Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2822

McChrystal Is Gone; Who's Next?

Fred Kaplan's article on the McChrystal dust-up is worth reading. He encourages Obama to also can both the U.S. ambassador, Gen. Karl Eikenberry, and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. A taste:

Petraeus...gains enormous leverage, should he decide to use it. Ayear ago, Obama, at the urging of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates,relieved Gen. David McKiernan of command in Afghanistan in order tohire Gen. McChrystal, who seemed more suitable for the new strategy.Obama...

South Park Macho, Ctd

A reader writes:

My brother does a fair amount of work in the game industry.  For a military style game, they hired a former Delta Force soldier, for technical advice, who sat down with my brother at a bar and showed him private snapshots taken during operations in the field.  The idea of looking at the photos was to create the most realistic, current look of our most elite soldiers.  My brother noticed the weapons of course, but then looking closer at the photos he saw a good many of them...

Senator Clint Webb

Truth in advertising:

(Hat tip: Welch)

Hosting - Web Design and Development - Free - Sports Related - Business

The GOP's Expiration Date Nears?

Ruy Teixeira continues to warn (pdf) Republicans about looming demographic challenges. Tom Schaller summarizes:

The nature of the GOP's demographic-electoral problem is three-fold. First, the challenge of trying to evolve and adapt is itself limited by demographics because the GOP's older and whiter residual white minority coalition is simply less amenable to the sort of changes it would take to modernize the party. Second, so many of the figures within the party who might be able to lead a...

Toward An International Relations Theory Of Zombies

Drezner daydreams:

Most approaches predict that the living dead would have an
effect on different governments. Powerful states would be more
to withstand an army of flesh-eating ghouls. The plague of the
would join the roster of threats that disproportionately affect
poorest and weakest

The different international relations theories also provide a muchgreater variety of possible outcomes than the Hollywood zombie canon.Traditional zombie narratives in...

We're Overpaying For Ironing Boards

Who knew?
















Economic - Home and Garden - Loan - Interest rate - Credit card

How To Endear Customers To a Crappy Gadget

Give it a personality:

When we see the device as having a few human attributes, we start
treating it like a human, and not like a tool. So here's my advice for
designers of mediocre gadgets: Give them voices. Give us an excuse to
endow them with agency. Because once we see them as humanesque, and not
just as another thing, we're more likely to develop a fondness for their failings.

Google - Electronics - Shopping - Gadgets - Home

The Next Oprah?

Meet Zach Anner," a young man with cerebral palsy (which he believes is 'the sexiest of the palsies')." Vote to give him a TV show here. He's reclaimed the lead after accusations of vote-rigging.

Of course, Matt and Trey got there first.

Television program - Cerebral palsy - Zach Anner - John Mayer - Disabled

Let The Little Ones Argue

Friedersdorf interviews Mark Oppenheimer about religion reporting and his new book on debating. On the latter:

When I made it to junior high school,I discovered the debate team, and that really turned me around. Havinga healthy, constructive way to channel my verbosity (and my buddingadolescent anger) made a big difference in my life. It made me happier,for one thing. And the rest of the book takes off from there, as Iimmersed myself in the weird, wacky subculture of competitive debateand...

Von Hoffman Award Nominee, Ctd

A reader writes:

Thank you for referencing the my favorite movie trilogy.  But Zemeckis was not necessarily "way off."  The reason that Marty McFly looks like shit at 47 is because he got in that car accident when he was a teenager, which ruined his career as a guitarist, crushed his hopes and dreams, and led him down a depressing life in Hill Valley that caused both his physical appearance and soul to deteriorate rapidly.  Michael J. Fox, on the other hand, became a television and film star...