From an NYT Magazine profile of Obama:
Obama advisers expect … the Tea Party ultimately will reelect him by pulling Republican nominee to the right. They doubt Sarah Palin will run, figure Mitt Romney can't get the Republican nomination because of his Massachusetts health care program and guess that Obama may end up running against Mike Huckabee.
(Hat tip: Goddard)
A Texas firm has an innovative approach:
The maps use typography as the sole visual clue. So everything from streets and highways to parks and waterways are labeled with text. The bigger the thoroughfare or the landmark, the bigger the words.
A map of Chicago using that process can be found here.
Contra Ezra Klein, Adam Serwer et al, Dana McCourt wants to abolish the term "illegal immigrant":
Around four million people who are here unlawfully entered legally; they’re people who could get visas and later violated the terms of them. They are people with slightly more options, because in some cases having overstayed a visa isn’t a bar to becoming a permanent resident from within the country. Some estimated number (anywhere from about two to about 30 million, depending on who you ask; having entered without inspection means no one counted you coming in) are people who came in by sneaking in. Every legal option for them that’s in place now requires them to leave the country first, and usually wait out a ban of ten years.
So, yeah, ditch “illegal” in favor of using words that actually have some meaning.
I think the noun matters. I see nothing wrong with calling an illegal immigrant an illegal immigrant. What I find offensive is the shorthand "illegal" as a noun. It dehumanizes somehow. It defines an entire person as beyond the pale. Literally and figuratively.
Neetzan Zimmerman is kinda offended:
An Estonian “beauty” clinic hired two models — a slender cover-girl type and a BBW — to parade around as the “before” and “after” of the clinic’s slimming treatments. This isn’t the first time a company has employed this degrading stunt, but, just as before, it fails to take into account the fact that many people prefer the real thing to an emaciated knock-off.
Copyranter adds:
This isn't quite as bad as these Romanian spa ads that compared heavy women to whales and cows.
A reader writes:
Paladino made his men-in-Speedos-grinding-away comment in at least two separate venues, one of which did NOT involve a script. He said it both to attack the morality of Andrew Cuomo (that he shouldn't have taken his family to Gay Pride) and to score points with the homophobic members of his party. He said it directly after and in the context of the horrific hate crime perpetrated against three gay men, two of them teenagers. He claims he'll stand and fight for all gay New Yorkers' rights, but he has already come out full-square against gay marriage. Pull the other leg, Carl.
Another writes:
In my opinion, the most telling thing about Paladino’s fake apology is that he actually spelled the president's name wrong. Passive aggressive or just plain stupid?
From the Hill:
Obama leads Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, by a 16-point margin, the Bloomberg News National Poll found. Fifty-one percent of likely voters said they would vote to reelect Obama in a hypothetical match-up against Palin, who drew the support of 35 percent of likely voters.
Doug Mataconis suspects that the GOP might commit electoral suicide:
So at this point it’s fairly clear that if the GOP nominates Palin in 2012, it will be doing so with the full knowledge that doing so virtually guarantees Barack Obama’s re-election. Could they possibly be that stupid? Yea, I think they could.
"I tell Bristol, I am texting her and say 'Bristol'…and I wasn't kidding, I thought that this was a practical thing to do…'How about if Todd and I we load up all the kids in our motorhome and drive down, park on Rodeo Drive and we come to see you.' And I honestly didn't think that it was an unusual thing to suggest, that's what you do, a road trip. (…) But anyway, that's what we did, though, we parked a little bit further away from Rodeo Drive, and we got to watch Bristol," – Sarah Palin, speaking of driving from Alaska to Los Angeles in a motor home to see Bristol on Dancing With The Stars.
Really?
A reader writes:
I too suffered (unknowingly) from
study – and was informed I had an average 150 disturbances an hour. I too tried the CPAP, but couldn't stand the Darth Vader aspect of it.
I found a doctor who fit me with a clamp that fits over my teeth, top and bottom – sort of inside-out false teeth The clamp keeps my mouth closed, and prevents my jaw slacking back, so my tongue won't slip back down my throat. Altogether more discreet and more comfortable than the CPAP – indeed, I'm happy to leave the device in after I wake up in the morning until I need to talk or eat, it's that comfortable.
What's it called? Another writes:
I also was diagnosed with sleep apnea a couple of years ago. My experience was very different from yours.
My wife said that sometimes I stopped breathing in the night. So at her urging I went to my doctor and he arranged a sleep study. I too had numerous tentacles attached to my body, my head, and my legs. I was unable to fall asleep and for the first time I took sleeping pills. After a couple of doses of pills any many hours of staring at the ceiling I fell asleep. I was told I had severe sleep apnea and would need a CPAP. I dutifully got fitted with a mask and bought the machine. (The machines cost over $1200 for those that do not know. Masks start at $100 and go up from there.)
I spent weeks trying to get a mask that fit. I could never get a seal with my face. The constant rushing air made such a noise in my skull I could never fall asleep. There is no way to dampen the sound when it's inside your head. If I did finally fall asleep – from total exhaustion – the poor seal of the masks would crank the air pressure all the way up and would wake me.
The "cure" was driving me insane. I tried the machine every night for months, always with the same results. I'd eventually fall asleep and about an hour later the mask would unseal and I would tear the machine off my head and rip the power cord from the wall. About two minutes later I'd be fast asleep.
Of course I told this to my doctor and the "sleep therapist". I was referred to a doctor that was a sleep "specialist" and he made adjustments to the machine that made things even worse. Using the machine was completely intolerable. I was prescribed sleeping pills. Taking them made things worse yet. Now I had to fight off the feeling of being drugged in the morning in addition to getting no sleep.
I kept trying the machine and the pills and complaining to my doctors. I was then referred to a Ear, Nose, & Throat surgeon to see if anything could be done surgically. After a brief exam she said that I did have a very soft palate and that is why I snore. Nothing can be done about that. Upon looking into my nose she asked how long I had played hockey. I told her I never played and she said she asked because it was clear my nose had been broken very badly and because of the way the bone healed I had severely obstructed nasal passages. She recommended surgery to fix this.
The surgical procedure was interesting to say the least. They don't use general anesthesia because it's too dangerous so I was drugged just enough so I was on the verge of passing out. I could hear the doctors talking and could feel the chisel blows in my head. I remember a few sharp pains but not too much else.
This was the first time I had ever had cocaine. Yes, medical grade cocaine. It's used to constrict the blood vessels in the nose so when the incisions are made the bleeding is kept to a minimum.
After the surgery I am now able to breathe through both nostrils. I no longer get nosebleeds. My wife tells me I snore much less and the sleep apnea has almost completely stopped. While I get more rest I am not experiencing a profound change in my energy levels but I feel somewhat better.
I know this rambled a lot. I really do wish you the best of luck your treatment. I bet your husband gets a better night's sleep from now on too.
I'm still addicted to mine, and go nowhere without it. Not great for one's love-life, of course. And I hear countless stories like the one above of just not being able to handle it. But it's time for me to go back and get re-tested. My reader's first option is intriguing. The second: not so much. I've never had my sinuses or nostrils examined although I'm pretty sure they're screwed up. But I'm leery of surgery like this. I've met people who have described real trauma with the surgery and minimal success. The best advice is to get a sleep study and if you have apnea, try a CPAP first.
(Remix of Terry Colon's cartoon created by a Dish reader.)
Josh Green has a long profile of Ron Paul in the new Atlantic. He calls Paul the Tea Party's brain:
Paul says he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run for president again. But it’s hard to believe he won’t. He has emerged as a force at the kind of insider events that once ignored him. After winning the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, he came within a single vote of repeating the feat two months later at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. In June, he traveled to Iowa to raise money for local politicians, which is what you do when you’re thinking about running for president. He was greeted with PRESIDENT RON PAUL 2012 signs.
It does not seem at all far-fetched to think that Paul could have a much greater impact on the race than last time.
The Republican primaries are sure to be about economic and size-of-government issues. The subject that hurt him last time, foreign policy, will probably take a backseat. Paul will not lack for resources, thanks to his legion of online donors. Reagan, the Republican hero, once endorsed him. And the party’s energy right now is at the grass roots, which also bodes well for him. If his economic message connects in Iowa and New Hampshire—well, who can say?
I just don't buy the idea that the Tea Party isn't Christianism in faux-fiscal drag. Paul is the real thing – and he won't stop being the anti-Palin and anti-Romney on foreign policy. But I sure hope Josh is right. I know Paul is a bit of a crank, and some rather seedy associates in the past, but he has conviction and integrity, which must count for something, no?
Albuquerque's annual balloon-apalooza:
Balloon Fiesta from Michael Salisbury on Vimeo.
The Dish 