Posting slow here. I've been looking after the progression of the gay marriage debate. It's almost become a "technical" field of study, with books, arguments, and arcane empirical details galore.
Second, I've been working on getting a new assignment for myself. God knows, that is not going to be an easy trick. I'm thinking of 'doing something completely different'.
Meanwhile:
For PTowners: P-town is so ... complicated.
In Pariah: Bush-Cheney -- hey, the whole party went along with them, and it wasn't just the evangelicals who voted alongside, so ... We have 600+ days left. It could be that abuse and perceived abuse of power-influencing yet outdistance the "GWOT". And that's just the known unkowns.
How self-important is Brain Williams: Who knows, but I read a meet-the-bloggers transcript with Gen. Caldwell, and, no, they don't ask better or harder questions than those with real press credentials. With few exceptions - and there are some significant ones, the blogosphere is largely a derivative format. Meanwhile, the Daily Dish adopts a no-comments, tabloid/old-style format. There are good reasons for that (beyond the stock answers, I mean), but let's not pretend that an old-style in electronic format is something new.
Thompson's Lymphoma: Say what you will, he's out, in my estimation.
Dean on Easter: "...religious cluelessness of many Democrats". I think that cluelessness has been rising for quite a while now, in general. On the AS blog and even over at the rectitudinal Townhall, the hue and cry went up about a Congressional oath not on a Bible. That caused a few chuckles on this blog.
The Gender Wage Gap: "No obvious answer." They might not be obvious, but there are plenty of economists who have answers, some of them even quite good.
Climate Change: The more interesting speech is Arnold Schwarzenegger's. Apparently, it is 'high time' that we think positively about climate change. If you believe the GOP, you can have it all: clean environment and no change in lifestyle, all through the miracles of technology and free markets. Yeah, and ... it's just "six months" away or so.
Rudy and the Right: The Right is still regressing on abortion, arguably, rather than realize that the issue is a non-issue. Litmus tests on judges are no longer broadly favored in the Senate; Roe, as it was written, is not the current state of the law and so declarations that it was 'decided wrongly' are feel-good rhetoric; and the balance-of-liberties formulation of O'Connor is robust enough that "sending it back to the States" is truly retrograde.
Extending Tours: Another in a long and growing list of why the GOP cannot be trusted with National Security issues. Bush-Cheney and the GOP Senators go on about how the Democrats might foil morale by debating wartime strategy, moving a basic no-confidence vote in the CIC (which is also an opportunity to vote for confidence, you know). But, nothing takes the sails out of a grunt's morale quite like being told one thing and then having it changed just like that. It's like a page out of Two Years Before the Mast - you sign up for six months out, and you come back two years later or something.
Hos on the Radio: I wouldn't trust MM to get a point. Although I was very grateful for her net Nanny-note, "(language warning)". *gulp*
Snoop, IMO, is right that rappers aren't writing about collegiate basketball. And even the "hard-core" rapper stuff has a 'cultural' self-mockery about it (at least I think I could make a case that that is one predominant attitude about it, about why and how it is accessible without being ... oppressive, normative, or prescriptive). As for writing from the soul, that's seems somewhat less obvious, since the soul has a range that hip-hop (that I know) doesn't seem to. I'm not an expert, I have only moderate confidence in these views. But if MM's idea is that all these guys should be the next Johnny Mathis or something, or the bleached artistry of the 50's and 60's, she's gotta think again.
In "Nowhere in Iraq Is Safe" AS may be missing the point that high profile blasts like this one may indicate a weakness in AQI (army jargon for al-qaeda Iraq). Shifting tactics toward large bombings like the huge blast in January and now this one is an attempt, arguably, to continue to be visible, as they are kicked-back from freely operating on the streets. Of course, it is, nevertheless, an unequivocal re-affirmation that their single-spot capabilities remain undiminished.
"Al Qaeda's Spring Offensive?" This is quite worrisome because it's only been six months that most a few US legislators know the difference between Shia and Sunni. The continued absence of an intellectual consensus on how to assess and meet the threat posed by (a) small-cell al-qa'ida operations and (b) radical, political violence in general continues to be the biggest unmet challenge since ... well, long before 9/11.
"The Voter Fraud Tactic" Makes the right conclusions about Bush's likely involvement, but it may be that people in general are missing the importance of stories from Rove's past, such as this one. A prior history of 'meddling' raises the likelihood that 'improper reasons' obtained and builds a foundation for a broad-reaching inquiry.
