Month: April 2012

I'm not kidding.

Leaks from defense officials to the Jerusalem Post give one a glimmer of hope.

You can hear his conversation with Terry Gross here. For some reason, Gross had a counter-point on the same show, which is not the usual case.

Chris Moody's new book, The Republican Brain, uses this sort of research to paint Republicans as anti-science. Kenneth Silber has mixed feelings:

The central weakness is that the science involved is rather provisional. To say "the science isn’t settled" may be a misleading cliché in the global warming debate, but it’s true enough with regard to scientific understanding of ideological differences, and particularly for efforts to analyze such differences in neurobiological terms.

… Mooney makes various acknowledgements of scientific uncertainties and ambiguities. But such disclaimers count for little in a book titled The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don’t Believe in Science. The book’s hedging will not prevent conservatives from reacting to the argument with outrage. Nor will it deter liberal readers from gloating that science has delivered some supposed body blow to the entire conservative enterprise.

An update.

A hawker wears a flower hat to sell his goods at the Yuyuan Tan Park during the start of the blossom season in Beijing on April 3, 2012. Thousands of Beijingers flock to the park during the one-month season that coincides with the Qingming tomb sweeping day. By Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images.

Joel Wing puts Iraq's low March death count in context:

[V]iolence in the country has largely hit a plateau. Despite the large press that especially explosive months attract, overall deaths have stayed at an even pace since 2010. The next thing that needs to happen then is for the security forces to become more proficient, and for the remaining insurgent groups to slowly fade away as Iraq enters a new period in its history. Unfortunately, that will take a long time, but that trend can be seen when analyzing the numbers over the long-term in Iraq.

The Obama campaign takes on Romney "by name," running the below spot in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia and on cable: 

Chris Cillizza has more on the campaign's second television ad: 

Both commercials have a) focused on energy and b) responded to attacks being paid for by conservative aligned groups. The first pushed back against commercials funded by Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group funded by the Koch brothers, that attacked Obama for his ties to a failed energy company named Solyndra. That ad castigated “secretive oil billionaires” for unfair attacks. This ad is in response to a commercial funded by the American Energy Alliance , which is running ads hammering Obama on the price of gas. (The AEA also has some ties to the Kochs.) … [T]he campaign sees “Big Oil” as a major bogeyman to exploit over the coming months. … [T]he focus on energy — and particularly Solyndra and gas prices — is evidence that the president’s team knows he has vulnerability on those issues and wants to shore him up (and tear Romney down) as much as possible as soon as possible.

The Obama camp has more than $1.4 million behind the spot. Meanwhile, the president's people begin to refute Romney's big lies: 

Previous Ad War Updates: Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

The young:

73 percent favor among 18 to 29 year olds and 64 percent among those 30 to 44 years old. However, support drops twenty percent points for those 45 years and older.

What could go wrong?