Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2699

Mental Health Break

Dancing in the rain, revisited. Simply beautiful:

Mental health - Health - Oceania - Australia - Directories

Playing The Victim

Steve Chapman decodes the intent of NOM's Summer for Marriage Tour:

Why would NOM hold a rally where it is sure of being badlyoutnumbered by motivated and well-organized critics? Maybe becausethat's what it wanted. The Summer for Marriage Tour could have beencalled the Come Shout Us Down Tour.The endeavor has managed to make opponents of gay marriage looklike a brave, embattled minority, even though they constitute 53percent of the public and have gotten their way in all but a fewstates.

But t...

The Odds Of Being A Republican 1990 - 2010

Before they get too carried away ...
















United States - IBM - New York Times - Animation - Data visualization

Sunsetting The DHS

Building off the Dish, E.D. Kain considers sunset clauses for entire branches of government:

Too often our government is a self-serving, bloated
incapable of ever cutting off any of its outgrown limbs. Making more
it temporary – or at least writing in the possibility of
when constructing it – would at the very least give these
government institutions a reason to try to remain relevant.

Of course, the downside would be an even more concerted effort...

Gingrich, Cordoba And History

A reader writes:

As a Jewish American, I am offended by Newt Gingrich's suggestion that use the name of Córdoba by Muslims is insulting to non-Muslims. The height of Muslim rule the Iberian Peninsula, the rule of the Caliphate of Córdoba, was also the height of Jewish culture in Spain. It was the decline of the Caliphate of Córdoba that began the end of tolerance of Jews in the Muslim-ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Nevertheless, it was not until Christian rule was established over...

Malkin Award Nominee

"I'm George Stevens and I'm a person. I was held as property as a child. Even before my birth I was called a slave in an America you wouldn't recognize. But folks like you helped me escape North to freedom and in 1864, I joined the infantry to fight for my country. I fought so all slaves would be recognized as persons, not property. And we won. But today in Colorado, there are still people called property - children - just like I was. And that America you thought you wouldn't recognize is all...

The Democrats' Plan For November

Ambinder previews it:

The Democratic strategy in a nutshell is small enough to fit in one buthas the protein of a good, tasty nut. The Republicans want to be mayorsof crazy-town. They've embraced a fringe and proto-racist isolationistand ignorant conservative populism that has no solutions for fixinganything and the collective intelligence of a wine flask. This ISoffensive and over the top, and the more Democrats repeat it, and themore dumb things some Republican candidates do, the more...

"A Veritable Who-fest" Ctd

A reader writes:

I feel a little embarrassed writing into a site that routinely takes on serious issues to dissent with you and your readers about the state of Doctor Who. The show started going off the rails in the mid '80s. When it finally
went off the air in '89, it was nothing more than a vehicle for slagging
off Margaret Thatcher (a political stance I doubt you'd agree with).
After it was resurrected in 2005, it rapidly degenerated into a maudlin
soap opera. 

The modern series is...

They Get Loopier

More evidence of GOP fanaticism from Iowa.
















United States - Republican - Iowa - Government - Politics

Turkey, Britain And Oil

Sometimes in the world (if not so often in the US), foreign policy really isn't about Israel. A reader writes:

The recent screeching coming from the neocon stands with regard toTurkey seem to miss the fact Turkey is emerging as the major energybroker of the region with the help of the UK.Take the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline for instance. As its name implies,this pipeline takes crude oil from the Caspian fields all the way to theMediterranean Turkish sea port of Ceyhan. The pipeline, which...