Internal Monologue

...according to the Pew Religious Landscape survey , as reported by Steven Waldman . As Inigo Montoya famously said in Princess Bride : You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Waldman's explanation: What this means is that Atheism has become a cultural designation, rather than a theological statement. Some are likely declaring themselves atheists as a statement of hostility to organized religion, rather than to God. This might help explain polls showing rising numbers of Atheists. Oh great. I suppose I should be happy that the term "atheist" is losing its stigma enough that people who clearly don't know what it means want to identify with it. But the discussion of religion is already marred by enough imprecise language. If the Pew study had been a qualitative study, it would have been fascinating to ask these folks what atheism meant to them.

Apparently, Obama is a Dylan fan : Wonder shares room on Obama’s iPod with "everything from Howlin’ Wolf to Yo-Yo Ma to Sheryl Crow," he says. "And I have probably 30 Dylan songs on my iPod." Though he’s partial to 1975’s Blood on the Tracks, "Maggie’s Farm" is "one of my favorites during the political season," says Obama. "It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric." Liking the same music is not a reason to vote for someone. But I do get a thrill when thinking that the probable future president of the United States likes some of the same music. Blood on the Tracks is an excellent album. In my guitar playing days, I could play and sing every song on that record (yes, including the long ones like "Tangled Up in Blue", "Idiot Wind", and "Lily Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts"). One of the most touching things an ex-girlfriend ever said to me was that after we broke up, she had to go buy a

"This whole thing about which operating system somebody uses is a pretty silly thing versus issues involving starvation or death." - Bill Gates in Newsweek , on his transition away from Microsoft and to full-time work at his philanthropic foundation.

Washington Post reports on a Harvard study : Record foreclosures and limited access to credit will make it harder than usual to rebound from this U.S. housing market slump, the worst at least since World War Two, according to a Harvard University study on Monday. A two-year home price drop is eating into housing wealth, curbing consumer spending and slicing away economic growth. This is unlikely to change until potential home buyers are convinced that prices have stopped tumbling, the study found. The downturn has room to run. Of course, being a potential home buyer, it is in my interest to use Internal Monologue to jawbone prices downward.

Left-handed person, that is: Both major party candidates are southpaws, contributing to a largely unexplained phenomenon that has vexed researchers and historians — and drawn notice from a federal judge destined for the Supreme Court. Though left-handers comprise just 10% of the population, they are dominating presidential politics. Their recent success transcends ideology. Since 1974, presidents Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton have all favored their left hands, while President Carter and the current President Bush are righties. The trait is also not exclusive to winning candidates: Vice President Gore is left-handed, as are past presidential contenders Robert Dole, John Edwards , Bill Bradley, and Ross Perot. A prominent New Yorker who flirted with a White House bid, Mayor Bloomberg , is a lefty. And here's something I didn't know: A scientist at the National Cancer Institute, Amar Klar, has found another, more novel trait that may distinguish left-handers from

Been a while since I've posted, but here's more McCain pessimism for you. He's tied with Obama in frickin' Indiana of all places (behind by 1%, but well within the margin of error): In an election today in Indiana, Barack Obama takes 48% of the vote, John McCain 47% of the vote -- a statistical tie -- according to this latest SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WHAS-TV Louisville and WCPO-TV Cincinnati. Obama's 1-point lead is within the survey's 4 percentage point margin of sampling error, and these results should be reported as a tie. Kos : Holy f'in crap!

This Yglesias post has some interesting commentary on the Status of Forces Agreement the Bush administration is trying to force on Iraq: I heard part of a conference call the National Security Network organized yesterday about the negotiations for a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. Skip Gnehm, who's been ambassador to Kuwait, Australia, and Jordan as well as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and a number of other prominent positions made a couple of provocative points. One, he points out that "in all of my experience, there are no SOFA agreements that authorize military action." In other words, we have agreements with Germany, Italy, South Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries governing the presence of U.S. military forces in those countries, but none of them authorize the use of military force inside the host country or against the host country's citizens. Analogies between the SOFA the Bush administratio