article on the ways in which the Roberts Court has put a right-wing stamp on the law without most people knowing.

Glenn Beck Profile

NYT Magazine has a great expose on Glenn Beck. Take a read.

New Woodward

The Post is running excerpts from Bob Woodward's "Obama's Wars" this week with great inside reporting on the decisions behind the Afghanistan strategy.

Part One.

Part Two.

Axe Man

Noam Scheiber has a wonderful profile on David Axelrod in the new TNR - wondering why/if he's leaving Washington. Great background on his career and how he and Obama conflict and agree.

Aquaculture

(via Meals) A great NYT article on urban farming - combining fish hatcheries and vegetable gardening!

Wild Graph

(via Mississippi) You can view it better here.

Education: Cost -Benefit Analysis in a Pre-Collapse Economy

(via Syd O) Coming out of law school with a lot of debt has opened my eyes to the cost-benefit educational analysis I never did. I've even encouraged several people not to go back to school. Obviously a temporary economic downturn wouldn't make it wise to forgo higher education, but what if it's not temporary and a new post-collapse economy is approaching? That's the gist of this article by ex-professor Carolyn Baker. Aside from describing the lackluster student ethic found at undergraduate universities, the piece does a good job of asking the question of whether "skills" for an infinite-growth, petroleum-based economy is something a youngster should invest $150,000 in. It's a question worth asking.

How to Break Up With a Friend

That's what I feel like with John McCain. (via VH1) Jacob Weisberg has a good article on the sad state of McCain affairs these days.

The Round-up Revolution Will Not be Televised

Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" seed has created a revolution in farming. The GMO seed is used in nearly all crops in nearly all conventional farms... and has likely infiltrated Organic seed as well. There's a strong possibility that the prevalence of the GMO has even displaced conventional, original, and heirloom seeds such that in the near future (if not already) there will be no corn, bean, rye, alfalpha or other crops planted that do not contain the gene. Read this High Country News article from 2007 to get a better picture. "Food Inc." also documents the way that "frankenfoods" have taken over and how Monsanto has used its corporate power to put seed cleaners out of business (on breach of contract grounds) for trying to save and reuse non-GMO seeds.

Just last month SCOTUS (with only Stevens dissenting) provided another win for corporate America by reversing an injunction that ceased distribution of Roundup ready seed until an EIS could be conducted (read the summary here).

Full speed ahead Frankenfood.

Unfortunately Monsanto and GMO's and Roundup are here to stay, but awareness

Toons

Toon

This cartoon captures my feelings exactly on the blame Obama has been saddled with. Why is this Obama's fault? And why does he "own it"? Bush failed to realize the size of Katrina and send in FEMA fast enough ... Obama doesn't have expertise in deep sea oil drilling. He can't go scuba dive down with a ratchet set. There are probably useful technologies in the Administrative agencies, but I haven't heard anything that would lead me to believe that, say, NOAA, can stepin and plugged the hole faster than BP (hopefully) can.

The Peak Oil Transition

(via Syd O) The Oil Drum has a really good article giving 3 (actually 4) hypothesis of how nations will react, cope, and transition from peak oil. Nations could react like North Korea, Cuba, Japan, or the American South after the civil war. Really interesting account of how cultural memes of individualism, community, and militarism may account for how a nation reacts.

Rejected Fortune "500" Cover

(via Snead 303)

Here's how Gawker reports it:

Fortune commissioned a cover from comic-book artist Chris Ware. He used the opportunity to question some of the foibles of modern capitalism, depicting a "Stocks and Bonds Casino" among other satirical places. So the magazine apparently shelved his work.

The cover, apparently for an upcoming issue, would have been tough for any ardent capitalists to swallow. It depicts the Fortune 500 towering over a map featuring places like 'Cash Loans on House Titles' and 'Toxic Asset Acres'. According to one blogger who attended panel discussion for Pantheon books at Chicago pop culture convention C2E2 earlier this week, Ware:

...showed a cover he did for Fortune magazine which was supposed to be on the Fortune 500 issue. He accepted the job because it would be like doing the 1929 issue of the magazine, and he filled the image with tons of satirical imagery, like the U.S. Treasuring being raided by Wall Street, China dumping money into the ocean, homes being flooded, homes being foreclosed, and CEOs dancing a jig while society devolves into chaos. The cover... needless to say, was rejected.

