Odds and Ends

I have returned from my (brief) stay in LA. NYC is much better. Here's the news...

President Bush's old Texas friend Karen Hughes has left her State Department position of, well, basically trying to make people around the world like us. TPM Media looks at what a heckuva job she did in this capacity.

Michael Mukasey's nomination is likely not in jeopardy (all the Republicans and many Democrats still like him), but his confirmation will not be the cakewalk he expected. And just because he's already loyal enough of a Bushie to pretend to not know waterboarding is torture!

The Telegraph ranks the top 100 most influential U.S. conservatives and liberals.

Frivolous lawsuits do piss me off, but you know what... I'm okay with this one: "A Baltimore federal jury awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday to the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, deciding that the family's privacy had been invaded by a Kansas church whose members waved anti-gay signs at the funeral."

Neocon Norman Podhoretz has a disturbing debate on Iran with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria.

It turns out the majority of Americans (minus the usual 30%) are much more pragmatic about sex than the moralizers want to believe: "People decisively favor letting their public schools provide birth control to students... Sixty-seven percent support giving contraceptives to students, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. About as many - 62 percent - said they believe providing birth control reduces the number of teenage pregnancies."

Finally, Drew Carey speaks out against dumb government bans on medical marijuana.