Here’s a great map from a great blog, Strange Maps. Each state is represented by a foreign country with the same GDP. I’m struck by one obvious thing. The District of Columbia has the same GDP as New Zealand. Now imagine if no one in New Zealand were allowed to vote for their own government, and they were governed by the Senate in Australia as a colony. Yep: that’s how it is in America – the once-colonized now colonize themselves.
It seems to me that Rudy Giuliani’s negligence with respect to the Iraq Study Group is a big deal. He blew off service to his country to rake in moolah on the public speaking circuit. Classic Rudy, but not exactly of a piece with "America’s Mayor trying to save the country from terror." Greg Sargent swiftly exposes the Giuliani’s campaign’s attempt at spin here. He didn’t show up because he was a presidential candidate and didn’t want to turn the report into a political football? Then why did he agree to participate months after he declared himself a candidate? The truth is: Giuliani has shown no interest or expertise in crafting war policy. And on a study group dedicated to the critical issue of Iraq, Rudy couldn’t be bothered to show. If he were a Democrat, this record would be translated as clear evidence that he is unserious about foreign policy and national security. And the truth is: Giuliani is unserious about national security. Just listen to his boilerplate: full of testosterone and devoid of content or analysis. The man is simply unqualified to be president.
The NYT got breathless about the alleged decline of internet shopping. Shafer busts them.
How to be for regulating the press while also being against it.
Romney aims his pitch at the low taxes, low spending Republican. Effective:
The truth is: the party left us, didn’t it, Mr Mayor? And so Bush’s betrayal of conservatism may lead to a viable third party challenge. If it increases the leverage for fiscal sanity and social toleration, great.
Get your primary polling crack here.
Rod Dreher muses:
Would I be more depressed to wake up on the day after Election Day 2008 to find that the GOP had lost badly, or had pulled out a surprising victory? I’m not sure, but my gut tells me that real reform of the sort I’d like to see in the conservative movement is far more likely to come from a Democratic blowout than a Republican hanging-on-by-the-fingernails decent showing.
Unless Clinton is the alternative, I’m hoping for a blow-out. It’s the only way to rescue conservatism from the current Republicans.
According to Grrlscientist.
"I was recently asked to speak at a Catholic college at a symposium on science and religion… I discovered that I had been assigned the title Science Enriching Faith. In spite of my initial qualms, the more I thought about the title, the more rationale I could see for it. The need to believe in a divine intelligence without direct evidence is, for better or worse, a fundamental component of many people’s psyches. I do not think we will rid humanity of religious faith any more than we will rid humanity of romantic love or many of the irrational but fundamental aspects of human cognition … they are no less real and perhaps no less worthy of some celebration when we consider our humanity," – Lawrence Krauss debating Richard Dawkins, at Scientific American.
The Dish 