Fortune and Ware did not immediately return calls for comment.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Fortune responded thus-ly:

As we often do, Fortune commissioned multiple artists to submit cover concepts for our iconic Fortune 500 issue. Being huge fans of Chris Ware's work, we asked him to participate, but in the end we chose a design submitted illustrator Daniel Pelavin.

BP Exempted from EIS Study

WaPo reports that the EPA exempted the, now gushing, Deepwater Horizon from NEPA and and EIS:

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf.

No Big Government Unless You Have an Oil Slick

(via Armando) Dana Milbank has a great article on the hypocrisy of "small-government" Republicans from the Gulf states who suddenly have a profound interest in federal assistance.

"We're here to send the message that we're going to do everything we can from a federal level to mitigate this," Sessions said after the flight, "to protect the people and make sure when people are damaged that they're made whole."

Sessions, probably the Senate's most ardent supporter of tort reform, found himself extolling the virtues of litigation -- against BP. "They're not limited in liability on damage, so if you've suffered a damage, they are the responsible party," said Sessions, sounding very much like the trial lawyers he usually maligns.

Toons

1st Amendment and Kittens

(via Snead) Stanley Fish has a poignant NYT post on how first Amendment jurisprudence has developed to the point of protecting animal torture as a sexual fettish (U.S. v. Stevens). Good read.

Justice Wood?

NYT does a short profile of Judge Dianne Wood from Chicago's 7th Circuit. Some consider her a good pick to replace John Paul Stevens.

Meteor Shower

This is very cool. Check out the video of a meteor shower this morning.

Michael Pollan

(via veggie meals) Huffington Post has good excerpts from an interview with Michael Pollan.

I Am a Success

I have a wife, a job, a degree ... and Tourette's!! Role Model!!

I have tourettes - haven't read much about it - but this is an excellent article on what it's like.

Toon

World Map According to Americans

Jambo! Kenya's Biggest Music Video

This Kenyan group, "Just a Band" did a music video for their song "Ha-He" with all the flavor of blaxploitation, Tarantino and Kung-Fu. It's going viral in Kenya. Pretty sweet.

David Simon does New Orleans

Check out the NYT Mag article on David Simon's new series on post-Katrina New Orleans. . . can't wait.

Toon

This Guy Saw the Wall Street Collapse Coming - and Cashed In

Michael Lewis has an excellent exerpt from his forthcoming book in Vanity Fair on Michael Burry, an ex-doctor with a penchant for trading who started a fund and made a killing off credit default swaps before anyone on Wall Street knew what he was up to.

This is What the GOP Wants to Repeal

Within a year

-- Provides a $250 rebate to Medicare prescription drug plan beneficiaries whose initial benefits run out.

90 days after enactment

-- Provides immediate access to high-risk pools for people who have no insurance because of preexisting conditions.

Six months after enactment

-- Bars insurers from denying people coverage when they get sick.

-- Bars insurers from denying coverage to children who have preexisting conditions.

-- Bars insurers from imposing lifetime caps on coverage.

-- Requires insurers to allow young people to stay on their parents' policies until age 26.

2011

-- Requires individual and small group market insurance plans to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services. Large group plans would have to spend at least 85 percent.

2013

-- Increases the Medicare payroll tax and expands it to dividend, interest and other unearned income for singles earning more than $200,000 and joint filers making more than $250,000.

2014

-- Provides subsidies for families earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level -- or, under current guidelines, about $88,000 a year -- to purchase health insurance.

-- Requires most employers to provide coverage or face penalties.

-- Requires most people to obtain coverage or face penalties.

2018

-- Imposes a 40 percent excise tax on high-end insurance policies.

By 2019

-- Expands health insurance coverage to 32 million people.

SOURCES: Speaker of the House, Congressional Budget Office, Kaiser Family Foundation

-- McClatchy Newspapers

FDR, LBJ, BHO

Legacy.

Glenn Beck Gets Done

MUST SEE TV: watch Jon Stewart spend the first half of the show spoofing and mocking Glenn Beck.

"Collapse" The Movie

I've forgotten to post about this, but I saw Collapse a few weeks ago at this little indie college theater - and it's really incredible. It's a documentary based around an interview, and commentary, by one guy, Michael Ruppert, discussing the "everything comes to a head" scenario that ends up with collapse: peak oil, peak soil, peak currency, you name it. It's undeniable. Start considering the "paradigm shift" we will encounter when things change.

Watch the Trailer here.

A Dose of Truth!

(via VH1) Check out this YouTube video on the "Story of Stuff" - it's a great, brief, animated explanation of how our linear consumer society is on a dead-end course. Collapse - if we don't change the way we consume.

At Long Last: Does the 2nd Amendment Apply to the States?

This is the question that the Supreme Court will hear arguments on tomorrow - whether the Heller decision that found an "individual" right of gun ownership in DC (a federal enclave) will be incorporated to the States via the 14th Amendment.

Where does Coal Come From??

Back in December, Talk of the Nation did a segment on Christopher Lloyd's new book "What on Earth Evolved" which discusses the 100 most important species in the Earth's evolution. This is the part that really stuck out to me:

CONAN: And speaking of forests, there is a species of which I had never heard called lepidodendron

Mr. LLOYD: Yeah.

CONAN: which is - I perhaps put in Irish. But I'm sure it's got an apostrophe there after the O. But anyway, this was a species of tree which vanished a long time ago, and only flowered at the very top and once in its life.

Mr. LLOYD: That's absolutely right. And to think about it, actually, bamboos only flower once in their life. So it is a sort of ancient habit of some plants. But the lepidodendron tree was amazingly successful. It was the first really, really successful tree that evolved about 320, 350 million years ago. And it would - there were like giant telegraph polls. So they would shoot up incredibly quickly in a race to try and get to a light.

And because they didn't have any branches or leaves on their trunks, but only at the top, they could grow incredibly densely. So they're the most densely packed forests. And then therefore when they die, they would fall over and they'd all fall over on top of each other and they'd never properly rot because there were layers and layers of these trees in the forests and the air could never really get to them.

So as the sediment built up and as the forests were flooded, as the seas rose and things, all these deposits of these trees got pressed and mashed up in the geological process of the earth, and have become for us the most valuable commodity, really, over the last 200 or 300 years to man, and that is coal. So most of the coal deposits, the best coal deposits, actually, are the ancient remains of lepidodendron trees.

CONAN: So think about West Virginia or Kentucky or parts of Wyoming covered

Mr. LLOYD: You've got it.

CONAN: in all these trees.

Mr. LLOYD: Absolutely.

So, think about that the next time people argue that we "have enough" or will "find more" coal (or any other natural resource for that matter - like oil). Get it: coal is made from a telephone pole sized bamboo-like tree, that grew thick as thieves in West Virginia 350 MILLION years ago. No biggie.

Democrats Will Always Find an Excuse

(via VH1) Glenn Greenwald points out how the Dems will only support/advocate for the public option when they know it won't pass...then when it gains momentum they balk. It's a stark reality-check argument, and I hope he's wrong. But I fear he may not be. I particularly like the "villain rotation" moniker.

This is why, although I basically agree with filibuster reform advocates, I am extremely skeptical that it would change much, because Democrats would then just concoct ways to lack 50 votes rather than 60 votes -- just like they did here. Ezra Klein, who is generally quite supportive of the White House perspective, reported last week on something rather amazing: Democratic Senators found themselves in a bind, because they pretended all year to vigorously support the public option but had the 60-vote excuse for not enacting it. But now that Democrats will likely use the 50-vote reconciliation process, how could they (and the White House) possibly justify not including the public option? So what did they do? They pretended in public to "demand" that the public option be included via reconciliation with a letter that many of them signed (and thus placate their base: see, we really are for it!), while conspiring in private with the White House (which expressed "sharp resistance" to the public option) to make sure it wouldn't really happen.

Also BE SURE to watch the Rep. Shadegg (R-AZ) video at the bottom ... he makes the argument for the public option better than some progressives!

The WSJ Entertains the Idea of Peak Oil

(via Syd O) The Wall Street Journal final succombs to the the far-left liberal crazies and runs an article arguing that we need to start preparing for Peak Oil.

Some dubious emails and slightly dodgy dossiers have cast a new, and unflattering, light on the global-warming debate, raising the risk of a return to the belief that we can go on consuming oil with impunity. Being a "climate-change denier" is in danger of becoming almost fashionable. But whatever the risk to the climate, scarce and expensive oil would be a threat to established economies.

We need alternatives.

New Challenge to TABOR

Thank God. Boulder lawyer, Herb Fenster, is challenging TABOR on constitutional grounds that (interestingly) it deprives the ability of the State to provide a 3-branch government. It sounds like a long-shot, but this issue needs to be pounded. TABOR is so destructive.

Game Theory and Health Reform

(via Ezra) This Slate article applying Game Theory ("prisoner's dilemma" and "battle of the sexes" games specifically) to the difficulty in passing health care reform is a cool little read.

GDP Map

(via Syd O) This map is pretty awesome.

Palin's Cheat Sheet

(via Medium) This is unbelievable. Actually, it's believable, but very sad. Sarah Palin has been writing notes on her hand!! And the above picture was taken at the Tea Party Convention - like she needed help speaking their language!

Jon Stewart does O'Reilly

Watch the whole 40 minutes - it's WELL worth it.

Question Time With the President

MUST WATCH: Last Friday something nearly unprecedented in American politics happened - Obama went to address the House GOP conference to give some remarks (not remarkable) - BUT then he opened it up for questions ... and did a back-and-forth, town hall type, debate for over an hour! Obama took on about 400 republicans .... and schooled them. This is Obama in his element, and he's unbelievably impressive.

GoDaddy or Tim Tebow

I agree with this Washington Post editorial on the controversy surrounding Tebow's Super Bowl commercial.

Toons on Citizens United

Chris Matthews Forgot Obama Was Black

One of the reasons I love CM is that he speaks honestly even when it's un-PC, offensive, or wrong. For instance - in trying to compliment (backhandedly it turned out) Obama after the SOTU he said he "forgot he was black tonight". Since Ta-Nehisi Coates is my go-to guy for breaking down racial issues - go read what he said (for the record: I agree w/ TNC even though I love CM).

Pelosi on Health Care Reform

As I said to some friends yesterday in the press, we will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit.

Nice.

Science vs Religion

(via KKP) Last week Stanley Fish reviewed Barbara Herrnstein Smith's new book Natural Reflections: Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion. Fish's review is dense, but excellent. Then, the other day, the author responded to Fish's column. I'm not even going to try and explain the ideas but I'll just suggest you read it because there's so much material and philosophy in there.

But if I were to summarize one version of the argument I would say: "Science asks 'what' .... Religion asks 'why'".

Cooking with Cannibus

Anyone catch the front page article in Westword ("Pot Luck") this month on the owner of 8 Rivers Jamaican restaurant putting on classes on cooking with pot? Turns out you can infuse butter, oil, and alcohol with ganja and then use it as an ingredient in your favorite dish. Classes are like $20 and open to anyone (except you need a medical marijuana card to sample).

I can just see it: the chef making all this gourmet food being made with pot - the curry, the sativa soup, etc. ... and then after dinner the chef's on the phone ordering Little Caesar's $5 PIZZA PIZZA!

What's the Most Effecient Way to Kill Cows?

Back when I was a junior in college I took a whole philosophy class on David Hume. I don't remember much about the class aside from a comment my professor made about an autistic woman who - for some reason that was relevant to the discussion - was very good at designing efficient ways to slaughter animals. Well today, Talk of the Nation had Dr. Temple Grandin on ... an autistic professor at Colorado State who is a consultant to the livestock industry and animal activist. Her autism allows her to think like animals and construct the stockades in such a way that the cows have less stress as they are led to slaughter. This has to be the lady my professor was talking about back then. Fascinating.

Oh, and Claire Danes is going to play her in an HBO biopic next week.

Grants' Legacy is Buried in U.S. Grant's Tomb

(via Yglesias, again) Name a great U.S. President - A great civil rights President: Lincoln? TR? FDR? LBJ? .... U.S. Grant?! This essay argues that General Grant was one of the greatest progressive presidents. His administration bore the Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the 15th Amendment, and attacked Klan violence. Grants presidency represented the brief period in American history where blacks could vote and elect their own representatives, and his Administration's "corruption" was a convenient explanation for why the period failed ... while the author argues it was really the rightward turn in the Supreme Court and then (without the black vote) the Republican Party's embrace of the Robber Barons that led to another 100 years of injustice.

Fredrick Douglas said of Grant:

"To Grant more than any other man the Negro owes his enfranchisement and the Indians a humane policy. In the matter of the protection of the freedman from violence his moral courage surpassed that of his party."

Farm Bill Fun

(via Yglesias) The Farm Bill is probably the most influential bill that no one pays any attention to. Everyone loves small family farms (I do - I have one) and any incentives to help the little guy, but the Farm bill is mostly one big corporate subsidy. It affects trade, environment/land use , food, and health policy. Anyone who likes Michael Pollan, Food Inc., or has an interest in organic food ... or who cares about obesity and corporate welfare should pay attention to the joined-at-the-hip relationship between Ag politics and Big corporations.

