Month: May 2011

"In traditional Protestant wedding ceremonies, the persons presenting themselves for a blessing of their relationships are asked to make promises. They are asked to promise to have and to hold one another from that moment on, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as they both shall live. They are truly joined in marriage when they promise to be faithful in those responsibilities. There is no mention of sexual activity or childbearing. Faithfulness in the keeping of promises is the glue of Christian marriage.

A new discussion of the marriage relationship is a refreshing development. While I am glad to see the demise of legal barriers to gay marriages, and while I am glad to see the growing acceptance of our gay friends in our churches, I am most pleased to see the move to looking at the marriage relationship as an opportunity to experience both human and sacred wholeness," – Rev. Howard Bess, a retired American Baptist minister, writing in Sarah Palin's hometown paper.

Well, not an endorsement as such, but this is worth noting given his power at the base:

“’The Inside the Beltway’ ruling class — the elite — they’re more oriented toward candidates they can attach the word ‘serious’ to — which is another way of saying someone who is boring, who doesn’t ruffle feathers, someone who exudes an air of formal education and sophistication — she doesn’t exude that, and I think it’s going to shake a lot of people up … You know the effect that she has on establishment Republican people. They’re just as frightened in their own way as the Democrats are of Palin and one thing I think is inescapable — particularly in looking at the Democrats — the Democrats and the media will always tell you who they are afraid of by virtue of who they spend time trying to destroy.”

Meanwhile, Byron York tells us to move on, because there's nothing to see here. Althouse is shrewder:

Maybe these "serious people" should be called conventional people. What did these "serious people" say when Palin was doing most of her communication via Facebook? Did the serious people say that serious people do not talk to the press and the public by writing Facebook updates? Because that would be conventional. Conventional people saying you're not serious because you're not conventional. But what if Palin is out ahead of them, and they can't see it? I wonder what these serious people thought about the Tea Party as it emerged?

I am reminded of all those Democrats who told me as fact that there was no way Obama could beat Clinton – as late as March 2008. I mean: he was a black man with a funny name who was organizing mainly on the web! What a joke!

A tumblr dedicated to the profoundly gullible.

“The tortured gay ­intellectual and dark complicated figure who wrestled with his soul. Some of it is cultivated, some of it is real, but man, is it a good fucking show,” – an anonymous Democratic fundraiser on David Brock.

But, as the profile makes clear, Brock had never really thought through conservatism and has little interest in what progressivism should be in terms of policy substance. He just likes organizing to persecute his enemies, first on one side, then on the other. And it's a very powerful skill – just not an example of a tortured intellect.

From Businessweek's profile:

When Tyler Cowen was 15, he became the New Jersey Open Chess Champion, at the time the youngest ever. At around the same age, he began reading seriously in the social sciences; he preferred philosophy. By 16 he had reached a chess rating of 2350, which today would put him close to the top 100 in the U.S. Shortly thereafter he gave up chess and philosophy for the same reason: little stability and poor benefits.

If you need a little cheering up, just watch the viral video after the jump:

Michael Tomasky urges Democrats not to be smug about a Palin candidacy. Money quote:

The Republican primary will likely be set up in such a way that she’ll be able to pull the field, and the party, hard to the right, and while that will be fine for Barack Obama come Election Day, it will help cripple any attempt to do anything constructive afterward.

And what if she wins?

ABC breathlessly covers a "scathing new report from Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, exclusively obtained by ABC News" reprimanding the National Science Foundation for funding projects like shrimp on a treadmill. Zen Faulkes does ABC a favor and googles it for them. Shrimp on a treadmill got the meme treatment a couple years ago (see above video), but the science behind it matters:

The researchers want to study how sick shrimp are able to move around and do stuff. So what? We want healthy shrimp so we can eat them. The shrimp fishery is a multi-million dollar industry in the United States alone. This research clearly has implications for the management and health of that fishery, and therefore, the jobs of all those who catch shrimp and prepare shrimp.

Using data from Pew's survey on economic opportunity, Ronald Brownstein is unnerved by the opinions of the white working class:

63 percent of African-Americans and 54 percent of Hispanics said they expected their children to exceed their standard of living. Even college-educated whites are less optimistic (only about two-fifths agree). But the noncollege whites are the gloomiest: Just one-third of them think their kids will live better than they do; an equal number think their children won’t even match their living standard. No other group is nearly that negative.

He fears the consequences:

That huge bloc of Americans increasingly feels itself left behind—and lacks faith that either government or business cares much about its plight. Under these pressures, noncollege whites are now experiencing rates of out-of-wedlock birth and single parenthood approaching the levels that triggered worries about the black family a generation ago. Alarm bells should be ringing now about the social and economic trends in the battered white working class and the piercing cry of distress rising from this latest survey.

Enter their Al Sharpton: Sarah Palin.

"If someone gives it a chance and watches it, watches the film, I think they will be surprised at the caricature that’s been drawn and the contrast to reality. I just think every aspect of it is so powerful, you cannot walk away from this film looking at Sarah Palin the same way. You just can’t," – Meg Stapleton, on the upcoming propaganda movie, "Triumph Of The Will" "The Undefeated."