Internal Monologue

See it here , if you dare.

More photos here .

Maureen Dowd's gossipy style has always bothered me. It seems to reduce politics to some sort of middle school playground ritual about who is cool and who is not. And Dowd seems to often use silly comparisons and inversions that don't really illuminate anything, like this one in today's column : Cécilia Sarkozy acts so American, while Hillary Clinton acts so French. Cécilia at one point left her marriage to go to New York and seek love American-style, while Hillary lost the public love in the ’90s when she tried French-style health care reform. What is "American" about Cécilia Sarkozy spending time in another country and taking a lover while remaining in a marriage? And what was "French" about reforming American health care? Every industrialized nation has some kind of national health care, not just the French. She could have called it European, or Canadian, or British. And even if these characterizations were accurate, what do the alleged American-nes

I was curious about what the various presidential candidates positions were on the gay marriage issue (which I support fully). Boystowners compiled a list of positions on April 25 2007, and I don't think the positions have changed significantly since then. The only candidates in favor of Gay Marriage are Democrats Mike Gravel (Democratic Senator from Virginia) and Dennis Kucinich (Democratic Congressperson from Ohio). The rest of the Democrats support civil unions. On the Republican side, Ron Paul thinks the federal government should have no role in deciding what a marriage is, and McCain is personally opposed to gay marriage but thinks it's an issue for the states to decide. The rest of the Republicans are opposed to gay marriage and civil unions. Rudy Giuliani has in the past been more gay friendly, but is now pandering to the homophobic base of the Republican party. So who knows how he'd act if elected. The Boystowners site notes that Republicans feature their anti-ga

Images of Republican state lawmaker Richard Curtis and sex worker Cody Castenega taken from Dan Savage's blog . Man, it just doesn't stop with these people. This is a highly entertaining, sordid story involving lingerie, a toy stethoscope, attempted blackmail, a police sting operation, bareback sex, and of course a Republican lawmaker from Washington state. Dan Savage blogs about it . Come out of the closet, people. It's so crowded in there I'm worried about your health. And barebacking (having unprotected sex) with a stranger you met in an erotic boutique is not safe, man. Think of the example you're setting.

UPDATE: Amanda Marcotte has a reaction, as does Ezra Klein . Pablo on Brooks: Okay, I think David Brooks has taken his autumn rake, made a huge heap of clipped copies of his own past columns, lit it on fire, and spent an hour getting high inhaling the fumes from his own bonfire. And this column is what he wrote in that state. I didn't find that Brooks column as annoying as some of his other ones, like the one in which he states : "[Democratic politicians] also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses ." (emphasis added). Even though he can't possibly know what the challenges will be in 2009-2012, he does know that the the Democrats will have to be "hawkish", because... well, because David Brooks says so. Annoying. I actually liked Brooks' 10/26/07 column about outsourcing your brain's functions to electronic devices various websites: ...I had th

...but in 1947, Americans were sure enough that it was torture that they sentenced a Japanese officer to 15 years hard labor for doing it. Here' Pensito Review's take : Immoral Relativism : George Bush’s nomination of Michael Mukasey for U.S. attorney general — once thought to be smooth sailing — is experiencing a bit of turbulence. The problem is, Mukasey can’t bring himself to say whether or not waterboarding is torture: During his confirmation hearings earlier this month, Mukasey said he believes torture violates the Constitution, but he refused to be pinned down on whether he believes specific interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, are constitutional. “I don’t know what’s involved in the techniques. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional,” he said. But after World War II, the United States government was quite clear about the fact that waterboarding was torture, at least when it was done to U.S. citizens: [In] 1947, the United States char