A good interview, and explains Obama's long-game strategy explicitly. His indignation at progressives and Democrats complaining about the state of things when much has actually been accomplished is reasonable, but his final statement bothers me. "We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign. It has been hard, and we've got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place." OK, but what does that mean? What's going to make a difference with ten-to-one odds and enormous corporations and special-interest groups lined up on the other side? Your base gave you a lot of money to help you get elected, but is that what you're asking them to do again, deep in a recession? They need direction, advice, some instruction or insight. What exactly do you want us to 'try harder' at?

Finally got around to reading this. I still can't reconcile the problem, but this is a very thorough analysis. My hunch is that it isn't exactly an undiscovered life stage or nothing but spoiled kids, but rather a confluence of factors stemming from stuff like 'extended adolescence' (and the provision thereof by parents, college atmospheres, and the entertainment industry), the recession, the internet, and an increasingly ineffectual educational system.

"As the TSA feels you up and dresses you down, terrorists are tearing a hole in a new target: The U.S. economy."

"So why not look for constructive things to use the military for? Why not get some use out of our military resources—particularly if that use makes it less likely that we’ll need to use the military for more violent purposes?"

"If somebody you care about is bleeding profusely, it’s not loving to insist that she’s flawless and has nothing to worry about. The loving thing is to stop the bleeding then get her to a doctor. If a guy is clearly suffering from blood poisoning, ignoring the problem isn’t loving. Instead, say, 'Dude. You need to get that looked at immediately.' Or, better yet, go with him. Do what you can to make things better."

"A day in the life of the President." "Durable achievement demands a long time horizon—something that the country as a whole seems to have lost. We can’t wait for the carrots to grow—we keep pulling them up to see how they’re doing. Thus, deeply complex problems, from illegal immigration to the BP oil spill—problems that by definition have no quick or easy solution, despite their obvious urgency—become easy emblems of presumptive failure, whatever the president may actually be doing to address them."

They don't carry disease, they disappeared for forty years, and everyone is freaked out about them. And that's actually all we know.

From the guy who wrote it.

"These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class. They drove our economy into a ditch. And we got in there and put on our boots and we pushed and we shoved and we were sweating and these guys were standing, watching us, sipping on a Slurpee."

This isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policy makers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.

"A stimulus too small to significantly reduce unemployment, a TARP that didn’t trickle down to Main Street, financial reform that doesn’t fundamentally restructure Wall Street, and health-care reforms that don’t promise to bring down health-care costs have all created an enthusiasm gap. They’ve fired up the right, demoralized the left, and generated unease among the general population."

A good summary of the actions taken and what lies ahead.

"A historian traces the moment when Boston’s dour preachers embraced the market."

An International Monetary Fund veteran explains how the US financial situation is like that of a less-powerful nation's developing economy. Oligarchy, corruption, and the financial sector's control of the government — it's not good.

The four most common types of healthcare that really work and don't really work and how ours is a jumble of parts of all four and all the proposals are pretty shitty.

The infamous 'hot coffee' lawsuit.

Attempting to answer the question, "what is white culture?" and reporting on those who have tackled it before.

Why I don't think I'm a curmudgeon for thinking the green Iran icons are a joke. "…if you believe for one minute that publicly agreeing with an echo chamber is changing anyone’s mind, behavior, or outlook, you need to stand up, locate your disused front door, walk the fuck through it, and then go spend a full (unwired) day doing something to actually help another person."

"Animals are banned from the moon. House cats now kill more people than heart disease."

Christopher Fahey on the cycles of adoption and adaptation that determine how we interact with technology and media. Maybe we'll all be okay after all.

America's latest "Hitler" is Ahmadinejad, Iraq is Bush's Vietnam, and the NYTimes "failed the First Amendment." "You'd think that in this country with so many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing again." But "there is no learning."