Seriously, how can anyone really argue with this?

The UN recently announced a union with the comic book company,
Marvel. Together, they aim to print a special comic that will see the
superhero fight alongside UN aid workers and peacekeepers...The UN is
now seeking private backing so it can distribute 1m free
copies to American schoolchildren. The project's creator, the French
producer Romuald Sciora, says he hopes it will then be translated into
European languages.

...

(hat-tip Open Left)
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Toms River, a large suburb in central New Jersey that happens to be my home, is not a left-leaning town. It is not a moderate town. It is not even right-leaning – it is, if election results are to be believed, a deeply conservative town. It is the kind of town where explicitly starting your desire to ban all abortion gets you elected and re-elected to Congress. The kind of town whose elected officials viciously fight a resolution that would give a dying cop's pension to her partner, because that partner happens to be of the same sex.

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This seems to be the Giuliani approach to primarily Spanish-speaking voters. After all, this is the candidate that wrapped himself in the banner of English-only, cuddling up with the owner of Geno's in Philadelphia, and using the following line in his speeches:

The final end result about becoming a citizen -- you should be able to have to read English, write English, and speak English if you want to become a citizen.

All of which makes the linked campaign ad kind of, well, curious.

Ah, the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Surely I can't be the only one who finds this fairly disturbing.

As I've blogged about here previously, we have a popular culture that emphasizes and excuses material greed over personal connections to a degree that is truly concerning, and a President whose urge to citizens after 9-11 was to "go shopping" doesn't help obviate that shift.  The idea that one's proudest possession is a "trophy wife" doesn't much improve matters. (Are we to believe that Ms. Thompson reads this description and blushes proudly? And, if so, eewww.)

We have a Republican field that is startlingly white and startlingly male. Their lack of interest in attending the various NAACP forums demonstrated that they were not much interested in facing up to the implications of the former. Senator Thompson, it seems, is not much interested in facing up to the implications of the latter.

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Something's very, VERY wrong with the commercial below. Can you figure out what it is?

I don't often blog on electoral politics, here or in other venues. Or on theology. So it's odd that I should find myself discussing a topic that some might consider at the intersection of each.

But this tidbit uncovered by Think Progress is just too incredible not to pass on:

Shortly before a triple execution in Arkansas in Jan. 1997, a caller called into Huckabee's show on Arkansas Educational Television Network and asking how he squared his Christian teachings with his support for the death penalty. As the Arkansas Times reported on Jan. 22, 1997:

"Interestingly enough," Huckabee allowed, "if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, `This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency'."

Jesus, though, did not ask for clemency. Therefore, according to Huckabee's logic, Jesus must have been in favor of capital punishment.

Does this not strike anyone else as intrinsically disturbing?

...according, at least, to Ben Stein's (!) upcoming 'documentary' Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. This is the type of movie where, the more you read about it, the more you're convinced it's an elaborate prank on the part of the Colbert Report. Allow me to quote a snippet from the website's own summary, and tell me if you can discern this from a Colbert Report segment:

"Big Science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom...what they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel!"

The smart new ideas? Intelligent design. Just check out the website.

Oh boy.

Join me after the break, won't you? There'll be the trailer, and it'll be fun. I promise.

Gigi's post yesterday touched upon an interesting point - what does it mean to say we're progressives? Is there enough of a common thread among all the competing issues for 'progressive' to truly be a meaningful moniker?

Before I set down some thoughts on this issue, I want to you watch an ad which the Center for American Progress has been playing in a few select media markets the last several weeks. Join me after the jump, won't you?

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Slashfilm has some great pictures from the Writers strike. That mass of humanity in the picture? 4000 human beings.

And for those of you who still aren't entirely sure what this entire strike is about exactly, a good summary can be had after the jump. Will you join me?