Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2599

The Profit Bias

by Patrick Appel

Reihan's argues that Rupert Murdoch isn't Glenn Beck's puppet-master:

I'd submit that [Rupert Murdoch's:] own political proclivities matter very little tothe substance of the various media outlets he owns. Consider this:MTV's political coverage, to the extent it has any, tends to be fairlyleft-of-center. Do you seriously believe that Sumner Redstone, themajority owner of National Amusements and, indirectly, MTV's ownerViacom is an enthusiastic left-winger who is bitterly...

Virtual Assistants To Date For You

by Patrick Appel

Apparently a "number of people have been hiring 'virtual' assistants in lower-wage
countries to do all the tasks in their life that don't require a
personal presence." Tyler Cowen zeros in on the money quote from a post about a man who hired one such assistant:

His assistant, who is female and lives in India, logs onto his accounton a popular dating site, browses profiles and (pretending to be him)makes connections with women on the site. She has e-mail conversationsand...

Stating the Obvious

by Conor Friedersdorf

In the course of American history, if either liberals or conservatives disappeared entirely from the American scene, leaving the right or left to pursue their best ideas and most flawed excesses alike, this country would be in far worse shape than it is today.

And anyone who thinks that completely vanquishing "the other side" in American politics would produce good results for very long is naive at best.

It is to our collective benefit that the competing ideological...

Three Years Maternity Leave

by Patrick Appel

There's a lot that I don't necessarily agree with in this post by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry. But this bit piqued by interest:

Germany has very generous parental leave policies. Women get a fullyear of paid maternal leave, which they can extend to three years of"educational" leave. Employers are mandated to retake these workingmothers in the same position after they leave. And my wife was toldthat German mothers are culturally strongly encouraged to take the fullthree years' leave...

Why We Remember

by Zoe Pollock

Five years after Katrina, Mark Coatney points to the photography of Vincent Laforet, taken a year after the fact, and explains why it's as important as ever to remember:

Hundreds of years ago, when I first started working at Time, I was
taught that anniversary stories are some of the lowest forms of
journalism around, and that Time would never stoop to them (clearly,
that publication is in a much different place now). 

But for Katrina, I think it's important to suspend this...

Cannabis Censorship Continues

by Chris Bodenner

Reddit, the popular online community, takes a stand against its corporate owner, Condé Nast, for banning the "Yes On Prop 19" ads that were also banned by Facebook.

Facebook - Condé Nast - Reddit - Online Communities - Social network

The Koch Brothers Profiled

by Conor Friedersdorf

In The New Yorker, Jane Mayer has a long investigative piece about the Koch brothers, who fund various libertarian causes to the tune of millions. I'm an admirer of Ms. Mayer due to her indispensable reporting about the war on terrorism. Several months back, I dug into a dispute she had with Marc Thiessen, the former Bush speechwriter turned torture apologist, and defended the integrity of her work, having found it to be both intellectually honest and accurate. Her...

Let Home Prices Fall

by Patrick Appel

Tom Petruno makes the case. Calculated Risk is onboard. I see no other way to sop up excess housing supply. Another housing tax credit will only make things worse. More high-skilled and wealthy immigrants would increase housing demand, but good luck with that goal given the raised hackles of nativists.

Calculated Risk - Tax credit - Business - Real estate - Residential

Hewitt Award Nominee

by Chris Bodenner

"Oh, nobody made me the God Squad. The pope even said, this is Pope Benedict, that it is demonic not divine when theology crosses into the line of doing that which only the divine can do. He was speaking specifically about liberation theology," - Glenn Beck, asked by Chris Wallace about his views on Obama's religion. Keep restoring that honor.

Glenn Beck - Liberation theology - Chris Wallace - Theology - God

A Girlie Man On Gay Rights

by Chris Bodenner

Brian Leubitz shrugs his shoulders at the "gay-friendly governator"'s expected signing of a bill that would remove a 60-year-old state policy of "curing" homosexuals:

It is great that Arnold has been on our side in the last few years.But, he has never been willing to put any of his own political capitalon the line. Instead, he's content to wait it out. He vetoed the HarveyMilk Day bill before signing it. And with Mark Leno's marriage bills,he ran for the hills. His rationale...