Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2738

Can California Legalize Pot?

Mark Kleiman thinks not:

The federal Controlled Substances Act makes it a felony to grow or sell cannabis....The non-medical cannabis industry that would be allowed if Proposition
19 passed would quickly fuel a national illicit market....As a result,
pot dealers nationwide — and from Canada, for that matter — would flock
to California to stock up. There's no way on earth the federal
government is going to tolerate that. Instead, we'd see massive federal
busts of California growers and...

But Does She Really Need To Learn Anything? Ctd

Weigel argued last week, given the current dynamics in the media, Palin doesn't need to compete on a policy level.  Andrew Sprung differs:

Weigel's post is titled, "But does she really need to learn anything?"
The answer is yes. Palin faces the Herculean task of wiping out the
impression of feckless ditziness that Tina Fey helped burn into tens of
millions of American minds. Maybe she'll do it.  It would not entirely
surprise me if someone of her transcendent narcissism and ambition did...

Face Of The Day

Or: portrait of the blogger as a very young man. My brother just got a scanner and converted a bunch of old slides into digital photos. After the jump, my family in the late 1960s:

Digital photography - 1960s - Recreation - Photography - Graphics

Republican Agonistes

Auden put it best:

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die
in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment

And let our illusions die.

Games - Optical illusion - Puzzles - Brain Teasers - Restaurant

Back From A Breather II

I love Dave Weigel and enjoyed all his posts in my absence and was delighted he took on the Trig question. The aim of the Dish has been to air this debate on all sides in order to get as close as we can to the readily available evidence Sarah Palin insists on keeping from us. Sadly, Dave's posts seemed to me to add nothing empirical to the debate - except an insight into those whose minds are simply closed. I was hoping, for example, that he would have some backing for this claim:

All of the e...

Palin: GOP Front-Runner, Ctd

A reader writes:

For even more evidence that "it's her party now," check out this blog entry by Jim Galloway of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  The Republican race for Georgia's Governor featured several candidates with high-value name recognition and typical bona fides of the new conservative party.  John Oxendine was the clear leader for much of this year's silly season, but one simple endorsement via Facebook launched Karen Handel to the top of recent polling.

Unbelievable that Palin has...

The Party Of Bush-Cheney

This quote is quite something:

"There's
no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished
revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax
cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the
view of virtually every Republican on that subject."

Some minor crank? Nah. Just the senate Minority Leader. Bruce Bartlett notes that even Bush-Cheney officials refused to claim as such; and the empirical evidence simply isn't there. But we are...

Surge Fail Update

The Qaeda-Awakening civil war intensifies, prodding the Awakening leaders to blame the Shiite "government", still paralyzed by sectarian discord:

Many Awakening leaders blame the Iraqi security forces for not protecting them from revenge killings by militants loyal to a, the main insurgent group, or say the security forces themselves have been infiltrated by members still loyal to the insurgency... Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha, an Awakening leader in Anbar, said, "We are going to...

Dueling Polls, Ctd

Blumenthal explains two Obama-Palin match-up polls that differ by 21 points.

Republican - Sarah Palin - United States - President - Barack Obama

The Neocon War On Turkey

It's continuing. I can remember when neocons valued Turkey as a critical ally, as a vital bridge between east and west. Now, the rhetoric has gone to that of a "fifth column". Amazing what a tilt against Israel's policies toward the Palestinians can do.
















Turkey - Israel - Middle East - Palestinian people - United States