An excellent editorial by the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland sums things up nicely:
Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration …
Read more… • Posted in: 2008 election, politics
This is my first time watching the US presidential process from abroad. I've lived abroad before (a year in Germany and two in Canada), but never managed to overlap with a US election before. I was part of a course in persuasive speaking during the 2000 …
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NPR has a great overview of the current scandal/gate/tempest-in-a-teapot brewing in US politics. Hearing more of Obama's speech, it's clear that the "pig" comment refers to his "that's not change" riff. Out of context, I guess it's easier to associate …
Read more… • Posted in: 2008 election, news, politics
What the frack?
In a post on the McCain Website on Monday, Alexander Goldfarb wrote, “It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans …
Read more… • Posted in: 2008 election, D&D, politics
Hidden in the intro to this BusinessWeek article — ostensibly about the health-care industry — is an jaw-dropping nugget of information. See if you find it:
If you really want to understand what makes the U.S. economy tick these days …
Read more… • Posted in: journalism
This is an excellent, surprisingly well-linked, op-ed by the NY Times' Frank Rich on race issues in this year's US election. I particularly like this quote:
If we're to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly …
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This is a brilliant op-ed / media criticism by Elizabeth Edwards for the New York Times. It's remarkably well-written, and I particularly like this quote:
Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the …
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A group, Physicians for a National Health Program, has an interesting press release, distilled from an "open letter" signed by 250 doctors in Massachussets. (I learned about it from CJR, which says that it's not getting any media coverage.)
The ostensible …
Read more… • Posted in: 2008 election, politics, rant
Today is Canada Day, the Canadian answer to the 4th of July in the US. (I still occasionally get friends or relatives in the states asking me if they have the 4th of July in Canada. Yes? No? Not exactly? Still not sure how to answer that one...)
…Read more… • Posted in: politics
Sam Brownback, Republican Presidential candidate extraordinaire, tries to explain why he wants to have his cake and eat it, too... Er, I mean, does and doesn't believe in evolution.
I mean, it all started out so well:
The scientific method, based on reason …
Read more… • Posted in: politics