political science

What: "There is a strange quality to Barack Obama's pragmatism. It can look like dilly-dallying, weakness, indecisiveness. But although he may seem weak at times, one of the words most applicable to him is something else entirely: ruthless. Beneath the crisp suit and easy smile there is a core of strategic steel."

Writer: Andrew Sullivan

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Oct 20 2009 12:56 AM

What: "When I decided to write a story about the salesmen of cars, used and new, it was because I believed the car salesman to be a preacher in the church of the American dream. What is a car salesman if not a cleric who, like a minister or rabbi, sells the vision and moves the product?"

Writer: RICH COHEN

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Sep 8 2009 6:45 AM

What: "They are taking advantage of the current situation. That is understandable. In previous times people got wonderful research grants in a war against cancer and they achieved a lot of money for that. Now we have a war on climate change and we have a huge number of people out there who have their career staked on it and are beneficiaries of this process.

Writer: Louise Gray

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Nov 14 2009 1:55 AM

What: [T]he desire for "tribal engagement" in Afghanistan, executed along the lines of the recent "Surge" strategy in Iraq, is based on an erroneous understanding of the human terrain. In fact, the way people in rural Afghanistan organize themselves is so different from rural Iraqi culture that calling them both "tribes" is deceptive. "Tribes" in Afghanistan do not act as unified groups, as they have recently in Iraq. For the most part they are not hierarchical, meaning there is no "chief" with whom to negotiate (and from whom to expect results). They are notorious for changing the form of their social organization when they are pressured by internal dissension or external forces. Whereas in some other countries tribes are structured like trees, "tribes" in Afghanistan are like jellyfish.

Writer: poliusmia

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Dec 2 2009 5:10 AM

What: "That time-line the GOP hawksters are decrying: it seems to have jolted Afghanistan's leadership into less complacency. __ One weird contradiction in current conservative thought. Isn't an open-ended commitment of arms and money and troops to a weak foreign country a dangerous form of dependency-generating welfare? If we can have welfare reform domestically, why can we not have it internationally?"

Writer: Andrew Sullivan

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Dec 3 2009 12:10 PM

What: "Once the most self-sufficient republic in history, which produced 96 percent of all it consumed, the U.S.A. is almost as dependent on foreign nations today for manufactured goods, and the loans to pay for them, as we were in the early years of the republic. What the British were to us then, China is today. Beijing holds the mortgage and grows impatient as we endlessly borrow on equity and refuse to begin paying it down. The possibility exists of an eventual run on the dollar or even a U.S. debt default."

Writer: Patrick J. Buchanan

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jan 4 2010 3:25 PM

What: These are 2 American Institutions that have significantly helped the United States become the preeminent world power in the last Century. General Motors provided a large part of the industrial base that was essential for defeating Germany and Japan in WW2. The US kept producing armaments, while the factories of Germany and Japan were bombed to oblivion. General Motors was a key factor in this production. The CIA was important during the Cold War. The academic communist bitch about and analyze the third world machinations that the CIA has been involved in during the Cold War. And they are correct. By design, the CIA played a pivotal role in destabilizing countries that produced governments that may have been antagonistic to the United States and possibly sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Most notable were Chile and Iran. Now both of these institutions that long ago helped win these wars have become decrepit. GM took a loan from the federal governments to survive and the CIA was one of the pieces of a dysfunctional and bloated national security structure that failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

Writer: mattyflynn

LCC: J

Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated

Date: Jan 11 2010 2:44 AM

What: With one in ten under-40s infected with HIV, and millions living in squalor and destitution, thousands try to flee each year to the U.S. by hanging on to anything that will float. ---> The most infamous of these killers is the Cannibal Gang, a group of sadists once led by a former prisoner with political aspirations, who was himself shot in the eyes and had his heart cut out in 2004. His gang lives on, murdering innocent people and allegedly eating their organs

Writer: ANDREW MALONE

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jan 15 2010 2:45 AM

What: "She compared the state's situation to a family with a mortgaged house, maxed out credit cards and zero savings. She said her outspokenness on the topic at public meetings and other forums has caused some at the Capitol to tell her she is apocalyptic, and she said she has been asked to quiet down."