Tonight Obama is supposed to propose a spending freeze in the SOTU. . . but Big Ag committee chairs will probably ignore that and keep on subsidizing the big guys.

For You Lawyers

Some funny t-shirts.

"The Good Fork"

For all you "foodies" out there - a friend of mine has just started a blog on the Denver Restaurant scene - The Good Fork. Go give it some traffic!

Toon Says it All

Scott Brown Won

... which really sucks. But, to put it in perspective (unlike how the MSM has viewed it), did we really think the "60" democratic votes that included ex-GOP Arlen Specter, Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Bayh, etc. was a "unanimous" caucus?

MUST READ Yglesias on this ... and this (how it probably just provides an excuse for Dems to not do what they didn't want to do in the first place)

Black Cowboys

The Denver Post has a nice piece on unappreciated Frontier Black History - and the Nat'l Western Stock Show's attempts to spotlight the contributions blacks have made to the development of the West.

Also here are some early Black Westerners being honored tonight at the Rodeo in honor of MLK day:

Clara Brown (1803-85): The slave freed by her Kentucky owner became the first African-American woman to reach the Colorado gold fields, earning passage by cooking for miners. In Central City, she opened a laundry, saved her money and earned fame helping the less fortunate. She is called "The Angel of the Rockies."

Justina Ford (1871-1952): The former home of Colorado's first female black doctor, at 3901 California St., serves as the Black American West Museum and Denver's Ford-Warren Branch Library is named in her honor.

Cranford Goldsby (1876-96): Known as Cherokee Bill and the black Billy the Kid, this famous bank robber and train bandit won his first gunfight at 18 years old and was hanged two years later in Fort Smith, Ark., for the deaths of 13 men.

Barney Ford (1822-1902): He was born a slave but became one of Denver's leading pioneer businessmen who established literacy classes for blacks and fought for their right to vote.

Willie Kennard: This marshal is credited with taming the gold-mining camp of Yankee Hill, about 25 miles west of Denver, in 1874.

Nat "Deadwood Dick" Love (1854-1921): Born a slave in Tennessee, he became one of the Old West's most famous riders, ropers and shooters.

Bill Pickett (1870-1932): The first African-American inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Not Saying Much: But Obama is More Fiscally Conservative

(via Ezra) Arch-Conservative Washington Times tells how Obama has been more successful with cutting spending than W was:

President Obama notched substantial successes in spending cuts last year, winning 60 percent of his proposed cuts and managing to get Congress to ax several programs that had bedeviled President George W. Bush for years.

The administration says Congress accepted at least $6.9 billion of the $11.3 billion in discretionary spending cuts Mr. Obama proposed for the current fiscal year. An analysis by The Washington Times found that Mr. Obama was victorious in getting Congress to slash 24 programs and achieved some level of success in reducing nine other programs.

Among the president's victories are canceling the multibillion-dollar F-22 Raptor program, ending the LORAN-C radio-based ship navigation system and culling a series of low-dollar education grants. In each of those cases, Mr. Obama succeeded in eliminating programs that Mr. Bush repeatedly failed to end.[...]

By comparison, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Mr. Bush won 40 percent of his spending cuts in fiscal 2006 and won less than 15 percent of his proposed cuts for 2007 and 2008.

Ezra points out:

And if you compare the major early initiatives of George W. Bush and Obama, the picture is even starker. Bush cut trillions in taxes without paying for it and added trillions in Medicare spending without paying for it. Obama, by contrast, put the stimulus bill on the deficit, as you would expect for a countercyclical program, but his health-care bill actually raises more money than it spends, and reduces the deficit in both its first and second decades. Saying Obama is far more fiscally responsible than Bush may not be saying much, but it does put Republican fury about the deficit in context.

60 Minutes Last Night

Did anyone see the 60 Minutes segment on (New York Magazine's) John Heilemann's and (Time's) Mark Halperin's new book Game Change last night. Finally you have McCain campaign staff admit what a disaster Palin was. Lieberman was a few days away from being the GOP VP, but then they had to make a last minute change and, grasping at straws, picked Palin. My favorite part was how, during debate prep, she couldn't pronounce Biden's name!! She called him "O'Biden"!! That's why, before the debate, she asked "do you mind if I call you Joe?".

