Internal Monologue

Republican Chair Michael Steele attacks the war in Afghanistan ! Bill Kristol is not happy about this. Sullivan hopes this starts a genuine debate within the American right about the war in Afghanistan. It's interesting how the partisan politics plays into this: Republicans have recently been the advocates of the more militarist approach to fighting terrorism, so one would expect the Chair of the Republican Party to support the Afghan war, as they did under Bush. But Republicans have been almost reflexively against anything Obama pushes forward, even things that Republicans recently advocated (e.g. Massachusetts-style health care reform, cap-and-trade CO2 reduction). Since Obama has identified himself more and more with the Afghanistan occupation (foolishly and immorally, in my opinion), it makes sense that Republicans would attack it. I might find myself with a strange set of political allies on this issue! My guess is that Michael Steele was following the second script (attac

I think this is a good expansion of the thinking about the financial crisis. Nobody in our current political discourse is asking questions like, "What is the current power relationship between capital and labor? What do we want that relationship to be? How would policies we are currently considering affect that relationship?" I'd like to see more of those discussions happening. (HT: Shailja Patel on Facebook )

This is the best slacktivist post in some time. I really think our political discourse regarding the economy is completely broken. The US can borrow money at extremely easy rates. Or just print more of it: inflation is extremely low to non-existent. We have a lot of unemployed people (myself included). We have a lot of things we need to do. Let's get to work, America. But due to the desire of the Republican party to punish people who are already suffering, and the over-representation our political institutions give them, we cannot do the obvious thing. This seems like Hooverism all over again. I am very angry, and very disappointed at the nonchalance with which the suffering of so many people is treated by our political class. And these aren't even people on the other side of the world. These our us . 9.3% unemployment is a crisis. And unlike the BP oil leak, we can do something about it.

Cuba embargo to take (welcome) hit today Good news . A congressional panel is poised to take the first step toward ending a decades-old U.S. ban on travel to Cuba and removing other hurdles to food sales to the Caribbean island, a senior lawmaker said on Tuesday. [I sent this from my iPhone, so please excuse any excessive brevity or typo graphical errors.] --Zachary Drake

Planet Earth is ruled by a species of chimpanzee in possession of both nuclear weapons and Abrahamic religion. We're doomed.

"Growing up, I was told of several key moments in British history: Trafalgar, Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the 1966 World Cup final [vs. Germany]. The tone got extra reverent when it came to 1966." --Andrew Sullivan ( England just lost to Germany 4-1 )

This is a pretty cool but gross video of a giant spider crab crawling out of its shell: