Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2849

I Knew That Already

David McRaney takes on hindsight bias, i.e. how you " often look back on the things you've just learned and assume you knew them or believed them all along":

You are always looking back at the person you used to be
reconstructing the story of your life to better match the person
are today.

You have needed to keep a tidy mind to navigate the world ever
you lived in jungles and on savannas. Cluttered minds got bogged
and the bodies they controlled got eaten.

Once you learn...

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish we covered the president's big Gulf speech. Larger reax here, a reader reaction here, and the Oil Drum explained why the gusher is growing. Netanyahu budged a bit on the Gaza blockade. Closing coverage of the Prop 8 trial here and here. Andrew lauded the forefather of the gay rights movement, James Risen lashed out at bloggers, Drum diagnosed the Tea Party, and a reader dissented over Andrew's diagnosis.

In Palin coverage, O'Reilly put some heat on her, a reader shrugged, ...

Digital Remembering

Evgeny Morozov reviews Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger:

Mayer-Schönberger fails to recognize that it is reminiscence—notforgetting—that faces extinction in the digital age. As Facebook andTwitter prioritize the present—our most recent updates always appearfirst while older ones have a shelf-life of half an hour—our digitallives are increasingly detached even from the most recent past. (Theubiquitous ADHD does not help either; Mark Helprin...

The Final Day Of The Prop 8 Trial, Ctd

Talbot talked to David Boies this morning:

Boies said he thought it likely that Judge Walker would issue hisruling in August—my own hunch is that he will rule for the pro-same-sexmarriage side—and that either side would appeal immediately. Indeed,Boies and Olson hope the Perry case will be appealed all the way up tothe Supreme Court, and that they will ultimately win a decisioncomparable to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court case thatdeclared laws against interracial marriage...

Why Do The Oil Estimates Keep Going Up?

The Oil Drum provides one answer:

Gas flows more easily through cracks than oil, and the disaster wasfirst evident when leaking gas reached the drilling rig, and thenignited. The BOP then, at least partially, functioned. After the rigsank, the riser also sank, bending the pipe just above the BOP. At thattime there were reports that a Coast Guard ROV examined the underwaterassembly and did not see any obvious oil leaks. A couple of days laterthe flow was suggested at about 1,000 bd, and...

Faces Of The Day

Meishan pigs walk through their enclosure at the Tierpark Friedrichsfelde zoo in Berlin on June 15, 2010. The animals were originally held as domestic pigs in China. By Barbara Sax/AFP/Getty Images.

Berlin - Domestic pig - Zoo - Zoology - Biology

VFYW Change?

The answer from the readers is clear: we will keep the format as it is every day, with a contest once a week on Saturday. No jumps! And I hope you've noticed we've cut down on them as much as we can in the last month or so.
















contest - Arts - United States - Programming - Music

When Politics Becomes Religion ...

You get idiotic and offensive statements like this about the president invoking prayer for those in the Gulf last night:

[GRETCHEN:] CARLSON: But Mr. Speaker, did you find it at all
disingenuous, because some people are analyzing that this morning as
saying it was disingenuous from a president who does not go to Church on
a regular basis?

You mean: like Bush and Reagan? See where you end up with this pious bullshit?

Ronald Reagan - Barack Obama - United States - President - Gul...

"A Giant, Angry Swarm Of Hornets" Ctd

Dashiell Bennett defends that godawful noise:

It figures that the French would have the temerity to blame their crappy performance on the noise.

Sports - Google - Apple - Carol Bartz - Nintendo

Dissent Of The Day II

A reader writes:

The fact that anyone considers that interview "pwning" of Palin shows us just how far we've gone in accepting that Palin should be treated with kid gloves. The interview was very mildly challenging of her, while not being critical of her by any reasonable standard.

Sarah came in blathering nonsense about what is being done wrong, and O'Reilly doesn't interrupt her, but changes the topic a bit with his questions and asks her a challenging, albeit totally fair question of...