Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2855

Hewitt Award Nominee, Ctd

Larison picks up on this Totten-Hanson exchange:

What is remarkable about the interview is that Totten and Hanson simplyfeed off one another and reinforce each other's nonsense. There is notone probing or challenging question for Hanson in the entire interview.Totten does not object when Hanson says, "We're only 65 years from theHolocaust. Europe is still anti-Semitic, and Israel is on its ownexcept for the United States." This sort of blanket condemnation of anentire continent for rank...

Mental Health Break

Ash Garcia explains:

Collaborative video where every frame is drawn by an
individual person, in honor of Johnny Cash. You too can contribute your
own drawing by visiting The Johnny Cash Project.

Mental health - Johnny Cash - Video - Technology - Johnny Cash Project

Neoconservatism's Marxist Roots Are Showing

A reader writes:

Kristol's ideology reminds me a lot of Marxism. It's a theory that works only in an ideal world that doesn't actually exist. In Kristol's world, the US can muster the political will and economic might to build an enormous army akin to what we fielded in World War Two. He believes we can march that army into the heart of the middle east and impose our will on a country like Iran; that doing so would have no long term negative ramifications for our economy; and that any...

The View From Your Window

Austin, Texas, 2 pm

Texas - United States - User Groups - Programming - Languages

The Use Of A Child, Ctd

A reader writes:

I still think that the most likely explanation is that Sarah Palin simply lied about the story of Trig's birth.  My private speculation: she went to that event in Dallas and then flew home for a planned induction, for the reasons outlined in your other reader's comments, that being, DS children have a lot of potential health risks and for optimal health and should be born in as controlled an environment as possible.  All of this would have been contained in a medical record...

The First Islamist Terrorists

Few of us remember the Assassins when we try to understand al Qaeda or Hamas. But asymmetric warfare through terror by a handful of fanatics is not new in the world history; and certainly not new in Islam:

Even the most powerful and carefully guarded rulers of the age—the Abbasid and Fatimid caliphs, the sultans and viziers of the Great Seljuk and Ayyubid empires, the princes of the Crusader states, and emirs who ruled important cities like Damascus, Homs, and Mosul—lived in dread of the...

What Else Are They Dumping In The Gulf?

Tom Philpott rails against government regulators over BP's wanton use of chemical dispersants:

As I reported in early May, the dispersant products, branded Corexit 9527A andCorexit 9500A, were made exclusively by a former Exxon subsidiary nowowned by a company called Nalco. Exxon researchers had alreadyacknowledged that they were significantly toxic for aquatic life. Butjust how toxic was mysterious—particularly for humans. Thepublicly available data sheets for both products revealed that...

Why I Love The Next Generation

They just get it:

When I set out to find more LGBT titles, I turned to my school's library. Honestly? It was pathetic. There was not one single LGBT novel. But oh, of course the librarian went out of her way to buy books about gangs, drugs, and teen pregnancy. Like, for real, the people who actually do care about gangs, drugs, and teen sex sure as hell don't read–they're too busy (note: gangs, drugs, and teen sex. Yeah, they're going to interrupt all that fabulous action to sit and read a...

A Glimpse Of NYC, Ctd

A reader writes:

See, this is why I don't care what you or anyone outside New York City
says about the snobbishness of my hometown: it's just the greatest mix
of people from everywhere on Earth, with all kinds of music, language,
food, colors, faces - God, I love it.

This is why misfits move there from all over - especially from "Middle America." This is why almost a century ago gays started fleeing Oshkosh and Houston for NYC:  bring your song with you and no matter if it's a weird song...

"This Tiny Speck Of Nuisance"

The St Petersburg Times has a searing expose of how the Super Adventure Club has allegedly forced dozens of members of the elite Scientology group, Sea Org, to have abortions against their will:

According to those speaking out, women who didn't
schedule abortions were shunned by fellow Sea Org members, called
"degraded beings'' and taunted for being "out ethics,'' straying from
the order's ethical code.

Some were isolated, assigned manual labor and...