Author: Andrew Sullivan

by David Frum

Investors and workers have endured a lot of pain over the past two years. But something seems to have snapped in recent days. Bad jobs numbers in the past month, miserable private sector job creation over the whole second quarter, the continuing (accelerating?) unwillingness of consumers to borrow and spend - all that has hit home since May.  From Monday's WSJ:

Many individual investors were tiptoeing back into stocks in the spring. Now, they're running for cover again. … U.S.-stock funds saw inflows in January, March and April, but net withdrawals resumed in May.

You want the chart? Here's the chart:

 

by Patrick Appel

Not in the short-term:

I doubt that anything that will happen between now and election day (or anything Democrats can say) will substantially alter these views; history suggests that by now, they’re too entrenched. And Obama’s ratings, though higher than those of congressional Democrats, are hardly robust. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that in this year’s contested races, Democrats who can’t win based on local issues or opposition research will probably lose.

by Chris Bodenner

First on BP, now immigration reform. But despite the heat O'Reilly puts on Palin, he essentially walks her through interview, providing talking points in the form of leading questions. For instance:

BO: Alright, so no amnesty. But what do you do with these folks? Do you make them register with the federal government? Do you tell them they have 60 days to get out of here before we put you in jail? What do you do with them?

SP: Do … do we make them register with the federal government?

BO: Yeah, so we know who they are, where they are.

SP: Yes! We do!

By the end of the interview, her solution basically boils down to "secure the border, deport everyone." Even the two Fox commentators and O'Reilly rolled their eyes afterward.

by Dave Weigel

ANCHORAGE – In the words of one of the great mid-1990s indie movie characters: I wasn't even supposed to be here today. Alaska Airlines gave me what I thought was an obscenely good deal to visit the Aleutian Islands — a plane left Washington, D.C. at 8 a.m. Sunday, and a third plane would get me to Dutch Harbor, AK by 10:30 p.m. eastern time. Important information was not known to me when I booked this. Dutch Harbor flights are canceled all the time. The landing strip down there is described by locals as some cross between the Isle of Sirens and Endor, and it's so dangerous that low fog, like the kind they had yesterday, spurs airlines to consider the mortality of its passengers and cancel its flights.

So I accidentally wound up in Alaska's metropolis; happily, some local journalists decided to show me around and dull the disappointment. The ringleader was Shannyn Moore, a left-leaning radio host (Sorry, Republicans. You should have tweeted me.) who regaled me with stories of her car being splattered with red paint and damaged around the windows after Sarah Palin stopped being an easy-to-approach local politician and started being a global celebrity whose supporters responded… proactively to criticism.

I see why local pundits and reporters reacted the way they did to Palin's turn. In a very short amount of time, jet-lagged, I visited one local restaurant — the Bear Tooth Grill — and ran into State Sen. Hollis French, reporters for local TV and the Anchorage Daily News, and the main blogger behind Mudflats. This was a left-leaning crowd, and I didn't talk politics on the record with French, but there was plenty of confusion and amusement about how the media in the lower 48 covers Palin. (One documentary filmmaker at the restaurant downloaded Ken Vogel's scoop about Palin's new PAC and wondered what to make of the $2500 and $5000 donations to candidates versus the money spent on other promotion of Palin.) This was Anchorage, not her home base in the Wasilla, but there's no Palin merchandise on sale on gift shops, and little discussion of Palin's role in Alaska politics. As far as the left-leaning Alaska media's concerned, the political press corps is being snowed by someone who disappointed the state. But that is the view of the left, and if I can make it back here — or get stuck here — I want to see what the other half thinks.

by Patrick Appel

Paul Staniland probes the "link between state weakness/failure and US security interests." Bottom line:

The major threats to US interests are…primarily derived from regimes that view the US as its enemy – not regimes too weak to control their territory.

by Dave Weigel

I'm Dave Weigel and a few weeks ago I would have written a different — longer, probably — introduction to my guest posts. But I have a happy history with this blog. Back in the summer of 2006 Andrew graciously asked me to help guest blog for him while he took  a week off. This was, to my surprise, a news story. (For some reason people like to write articles about bloggers. It seems rather silly to me. Why not just tweet?)

