Per aspera

This serves as kind of an expansion/reinforcement of the last post, for me. It’s a theme Matt returns to pretty regularly, and one I completely agree with.
The mechanism by which we decide what to do is called “politics” and it exists so that individuals and organizations with somewhat divergent interests and ideas can make […]

Matt Yglesias has made this point a few times before, and I think it’s worth noting, and remembering when we hear people use “partisan” as a synonym for “bad” (and “bipartisan” for “good”).
More broadly, though, it’s unfair to Bush to blame him for the lack of the sort of “bipartisan cooperation” we saw in the […]

Shut up.
But you’re right, I am. I can’t believe I spend as many hours a day as I do on the interweb, and have never heard Chocolate Rain until today, when Shakes linked to it while showing this:

First: “I move my mouth away from the mic to breathe in,” as I mentioned over there, […]

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In which Jay Smooth at Ill Doctrine reveals that professional wresting is a more reliable source of news than CNN. Not a joke, and illustrative of a larger issue in civil society: you can’t trust the news. Not only will they […]

Attack of the Show has done a valuable bit of historical research:

Why none of their experts bothered to mention the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, however, is mysterious to me.

John Holbo writes:
Possible slogan for ‘08: ‘Anybody can make a mistake. To really screw things up requires a Republican.’ Maybe with a cute kitten, wearing a Goldwater button, barely clinging to a clothesline. And I’m talking slogans for the Republicans here. The Republican party is in some danger of becoming the party for those who […]

Comet Holmes Bigger Than The Sun
Formerly, the Sun was the largest object in the Solar System. Now, comet 17P/Holmes holds that distinction.
Spectacular outbursting comet 17P/Holmes exploded in size and brightness on October 24. It continues to expand and is now the largest single object in the Solar system, being bigger than the Sun (see Figure). […]

John: Robot overlords. You are “pro-robot overlords”.
Tyrone: They bring world peace, universal health care –
John: At the cost of our freedoms!
Tyrone: MY POINT EXACTLY. We’re already giving up our freedoms — our right to privacy, gone. Warrantless arrest, gone. Right to have your vote counted is super-gone depending on the state you live in, right […]

Rove lamented the loss of civility in politics on the web…
Oh, my sides!
(via Atrios)

Digby has a post up at the Campaign for America’s Future about right-wing postmodernism. I avoid the word conservative because “epistemic relativism,” as Digby puts it, is rather radical.
I’m not sure if it’s that we’ve become used to it or the administration has used less of it recently, but I don’t find myself pounding […]

You’ll notice I’ve added a doohickey to the right column of the blargh. It’s a link to donate money to Project Valour-IT, a charity that provides voice-activated laptops to severely wounded soldiers (I learned about it from LGM). That seems like a pretty fantastic cause to me, so I encourage you to throw […]

Kevin Drum has announced the winners of the Golden Wingnut award, for the all-time wingnuttiest blogpost. N.B. that first place went to a guy who used to call himself “Hindrocket.” Since most of you don’t spend nearly as much time on the Internet as I do, you might be slightly perplexed by the […]

Omphaloskeptical.
Oh, man, am I stealing that word.

I’ve lived in Massachusetts for six years now, so I already knew that Mitt Romney is a total shitbag.
I feel very strongly about this because, as I said earlier, I believe that maintaining the strength of the marriage relationship, the family relationship, is critical to the strength of an entire society.
And I believe that the […]