Gay Hitler

More bizarre WWII propaganda.

Captain Crunch: the Movie

After Stretch Armstrong, it's just a matter of time.

Soon to be starring in his own feature-length film with Universal Pictures:
Stretch Armstrong, the pliant, muscle-bound doll whose roots go back to the
1970s. Big Wheel, the plastic tricycle, has its own TV show in the works. Even
the board game Risk has a deal for a film, to be co-produced by star Will
Smith....

Has the New Republic considered making this a regular feature?

Michelle Cottle invites readers to "Guess What MoDowd Is Talking About"

In case you missed it

Listen to the crowd reaction:

Attack of the Principled Liberals -- part II

From today's Talking Points Memo:

Sixty House Democrats have warned the Obama administration--in no uncertain terms--that they'll vote against a health care bill unless it contains a public option.

In a letter sent yesterday to Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus write, "We stand in strong opposition to your statement that the public option is "not the essential element" of comprehensive reform."

The last this group threatened to take their ball and go home I wrote the following:

A slightly more blunt assessment might be called for. Kucinich and company aren't just pushing for the most liberal climate and health care bills they can get; they are literally saying that they would prefer to see no progress at all rather than accept any affront to their sensibilities. This is ego, this is selfishness and if we want to be again a party that makes this country better, this is something we can tolerate no longer.

I've got a couple points to add given this latest round.

First, if this faction had joined with Obama and the House leadership and presented a common front, there is a good chance we never would have lost the public option. Instead they engaged in infantile games and tantrums. They wasted the time, energy and political capital of Pelosi and company. Worse yet, they greatly reinforced the deadly meme that health care reform was a doomed effort.

Second, though the public option would have been a very good thing, the remaining bill would still be a major advance and passing it would probably make passing future reforms easier. To oppose important advances because you didn't get exactly what you wanted is not just short sighted, it is criminally selfish.

This week's must listen from NPR

Starting with a well-chosen reference to Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison show in '68, reporter Laura Sullivan traces the decline of California's detention system from the arguably the best penal system in the country to almost certainly the worst:

The morning that Cash played may have been the high-water mark for Folsom — and for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The men in the cafeteria lived alone in their own prison cells. Almost every one of them was in school or learning a professional trade. The cost of housing them barely registered on the state budget. And when these men walked out of Folsom free, the majority of them never returned to prison.

It was a record no other state could match.

Things have changed. California's prisons are all in a state of crisis. And nowhere is this more visible than at Folsom today.

Folsom was built to hold 1,800 inmates. It now houses 4,427.

It's once-vaunted education and work programs have been cut to just a few classes, with waiting lists more than 1,000 inmates long.

Officers are on furlough. Its medical facility is under federal receivership. And like every other prison in the state, 75 percent of the inmates who are released from Folsom today will be back behind bars within three years.

California's prison system costs $10 billion a year. Its crumbling, overcrowded facilities are home to the highest recidivism rate in the country. And the state that was once was the national model in corrections has become the model every state is now trying to avoid.

Listen to the entire report here.

More on the Olivia Judson enigma

I. The New York Times has arguably the worst science section of any major paper. Its star reporter, John Tierney, spends the plurality of his time denying climate change. Accounts of squishy-soft science questions like "does you pet feel regret?" fill up much of the remainder (you thought I was joking, didn't you?).

II. Olivia Judson consistently produces elegant, insightful columns on science like this for the NYT.

III. Olivia Judson's writing does not appear in the science section.

This is a strange paper.