Liberal Talk Radio

Does it surprise anyone that a place called the “Diwan Hookah Lounge” has been cited 4 times in the past 5 months for violating the smoking ban?

Though I may be stepping on The Contrarian’s turf here, I feel obligated to note that, over the past week, events suggest that the President has actually listened to some criticism and made an effort to change course. Since pundits and politicians of all stripes always tell the president that he “ought to come clean [...]

I guess I don’t feel bad for missing out on last month’s Dining for Darfur night now that some are arguing that perversely, we may be making matters worse: Darfur was never the simplistic morality tale purveyed by the news media and humanitarian organizations. The region’s blacks, painted as long-suffering victims, actually were the oppressors [...]

Over the years we’ve argued that long-term investing could yield more “progressive” outcomes. That is, if you’re only concerned with quarterly profits, you have little incentive to think about the environmental effects of your business. But if you’re looking at being profitable 30 or 40 years down the road, then you have every interest in [...]

The Carpetbagger reminds us that it’s been one year since Dick Cheney’s famous remark that we’re “in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” Of course, Cheney’s basically right. The word “insurgency” implies that there’s a single, monolithic power against which one could “insurge.” With U.S. troops increasingly stationed behind large walls and [...]

Village Voice writer Anya Kamenetz tackles what I’ve long thought has been a much-overlooked issue — how unpaid internships exacerbate societal inequities: The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not identify interns or track the economic impact of unpaid internships. But we can do a quick-and-dirty calculation: according to Princeton Review’s “Internship Bible,” there were 100,000 [...]

It’s Memorial Day weekend, so I ran to my local QFC to buy my annual pint of ice cream. I instinctively picked up the Ben and Jerry’s off the shelf — cookie dough, of course. At a hefty $0.70 premium (20%!) over the next closest “superpremium” brand (Haagen Daaz), you know it’s got to be [...]

Some thoughts on how LOST and other TV shows are changing internet marketing, the latest fight between Congress and the FBI, and some disturbing new news out of Iraq: what does it mean for continuing the struggle?

I was putzing around with my new, fancy “On Demand” service from Comcast (had to sign up to get Sopranos!), and I decided to “demand” the film Troy last night. Thankfully, Comcast acquiesced to my demands quickly in what was a surprisingly one-sided negotiation. Troy is kinda schlocky, but it’s just the kind of popcorn-history [...]

Now that Abbas appears to be forcing Hamas’ hand in staking out a “middle ground,” do we really believe that Israel and the U.S. had “no idea” that Hamas was going to win the parliamentary elections? Recent events make that difficult to believe: The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said Thursday that he [...]