Liberal Talk Radio

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Provocative Op-Ed in the Sunday NYT. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues that we’re hard-wired to “help a brotha’ out,” so to speak, and a new generation of marketers is exploiting this fact to sell us Nissan Altimas:
Nissan knows that we will bend without thinking because the impulse to help is bred into our marrow. Our [...]

Democrats unite on Iraq; our take on the U.S. Attorney purge; a Catholic school tries to ban Myspace; and finally, Viacom sues Google: will it work?

It looks like the Pacific Northwest’s going to be spared the brunt of the recent mortgage crisis. Cleveland, on the other hand, not so much:
Here in Ohio, there are more than 200 vacant houses in Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland north of here. In the last two years more than 600 houses in Euclid [...]

In the future, robots will be everywhere:
Long Island Jewish Hospital patient John Hevrank was able to tell his doctor he was feeling better after bladder cancer surgery last week, even though his physician was in another building.
Hevrank was actually speaking to one of three 5-foot tall robots that the hospital is testing. The robot [...]

Andrew Sullivan’s review of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman is here.
After over a decade in the “fringe” theater trenches, I’m increasingly wary about art’s ability to influence politics. But a production like this, now, in Washington D.C., is probably about as close as you’re likely to get.

House Democrats just got their shit together and passed a bill that would set benchmarks and withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by August 2008. President Bush will likely veto, if it ever gets through the Senate. (Which it probably won’t. the Senate is structurally designed to take things from the House and bury them [...]

Vilsack to Endorse Clinton.
Anyone not think that she offered him Secretary of Ag or Energy in exchange for clearing the (corn) field?

James Kirchick flags a Joe Lieberman speech calling for a “terror tax” to fight the war on terrorism. Kirchick says this harkens back to the big-government internationalism of FDR and JFK, and wonders whether Democrats will “have the courage to come out and support this proposal.”
I’ll be the first to admit that it [...]

If they ever start allowing cell phones to be used on planes, I will be very, very mad.
Getting to the airport is a stressful experience. Waiting on ticket lines stressful. Going through the invasive security check is stressful. Waiting to get a seat is stressful. But once you’re on the plane, [...]