What a disaster.

NYC Cavemen

My good friend Syd O turned me on to CrossFit, which I love, and I even tried the caveman diet for a while (which I loved until I got a parasite). So, I'm always interested to read up on others who are interested in living according to our (perceived) evolutionary genetic history. Thus, the NYT has a cool article on some "cavemen" living in Manhattan - eating raw ground beef, fasting to mimic hardship, throwing rocks for exercise, etc. A part of me loves this: the philosophy behind it is plausible, it's manly, and I love unconventional, dedicated people. However, on the other hand, it's got to be insulting to our caveman ancestors to have Manhattan hipsters, opening up the deep freezer to get some Whole Foods ground beef, running across the Brooklyn Bridge in the snow, and then playing catch with rocks in Central Park in order to "mimic" paleo-man. I know very few can live on a farm, chop wood and kill their meat ... but considering the dedication these folks have, living a caveman life in NYC seems like a big charade.

Through the Conservative Looking Glass

Yglesias:

The basic story, as I understand it, is that when terrorists killed thousands of people on in September 2001 that proved that the policies of the Clinton administration failed. Then the antrax attacks were a collective feature of our imagination. Then Richard Reid’s effort to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his shoe doesn’t count because it failed. And terrorist attacks in Madrid & London prove that Europeans are weak. The deaths of thousands of people in terrorist attacks in Iraq shows that we succeeded in taking the attack to the enemy. And Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s effort to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his pants is a huge al-Qaeda success.

Thus, looking back over the whole thing we can see that George W Bush’s approach to al-Qaeda was working great, whereas since Obama came in his implemented a “law enforcement” philosophy that’s failed miserably. Right?

Obama's Racial Profiling

Spencer Ackerman's post deserves a full quote.

I took some heat from my friends for standing up for Obama’s Nobel speech in December. It seemed to me like the war stuff in it was a necessary way of preempting churlish domestic media talk that he’s a peacenik in order to get to its eloquent defense of human rights-based multilateralism. There was even this great line about how we honor American ideals “by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.” Then came Northwest Flight 253, an attempted terrorist attack that didn’t even succeed. And now Obama is putting into place a de facto system of racial/ethnic/religious profiling at airport security points.

We need to call this what it is: a security risk. If you are one of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, a president who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia is sending you the message that you are considered a threat. Not even Michael Chertoff and Mike Hayden think this is defensible. That ought to tell you something profound. al-Qaeda shows every sign of diminishing potency — that is, its ability to attract qualified recruits and have its message resonate among the world’s Muslims — while U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement capabilities increase. Its strategy — its only strategy — has always been to get the U.S. to overreact, overreach and counterproductively lash out and draw Muslims into al-Qaeda’s corner. Usama bin Laden is really explicit about this.

From this perspective, Matt Duss is wrong and Bill Kristol really is correct: al-Qaeda couldn’t pull off a successful terrorist attack on Flight 253. But it’s getting its victory nevertheless, every time a Pakistani family is pulled out of line on an airport and searched. Kristol doesn’t understand why he’s right, of course, and he’s actually doing al-Qaeda’s work for it here, but it’s nevertheless true. And this is happening not while the hated George W. Bush is president, but during the term of the man who stood up in Cairo to say that America and Islam are not at war. If this sort of dangerous hysteria is what emerges after a failed attack, imagine what will happen if al-Qaeda, God forbid, pulls off something at home.

This is strikingly similar to David Brooks' realistic expectations for our security.

Flashback

When you hear Republicans talking about how surprised and aghast they are at the political process churning its way toward a Heath Care bill, it may be useful to remember the Medicare Part D bill from November 2003. I was there - and I don't remember the GOP too worried about niceties when it came to passing their top legislative priority. . . and, to wit, a big government increasing, unpaidfor, corporate givaway at that!

Read this overview of just the House vote ... talk about unprecedented.

Nature as Heaven: nasty, brutish, short

(via Syd O) Great op-ed by Douthat the other week - doing what columnists should do: get deep beneath the surface, not simply spout punditry. Although I don't think that any perceived "Hollywood pantheism" is particularly dangerous, Douthat is right on his critiques.

The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response. Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death. Its harmonies require violence. Its “circle of life” is really a cycle of mortality. And the human societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining Edens of James Cameron’s fond imaginings. They’re places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.