Internal Monologue

Graph from United for a Fair Economy via DailyKos ...the workers get squat. Republicans deny this or deny that this is a problem for our society, greeting anyone who points this out as waging "class warfare". Fortunately, some Democrats are not intimidated by this and are talking about this issue. Jim Webb has been very outspoken on this, with his November 15th editorial in the Wall Street Journal : The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health o

...it's not just the name of Ruy Teixeira's website anymore, it's actually happening : Nancy Pelosi’s party holds a staggering 30-percentage point lead among voters under 30. Separate surveys have shown that a declining number of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans . 30 percentage points among voters under 30. That should be giving Republican strategists ulcers.

This screen shot has been around for a while, but I thought it should make an appearance here. (I took it from DailyKos .)

Photo from Celebrity Values Today's Atheist of the Day is multiple Tour de France winner and cancer ass-kicker Lance Armstrong. Not too many athletes here on Internal Monologue , but for Atheist of the Day I feel its important to roam around the professions. Here's the documentation: From the Times Online Article : Although a confirmed atheist, he takes me almost immediately to the tiny chapel, lovingly describes its features, and, above all, the 15th-century painting of the Crucifixion that takes pride of place. Also: Lance Armstrong was quoted by ET Magazine as saying "If there was a god, I'd still have both nuts." It's a refreshing change from all those athletes thanking God for their victories. If she's responsible for their victories, should she not also be blamed for their defeats ?

Bill Maher lets rip on the Bush administration for filling top posts with wingnuts from 4th-tier law schools.

This Daily Show segment talks about the Iraq funding bill and the new "War Czar" position. It's one of the better ones I've seen in a while. They must want a "War Czar" because all those "Drug Czars" were so successful at eliminating illegal drugs.

Illustration from Matt Bors via Campus Progress A big government-funded study was released today (i.e. dumped on Friday afternoon in hope that no one would pay any attention) showing that abstinence education doesn't work. The report is 164 pages long, so I'll excerpt some key points. Abstinence education doesn't make teens abstain: Findings indicate that youth in the program group were no more likely than control group youth to have abstained from sex and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age. On the other hand, it doesn't make them have more unprotected sex, as some have feared: Program and control group youth did not differ in their rates of unprotected sex, either at first intercourse or over the last 12 months. (HT: Feministing ) So abstinence education pretty much doesn't do squat. Sex Educators have known this for some time already: Ten years into the program, and