At the time, I was an assistant editor of Reason magazine. Over the next four years I wrote for a bunch of magazines, joined the Washington Independent as a reporter on what we grandly called "the remaking of the right," joined the Washington Post to cover the same thing, and left the Post after someone maliciously leaked excerpts from e-mails I'd sent to the JournoList e-mail group. As an effort to educate me on how to better handle and cover my subjects, it was a success; as an efforts to boot me out of journalism, it was less successful. So I'll be blogging here all week alongside your other pinch-hitters. Housekeeping note: I am spending the week in Alaska, so in terms of when posts go up I may be behind the East and West coat elitists who make up the demand side of the blogosphere.

No, I am not looking for real estate in Wasilla. Be serious.

by Chris Bodenner

Dayo Olopade reflects on the real winner of the 2010 Word Cup:

For one month of one South African winter, the tournament brought an international celebration to a continent more widely known for malnourished bodies, grandstanding leaders and the ravages of AIDS. Rather than indigence, the world saw balls sailing into the net, crisp tackles, sweat. Ten gleaming stadiums and the collective warmth of 50 million South Africans offered thousands of football pilgrims the time of their lives. In a year that marks five decades of independence for 17 African countries, from Somalia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the cup doubled as an anniversary party.

by David Frum

Perhaps a word of background about what I’m doing here in these unexpected surroundings. Andrew and I have been acquainted since the mid-1980s, when he was a Harvard graduate student and I was enrolled in the law school. I led a section of the late Judith Shklar’s class in the Government department. The section met in a classroom that was used by a section led by Andrew that ended immediately before. All semester I wiped his handwriting off the blackboard, but I don’t think we ever once encountered each other in person.

That experience prefigured the next quarter century. Andrew and I have exchanged tens of thousands of words first on paper then online, written tens of thousands of words about each other. Yet if I am tallying aright, I don’t think we’ve been in the same room with each other on even a dozen occasions.

And now here I am again, writing on Andrew’s blackboard after he has gone.

Back then we both identified intellectually and emotionally with the trans-Atlantic conservative movement. Andrew no longer does. I still do. As the Obama presidency under-delivers on its over-promises, an effective and intelligent conservatism is more needed than ever. I’ve been writing and thinking a lot over the past few years about how such a conservatism can be rebuilt. I’ll be continuing that conversation in this space. I’m very aware that many readers will feel nothing but skepticism about conservative rebuilding. For them, conservatism means Limbaugh and Beck and Palin. But it does not – must not – cannot. 

What it might mean instead? There's a fine topic for the week ahead.

by Chris Bodenner

The city could become the first to ban the sale of all pets (except fish):

The idea originated about two years ago, when the commission began looking into a ban on dog and cat sales as a way to discourage puppy and kitten mills. But the city's animal control staff said that excess puppies and kittens are not the problem at the city shelter, thanks to the plethora of rescue groups. In any case, only one or two pet stores in San Francisco sell dogs and cats. The rest stick to small animals.

The real problem, staff said, is hamsters. People buy the high-strung, nocturnal rodents because they're under the temporary impression that hamsters are cute and cuddly. But the new owners quickly learn that hamsters are, in fact, prone to biting, gnawing through expensive wiring and maniacally racing on their exercise wheels at 2 a.m.

Claire Berlinksi lays out the moral case against the pet trade. Brian Moylan finds the potential ban dumb and impractical:

It just means that if you want to get some sort of living play thing for your child, you'll just ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and stop by the nearest strip mall that has a pet store and buy one. A 30-minute drive isn't that much a deterrent. … Maybe we should just treat pets like cigarettes and alcohol and put heavy taxes on them. That might stop people just going out there and picking up pets as often as a subject on an episode of Hoarders takes broken picture frames out of a dumpster.

Speaking of pets and hoarders, all dog lovers should check out this clip.

(Photo by Flickrite citron_smurf)