Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2811

Thoughts On Byrd

Speak no ill of the dead? Well, let me simply say that the racist, populist, larcenous bigot of a Senator - a man who robbed the American tax-payer to pave his state with baubles and bribes - is not going to be much mourned in these parts.
















United States - Politics - Australia - Business - Parties

Ross On Afghanistan: Getting Warmer

It's such a relief to have my former colleague, Mr Douthat, writing intelligently from the right-of-center in the NYT. How does one begin to tackle the likes of Krauthammer or Kristol on the new empire? They are never wrong, never revisit any previous dogmas, and believe that a priori, American force is always right. Better to have some modicum of honesty to engage with. Ross' core argument as to why, after ten years, we are still increasing troops and resources in Afghanistan, is as...

Quote For The Day

"Oh my god I feel like I just stepped off of a roller coaster! Go round and round and up and down and shit flying out of everywhere and standing. Remember when you had to write a report as a college student and you just tried to jam in as many quotes as possible? You know, from as many random things you could get, you know, that's what I got.I got she didn't ever finish a statement," - a journalist on an open mic, uttering the truth immediately after Sarah Palin's recent speech at...

Why There Isn't A Female Viagra

Christopher Ryan proffers that "female sexual response is too complex for any pill." I defer to others' judgments.
















Sexuality - Health - Sexual dysfunction - Sexology - Food and Drug Administration

How Struggle Makes Us Stronger

Jonah Lehrer explains:

For me, the lesson of stuttering is that obstacles can also be
advantages, that who we become is deeply influenced by what we cannot
do. (Or, to quote the sage words of Kanye,
"Everything I'm not/made me everything I am.") The secret is to
struggle through, because the very act of raging against a disadvantage
generates its own set of skills.

That, at least, is the message of this new paper on Tourette's
Syndrome and cognitive control.

Kanye West - Health -...

Telling You What You Want To Hear

David McRaney tackles confirmation bias:

Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias.Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views.If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn't, you hate them.Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all...

Chart Of The Day

From The Economist/YouGov :

United States - Government - Taxation - Business - Goldman Sachs

The Blogosphere Slows?

This is news to me:

Earlier in the decade, rates of growth for both the numbers of blogs
and those visiting them approached the vertical. Now traffic to two of
the most popular blog-hosting sites, Blogger and WordPress, is
stagnating, according to Nielsen, a media-research firm. By contrast,
Facebook's traffic grew by 66% last year and Twitter's by 47%.

WordPress - Blog - Twitter - Facebook - Blogger

870 Iowa Jobs vs The World's Poor

Laura Freschi makes the case against mandating that food aid come from US growers:

Current US food aid policies are NOT an effective or efficient wayfor the US to achieve what should rightly be the primary objective forfood aid. According to the government's own accountability office,buying food locally in sub-Saharan Africa (which is where the majorityof US food aid goes) costs 34 percent less than shipping it from theUS, AND gets there on average more than 100 days more quickly, AND ismore...

Islamism Realpolitik

Marc Lynch shows the error of Paul Berman's view that "it is not violent Islamists who pose the greatest danger to liberal
societies in the West but rather their so-called moderate cousins, such
as Tariq Ramadan":

Secular Muslims, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- the Somali-born writer andformer Dutch politician -- are a sideshow to the real struggles takingplace between reformers and traditionalists, Muslim Brothers andSalafists, rulers and oppositionists. The real challenge to theintegration of...