Michael Wolraich's picture

    CouchSurfing 2.0

    You might think of couchsurfing as the exploitation of your friends' living room furniture. That is so old school. Welcome to couchsurfing 2.0, where you can travel the world via the living room furniture of complete strangers. The CouchSurfing Project is a social networking site where you can offer your home to travelers and take advantage of the couches, guest beds, and floor spaces of others when you travel. It was launched in 2004 and now has more than a million members in 232 countries.

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    Orlando's picture

    Hey Ross Douthat: What’s Your Point?

    I love it when men pontificate about what is wrong with women. Really (not really). I mean it (I don’t mean it).

    Love. It.

    That’s why I was so pleased to see Ross Douthat’s New York Times column today in which he discusses a new paper that a couple of economists have written, detailing how American women are less happy today than their 1960s counterparts (and also less happy than men).

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    acanuck's picture

    Vancouver 2010: coolest Olympics ever!

    The torch design for next year's Winter Olympics was apparently unveiled months ago. Only now have some sharp-eyed reporters started asking each other, "Hey, what does that look a bit like to you?"

    Personally, I love it. It sums up in one image the best British Columbia has to offer: winter sports and B.C. Bud. Now if only the organizers can sign up gold medalist Ross Rebagliati to kick off the torch relay.

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    Larry Jankens's picture

    Memorial Day: A Time for Honor... And Shame

    Memorial Day is a day that we honor our troops and their sacrifices. However, I think we should also take some time to shame some of the people that put them in harms way by enabling war profiteering for an ill-conceived war. After all, putting outmoded neocon foreign policy ideals and the pursuit of money in front of your own soldiers is something these people should be ashamed of.

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    DF's picture

    Is Healthcare Reform DOA?

    This Bill Moyers interview is a must-watch for anyone who cares about meaningful healthcare reform:

    Washington's abuzz about health care, but why isn't a single-payer plan an option on the table? Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Physicians for a National Health Program's Dr. David Himmelstein on the political and logistical feasibility of health care reform.

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    acanuck's picture

    Memo to the president: here's how you shut Gitmo

    Orlando posed a puzzler yesterday: if you shut the Camp Delta prison, what do you do with inmates who have committed no known war crimes or acts of terrorism, but who still pose a security threat? How do you keep them from taking up arms or otherwise waging jihad against the U.S. and its allies?

    It's triflingly simple: Ask them to promise not to.

    "Huh?" I can hear you all saying. "That's crazy talk, acanuck. What's to stop them from breaking their word?" Well, first of all, the concept of "parole" has an honored place in Arab and Muslim history. It resonates.

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    Orlando's picture

    Stuff I Want to Learn: National Security

    Right after the election was over, I started a series of posts called Stuff I Learned, about the history of American presidents, as I read a book called The American Presidency. I didn't get very far into the book, and now I can't find it. I'm not all that worried about finishing, not being a fan of non-fiction.

    So, at least for now, I won't be sharing with you the stuff I learned about American history. Instead, I'm hoping you'll share with me stuff you already know, because I'm confused.

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    DF's picture

    Makin' the Sausage: Say That Five Times, Fast

    I don't think that many people would be all that shocked or alarmed if I were to write that politics can be downright silly at times.  Even so, creative legislators continue to come up new tactics that seem to defy all logic.

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    Michael Wolraich's picture

    History Lesson

    I took a walking tour of Westminster, London the other day. It was just drizzly enough to make you open an umbrella and at least windy enough to invert the umbrella once opened. English weather likes to tease visitors. The moment you think it's about to pour, it changes it's mind and goes all sunny. But as soon as you're ready to declare the rain past, it grays up and drizzles all over again.

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    Larry Jankens's picture

    Harvard Study Concludes: Church Sucks!

    A new study by Harvard researcher Robert Putnam (from Bowling Alone fame) says that the percentage of young Americans who claim they have no religious affiliation that usually hovers between 5-10% has skyrocketed to 30-40%. While this trend started in the 90’s and has continued through Generation X and Y this is still a startling change. Putnam is releasing his findings and his corresponding musing in a new book, “American Grace” due out later this year.

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    Orlando's picture

    The Abortion Debate

     

    We’ve had quite a month in South Bend. When the President accepted the invitation to speak at Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony, the media jumped all over the supposed re-ignition of the abortion debate. 

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    Larry Jankens's picture

    My New Favorite Websites (MNFW)


    There is something about picking a ridiculous concept and building a website around it that puts a quiver in my liver.  Today I found two websites that are mind-blowingly awesome, if only for the fact that they straddle the line between absolutely outlandish and categorically awesome.  I encourage you to visit these sites and bask in their preposterous magnificence.

    1)  Black People Love Us - The blacks just can't get enough of them!
    http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/

    Deadman's picture

    MOFT: Episode 15 (Shrek The Musical)

    I've been a very bad dagblogger of late, but I'm full of good excuses for my badness. First, there was the whole engagement to plan and pull off (and already a fair amount of wedding madness), and then right after that I had to help plan my brother's 40th birthday party, which included a week-long visit from the folks (a surprise to my brother).

    acanuck's picture

    It's Hockey Night in America

    OK, Hockey Afternoon in America.

    Tomorrow (Sunday), at 3 p.m. Eastern, the NHL's Western Conference final series kicks off between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings.

    Why should you care? Why should anyone care?

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    DF's picture

    How Dare You, Ms. Pelosi?

    Nancy Pelosi ought to be ashamed of herself for daring to suggest that the CIA has ever done anything untoward, much less that they have misled CongressThe CIA is 100% on the up-and-up.  They have never bungled analyses, been involved in drugs or arms t

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    Michael Wolraich's picture

    News From the Future: Last U.S. Forces Leave Iraq

    May 13, 2029

    Twenty-six years after invading Iraq, the United States closed its military bases and evacuated the last American soldiers from Iraqi soil.

    In an address to soldiers at Fort Bragg, President George Prescott Bush praised the U.S. military for accomplishing the mission that his uncle, former President George W. Bush, had set before them in 2003.

    Orlando's picture

    My Celebrity Crush: Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly

    Is it bad form to mention a blogger on another blog? I don't know much about blog etiquette. Until about a year ago, I thought blogs were like MySpace pages: self-indulgent and of very little interest to anyone except the author and the author's close friends. 

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    Larry Jankens's picture

    Larry vs. Congressional Resolutions

    Happy Train Appreciation Day!  Oh, you didn’t know it was Train Appreciation Day?  Neither did anybody else and it was this past Sunday, so don’t feel bad if you missed it.  Apparently, Congress regularly passes resolutions establishing pseudo-holidays and resolutions of support for all sorts of things that are either: a) insignificant; b) blatant pandering to special interests; or c) down right non-sequitur.

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    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Voters want Republicans to be Republicanier

    In a comprehensive study, voting experts recently conducted a series of interviews, polls, and focus groups to find out why American voters turned away from Republicans in 2008. While many reasons were cited, analysts observed a clear consensus among swing voters who had voted for President George Bush and other Republican candidates prior to 2006 but changed to Democratic tickets in the past two years.

    Michael Wolraich's picture

    The Heretic's Bible - Genesis 4: Boys will be boys

    Having gained the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve set about going forth and multiplying, which is what God said that he wanted them to do in the first place. They had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain became a farmer and Abel a shepherd. Cain offered some of his crops to God, but Abel offered his fattest sheep, so God loved Abel and ignored Cain.

    Commentary: Couldn’t God make his own sheep? That’s like giving eggs to a chicken.

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