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Adventures in Hypocrisy

Holy Family Infant St. John

For your daily dose of schadenfraude… If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth watching this video of Indiana Rep. Mark “Morally and Physically Repellent” Souder, the family values-touting Republican who just announced his resignation after admitting his affair with a staffer.  In it, the woman with whom he was cheating on his wife interviews Souder about his passionate support for abstinence education. Ha. Real glad he was doing his best to keep teens from engaging in sex outside of the sacred bonds of marriage. The video, which up until yesterday was featured on Souder’s website but...

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Primary Colors

There are several pretty important party primaries (and one special election) tomorrow around the country. Well, not important insofar as they’ll have any real impact, but important because they’ll guide the narrative leading to election day in November. Each party will see what messages worked, where the mood of the country is and is heading, and, probably less importantly, how big of a role the tea partiers can have in the election. I’ve been paying attention to most of the races since at least earlier this year, if not earlier, and have seen a stupid amount of...

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Doctor Who, "Flesh and Stone"

Doctor: “I’ll be back for you as soon as I can, I promise.” Amy: “You always say that.” Doctor: “I always come back.” We’re five episodes into this season, and I feel like I need some sort of flow chart to keep track of what’s going on. This was a great conclusion to the new chapter of the Weeping Angels story, but many other questions were brought up in this hour that we likely won’t get an answer to until the season finale. I mentioned briefly last week that the climax of “The Time of Angels” involved...

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Poem of the Week

sunflowers under blue sky

Another long week almost over, and for those of us in DC, a forecast of warm sunny weather all weekend long. I’m excited to check out Yoga on the Mall tomorrow for the first time (kicking off DC’s annual Week of Yoga, wherein yoga studios all over the city offer free and $5 classes. Pretty sweet). In honor of the apparent turn to summer, here’s a poem about one of the summeriest things I know of. I hope you all have a great, relaxing weekend. Sunflower by Frank Steele You’re expected to see only the top, where...

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Let them kiss, for chrissakes?

The Daily Wh.at: Worthy Cause of the Day: Not a single episode of ABC’s uproarious new sitcom Modern Family goes by that I don’t find myself ranting and raving over the pseudo-progressivism of having an openly gay couple on a primetime TV show, and going out of your way to avoid having them show real-world physical affection toward one another. Happily, I am not alone in my diatribe: A Facebook campaign was recently launched to convince ABC to let the adorable duo smooch to their hearts’ content on national television. It may not seem like a big...

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Ross Douthat Suuuuucks.

yellow new york taxi in front of new york times building

It will surprise no one to hear that Ross Douthat makes me mad.  He makes me mad because his views are stupid, and because he doesn’t seem to believe in things like “data” or “facts,” and he also makes me real mad at the NYT Op-Ed page for hiring him in the first place. As Amanda Marcotte aptly points out in her takedown of Douthat’s column yesterday, his writing typically concludes with a take-home message “so factually incorrect that the newspaper ought to run the correction alongside it.” Marcotte and Rachael Larimore are currently hashing out the...

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ConDems?

house of parliament in london

The insanity that has been the last week of British politics looks to be coming to an end. Somehow a coalition made up of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives will be ruling Britain (at the pleasure of the Queen, of course.) The Tories did go further than I imagined they would to make this deal happen, a referendum on AV and several cabinet posts to name a few. It seems Nick Clegg will be deputy PM, with other Senior Lib-Dems, including Danny Alexander and Vince Cable, in important roles. Yet, I’m unclear as to how this...

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First Thoughts on the Kagan Nom

Free Supreme court building, Washington

I’m alarmed by the precedent that a Democratic nominee for Supreme Court cannot have a record on abortion.  Elena Kagan doesn’t have a record on much in the way of any controversial issues, but neither she nor Justice Sotomayor had any obvious pro-choice skeletons in the closet. which is disturbing because — “skeletons in the closet”??  Abortion is still a legal medical procedure.  The fact that Diane Wood voted consistently to uphold this constitutionally protected right should never have disqualified her, and yet it seems pretty clear that that’s what made her unpalatable. Plus, the nomination confirms...

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Doctor Who, "The Time of Angels"

The Doctor: “The writing. The graffiti. Old High Gallifreyan! The lost language of the Time Lords. There were days—there were many days—these words could burn stars, and raise up empires, and topple gods.” Amy: “What does this say?” The Doctor: “‘Hello, Sweetie.’” Well, that was perhaps the best intro to a Doctor Who episode that I’ve ever seen. From the first moment she’s onscreen, River Song is clearly a brilliant, fearless woman who can hold her own against the Doctor. I’m sure even those who had never seen “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” were intrigued...

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Wait, people can vote in a monarchy?

hanged flags beside building

So, I’ll be out for the next several hours, but will leave thoughts later. Exit polls seem to indicate a drop in Lib-Dem seats. I don’t buy this, uniform swings, postal votes, etc… They may not be getting the gains many hoped for, but I can’t believe they’re not gonna pick up a few. Anyway, you should be following 538’s liveblog and listening to BBC Radio 4. Or just pick up a paper tomorrow. Either way.

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