Writer: Diane Harkey

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Feb 23 2010 3:51 PM

What: "Once upon a time, the intellectual conservatives in this country cherished their dissidents, encouraged argument, embraced the quirky, valued the eccentric and mocked the lock-step ideological left. Now they are what they once mocked. And they have the ideological discipline of the old left."

Writer: Andrew Sulllivan

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Mar 28 2010 6:32 AM

What: I was working with women who grew up in Wisconsin. The topic turned to how conservative the Midwest can be. She said yes, but you should go to Madison, 'cause it's a bit different. "It's the Berkley of the Midwest."

Writer: mattyflynn

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jun 13 2010 3:08 AM

What: "WikiLeaks is like TMZ for war crimes."

Writer: mattbors

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jul 27 2010 7:10 AM

What: #wikileaks is like a #BP Oil leak.....a gusher of misinformation that destroys all the good in it's path! Help put a cap on #wikileaks. Hmmmm. This seems like a stretch.

Writer: robinsage

LCC: J

Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated

Date: Jul 27 2010 7:13 AM

What: "My ex-wife and I went to a Burger King in Oakland because we were hungry. Also because she was an idiot that insisted in going into this crime infested restaurant like she was a white Rosa Parks. We ate in a tension filled stare fest. Oakland is like Detroit in that it's over run with Mixon type supporters that are very angry and hateful toward whitey. One day a government with guts will take back that which was forcefully taken from it. "

Writer: samurai

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jul 28 2010 1:59 AM

What: You know. Marx. Reading Marx is like fucking a microwaved squash -- everyone's got to do it eventually, but you probably shouldn't get so into it that you start joining a club. Because the next thing you know you'll be standing on the back of a personnel transport humorlessly waving a huge flag and screaming through a bullhorn at a bunch of people who made the fatal mistake of not agreeing with you, while your comrades herd them through barbed-wire-lined corrals with rifle butts and... wait

Writer: Not Stated

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jul 29 2010 4:33 AM

What: "Yes, we do. The latter lead inevitably to the former. Basing an economy on Marx is like basing a space program on Ptolemy."

Writer: torujordan

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jul 29 2010 4:39 AM

What: "But what he doesn't realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable." ...........

Writer: MAUREEN DOWD

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Aug 5 2010 10:29 AM

What: "To the Republican establishment, tea party people are field hands. Their labors are to be recognized and rewarded, but they are to stay off the porch and not presume to sit at the master's table."

Writer: Patrick J. Buchanan

LCC: J

Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated

Date: Sep 18 2010 1:55 AM

What: "She didn't insist too much on what she was telling us, and it became clear she was in a position similar to that of a veteran Soviet bureaucrat who must work on two levels at once: reality and official ideology". This is a great essay that's more about working with your hands, but it makes some great points about the mindset of the contemporary American organizational style. Well worth reading.

Writer: MATTHEW B. CRAWFORD

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Sep 30 2010 9:45 AM

What: See the story. Humboldt county is making the same claim. In fact CNBS had a similar story a couple months back.

Writer: Laura Bly, USA TODAY

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Oct 9 2010 5:58 AM

What: Yes indeed. There have a been several suicides on this spot in the last year, mostly local high school students. There has been speculation that these students were under a lot of pressure socially and academically. I've yet to see an honest assessment of what the actual causes were. People don't like to talk about this kind of event and newspapers don't like to write honestly about it for fear of offending the community. But what is it about this juncture? What's going on this city?

Writer: LucretiaGermanica

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Oct 13 2010 2:49 AM

What: This book portrays the succession of Northern California, Oregon and Washington into a single sovereign state based on sound ecological principles. Some of the key features are bicycle transportation, mag-lev trains and government of Lesbian Druids. I must say, that the book was enjoyable, but the political subtext in the novel should be abhorrent to any freethinking American. In short Callenbach is advocating lesbionic totalitarianism based on a protecting the natural world. This is not protecting other human beings, it means protecting nature itself, as if it were a citizen with rights. It doesn't say anything in the US Constitution about the natural world having Rights. If you look at the environmental movement in the past 30/40 years, that has been the driving premise. It a horrid conflation of natural based religion mixed with left wing progression politics. As this is written, there is a freakish sense of the feminine that has pervaded this area,The Bay Area, since I've lived here. Who knows how this will play out in the future.

