Phil Plait is a Rachel Maddow fanboi and I can’t say I blame him. Though Rachel is fallible and has made mistakes before, more often than not, she hits the proverbial nail on the head, so when she gave her commentary on Climategate, the ACORN “scandal,” and other right-wing nonsense, Phil couldn’t resist linking to [...]

I’m really ashamed that this woman is even electable in this country. “The media wants you to believe that tea party patriots are toothless hillbillies,” said Bachmann, who instead cast the tea partiers as intelligent, educated and professional people. “This is a very sophisticated crowd. And then these charges from Democrats that they were spit upon, [...]

In the Iain Banks book Transition, where the characters can evidently shift, at will, to alternate realities (I gotta read this book!), one of the main characters, Mrs. Mulverhill, defines one of the forms of government she has encountered. “Libertarianism. A simple-minded right-wing ideology ideally suited to those unable or unwilling to see past their own [...]

The Republican National Committee will be in Hawaii this week for its annual meeting to discuss its agenda. One of the items on the agenda is a series of ten statements dubbed the “purity” test by the media. The actual name is a mouthful: Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates. The idea [...]

I was watching some news commentary shows this morning and it just reinforced my view that, from a fiscal standpoint, I agree so much more with Republicans than I do with Democrats. Regardless of stripes, it seems that politicians can’t seem to answer simple questions. So much so that when one actually does answer a question [...]

From Calamities of Nature comes this comic (the image here is just the first panel). I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I’ve heard a similar argument made by Sam Harris concerning the word “elite” in a Newsweek essay about Sarah Palin and politics last year. Not exactly the same argument, but [...]

Sarah Palin is joining Fox News as a regular commentator, according to this MSNBC article (and every other news agency on the planet, it seems). It’s a perfect fit, of course, and she can pal around with the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, people who mimic her own thin grasp on [...]

From Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech (emphasis mine)… The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach — and condemnation without discussion — can carry forward [...]

“Who to believe on climate change mystery: scientists or conservative pundits?” - Josh Marshall It seems like the answer should be obvious. (via)

I’ve mentioned before that I wish the Republican party would “go back to being the fiscally conservative, small government party they used to be instead of the religious, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-environment party they are now.” Andrew Sullivan, over at The Daily Dish,  seems to have the same idea, but in more detail. Andrew and I are [...]

Sarah Palin is the darling of the Republican party, but her cries against the “Washington elite” are contradictory with her own desire to become one… as Christopher Hitchens points out.

I wish the Republican party would go back to being the fiscally conservative, small government party they used to be instead of the religious, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-environment party they are now. Just sayin’.