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Will New Hampshire Be A Gigantic Yawn? Or a YEAAARGH? Dave Barry is sleeping now. Mark Steyn, despite his annoying hubris, is clearly worried. They both live in New Hampshire, but... just how important was Howard Dean's exuberance? (Fwiw, for a Latin living overseas, it looks like a load of hype. What was so outrageous? Isn't America the home of rah-rah-rah?)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:07 PM PST - 59 comments

What if the Mad Cow wasn't a 'downer'?
posted by soyjoy at 10:13 PM PST - 17 comments

New poll: Bush sinking, Kerry surging Overall, 52 percent of those polled by NEWSWEEK say they would not like to see Bush serve a second term, compared to 44 percent who want to see him win again...
posted by Slagman at 8:22 PM PST - 64 comments

The World Social Forum, the grassroots answer to the World Economic Forum, just ended in Mumbai, India. Speakers included Nobel laureates Shirin Ebadi and Joseph Stiglitz (who got the most applause), and the always provocative writer Arundhati Roy. [More Inside.]
posted by homunculus at 10:52 AM PST - 9 comments

An interesting documentary I stumbled across about international banking's rise to power through history. It features poor quality video with not-quite-synced audio, yet it kept me riveted. Part two goes on to explain how the country will never be able to escape debt under the current monetary system.
posted by timb at 9:59 AM PST - 28 comments

Whatever happened to Howard Dean?

"He was assassinated by Bill and Hillary with the assistance of Chris Lehane, the political hit man who first worked for Kerry and now backs Clark.
Desperate to keep control of the Democratic Party, the Clintons used their negative researchers and detectives to the ultimate and generated a story-a-day savaging Dean. The Vermont governor, not ready for prime time, cooperated by being thin-skinned, surly and combative. "

caveat: I'm not trolling, but as a democrat I find this interesting. Ok, nauseating.
posted by mecran01 at 9:05 AM PST - 102 comments

Faux News cites a Heritage Foundation report that asserts the poor in America are doing just fine because many of them live in their own homes and have cars. However, I know poor homeowners who have to deal with rampant crime, high property taxes (to subsidize the suburbs,) bank redlining, lousy schools and crumbling infrastructure. Also, car ownership is a necessity for most people in most places- not a luxury as would be suggested. Rather than citing the statistics of DVD-player ownership, I'd prefer to know more about real quality-of-life issues, such as how many of these people have health insurance. What do you think?
posted by drstrangelove at 8:00 AM PST - 72 comments

Morgan Spurlock sets about to document what happens when he switches to an all-McDonald's diet for thirty days. Very scary stuff, indeed.
"It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days."
posted by moonbird at 7:14 AM PST - 6 comments