Author: Andrew Sullivan

Matthew Albanese creates detailed sets and then photographs them:

My work involves the construction of small-scale meticulously detailed models using various materials and objects to create emotive landscapes. Every aspect from the construction to the lighting of the final model is painstakingly pre-planned using methods which force the viewers perspective when photographed from a specific angle. Using a mixture of photographic techniques such as scale, depth of field, white balance and lighting I am able to drastically alter the appearance of my materials.

Several more pictures here. Behind the scenes footage at Albanese's Flickr stream.

Run away! Run away! Conor intuits the same imperial temptation I do. The discovery makes national reconciliation less likely and the appearance of US exploitation more likely.

Bruce Bartlett's latest survey of the crazier right:

Other prominent conservatives who have been favorable, even enthusiastic, about debt default include Murray Rothbard, Dan Pilla, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, and Christopher Whalen. In 1995, then House speaker Newt Gingrich publicly warned the Public Securities Association that he was prepared to default on the debt unless Bill Clinton acceded to Republican demands for budget cuts. “I don’t care what the price is,” Gingrich said.

Consequently, it is becoming increasingly common for the idea of default to be discussed as a realistic possibility even by responsible analysts. Last year, The Economist’s Greg Ip wrote an article in The Washington Post saying that financial markets were placing the risk of default at 6 percent over the next 10 years. “Default is unlikely,” he said. “But it is no longer unthinkable.”

Bill Kristol wants to get a third war on, Churchill references and everything. There's nothing to fear, says the man who told us there were no serious sectarian tensions in Iraq.

Clive Crook warms to the iPad.

A reader writes:

I object to the notion that there was no twitter revolution last year. There may not have been one in Iran, but there was certainly one ABOUT Iran. These were tweets being put out in English, predominantly by people in the West, anyone seriously paying attention knew they were a fairly troublesome gauge of what was going on.

The Real Twitter Revolution occurred mostly in the Anglophone West, in New York and London, in Vancouver and Auckland. It was not in the streets but rather in dorms and living rooms, offices and internet cafes. It was a revolution in media by which countless people, myself included, finally saw the man behind the curtain of the mainstream media. My faith in the Mainstream media, particularly in the lauded 24 hour news channels (and CNN above all) had been slipping for years, mostly I suspect due to Jon Stewart, but it was Iran and Twitter that took a hammer to it.

If it weren't for twitter, for blogs (if it hadn't been for the events in Iran, I'd have never found the dish!) and for all the rest of new media, we wouldn't have had any idea what was going on in Iran last year. The traditional media waffled, avoided the matter, and when they finally decided the story was worth covering after all, seemed mostly to read tweets on air. As I watched CNN drop the Iran story as if it had never been to focus on the physical death of a man whose career had died over a decade earlier, a revolution took place in the heart of my consciousness. That the mainstream media lies, that it ignores, and that it is woefully incapable of doing its job. 

I haven't been quite the same since.

Tara Parker-Pope finds a study:

Most pet owners (62 percent) said they would likely pay for pet health care even if the cost reached $500, but that means more than a third of pet owners said that might be too much to spend on an animal.

What if the bill for veterinary care reached $1,000? Fewer than half of pet owners said they were very likely to spend that much at the vet. Only a third said it was very likely they would pay a $2,000 vet bill.

Once the cost of saving a sick pet reached $5,000, most pet owners said they would stop treatment. Only 22 percent said they were very likely to pick up $5,000 in veterinary costs to treat a sick dog or cat.

Scott Adams has a theory:

If you wear the jersey of your favorite team, your brain associates the colors and the logo with the good feelings of watching a game. The rational part of your brain might tell you that you wear the team jersey because you look good in those colors, or you support the team. But I think the real reason is a simple association with the stimulation you feel when watching your team compete. It's an accidental subroutine.

More Intelligent Life traces the history of sport.

(Image:  England flags adorn a house in a street in the Knowle West area on June 11, 2010 in Bristol , England. Although the 2010 FIFA World Cup is being hosted 1000s of miles away in South Africa the tournament is celebrated throughout the UK with many homes, business and cars now flying England flags and other football paraphernalia. By Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Friedersdorf interviews Greenwald:

I think the citizenry is becoming less and less defined by loyalty to one of the two parties, and these partisan divisions are breaking down, becoming much less clean.  We saw that with opposition to TARP, the general anger toward corporatist control of Washington, discomfort with our policy of endless wars, and the widespread disgust with incumbent power.  Far more important than Right v. Left is insider v. outsider (or politically powerful v. powerless).  That fact is becoming more crystallized, and the more that happens, the more the artificial barriers that divide citizens (Right and Left) will erode, the more apparent will be the commonalities.  The political establishment (both parties) benefits from keeping citizens divided against one another based on trivial distractions and tribal loyalties, which has the effect of strengthening the political establishment.  That's been the impediment to having citizens across the ideological spectrum join together to combat abuses of power in Washington, and I think it's eroding.  That, I think, is what Washington elites fear most.