Writer: LucretiaGermanica

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Oct 22 2010 9:25 AM

What: "I think it sort of looks like the Nintendo character Yoshi. I live up in Yoshi's head up north". This is a good discussion of Proposition 20, which moves control of California congressional district away from the state legislature and to an citizen commission."

Writer: Not Stated

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Nov 4 2010 6:45 AM

What: "Gerrymandering is like Tenure, or life time appointment to the bench, we should all be that lucky". .........

Writer: Hercule_Savien_IV

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Nov 5 2010 12:43 AM

What: "Gerrymandering is like a "covenant not to compete" provision written into party employment - voters from this jurisdiction must work for this party". This is a full blow academic article on the Political Market place analogy.

Writer: Thomas Tso

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Nov 5 2010 12:53 AM

What: "The return of Jerry Brown is like a Freddy Krueger re-make. The thought of the man running California's business is truly frightening."

Writer: Rovin

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Nov 6 2010 12:56 AM

What: "One wonders where a world view like Mr. Easterbrook's comes from. But we find a clue on the book jacket, where we learn Mr. Easterbrook resides near Washington, D.C. This, I believe, explains a lot. Washington, D.C. is like the rest of the U.S. in the same way Disneyland is like the rest of Californinia." .This is a blog article about factories in the US with a comment about foreign lobbying.

Writer: LEE TESCHLER

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Nov 30 2010 2:48 AM

What: "It like living next door to the 'Simpsons'-you know, the dysfunctional family down the block". Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels.

Writer: Mitch Daniels

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Jan 16 2011 6:59 AM

What: "And the media are a big part of that. There's been a big transformation of media from information providers to entertainment sources. I mean, calling Ann Coulter a political analyst is like calling Simon Cowell an arts critic." ....Can this be true? See the link for a discussion of words and politics. The parallel between these 2 is questionable.

Writer: And Nunberg

LCC: J

Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated

Date: Jan 26 2011 2:28 AM

What: " Because they don't want the truth about their sins, and the need to be saved, people render themselves vulnerable to a lot of other lies, like "Islam is a religion of peace and love!", and "The Muslim Brotherhood is like the YMCA", or "homosexuals have as much right to marry as straight people", or "Everyone is going to heaven"."

Writer: Pastor Bill Randles

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Feb 2 2011 1:57 AM

What: "A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user. " Theodore Roosevelt

Writer: Theodore Roosevelt

LCC: J

Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated

Date: May 27 2011 11:27 PM

What: "Yet Uncle Sam is like a stoned, dirty, stinkin' hippie with a credit card. It's gluttonous, it's slovenly, it's indulgent. For anybody to bail anybody out is wrong. It's counterproductive and disgusting" --->Finally someone put things in perspective. Of course the rest of the interview is very good. Except Mr. Nugent is a bit long winded.

Writer: Ted Nugent

LCC: J

Where:

Date: May 27 2011 11:39 PM

What: A link to an article about how the US government, DARPA, is looking to build software that analyzes non-literal thinking and writing in a variety of languages. The aim is better probe what people in other countries and cultures are really thinking......

Writer: ALEXIS MADRIGAL

LCC: J

Where:

Date: May 28 2011 12:13 AM

What: "A union member is like an indentured servant." This is a really weak analogy. The linked article describes how manditory union dues are a form of forced assocation, which is un democratic. The association is weak. Indentured servants are paying off debt to become free. Union members are forced to pay dues to be represented. There's a big difference, in principle.

Writer: Buzz Hargrove

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Aug 2 2011 12:53 PM

What: "I received the following spam from the American Medical Association. It is beyond embarrassing. If the AMA truly felt they were performing such good service on behalf of doctors, they shouldn't have to peddle themselves at half price like some cheap linen sale at Kmart." I guess he believes it's too much of a marketing based organization.

Writer: ZMD

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Aug 6 2011 4:08 PM

What: "Afghanistan is like all chaotic Muslim countries--where brutal fundamentalist religion, primitive tribalism, medieval traditions and abject corruption of police and military and the civilian population rule the day--remains an absolute basket case. Afghanistan is unsalvageable. I have argued this so many times in this CBC site."

Writer: Mike Tenszen

LCC: J

Where:

Date: Mar 12 2012 6:06 PM