They must call it “spin” because of the uncanny ability of the hawk message-crafters to pivot on a fucking dime. Old Line: Iran’s defiant, ongoing pursuit of nuclear weapons necessitates George Bush’s bellicose policy of preemption. New Line: Reports that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago validate Geoge Bush’s bellicose policy of […]

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I meant to comment on something Matt Yglesias linked last week: A Washington Post report on recent psychological research suggesting that power tends to stunt empathy. You might call this another instance of researchers confirming conventional wisdom—”power corrupts.” But there’s a still more general lesson that might be drawn from this and a raft of […]

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No, I’m not talking about IMing in Raymond Chandler speak, fun though that is: It’s an insanely addictive little game in which you attempt to block the cat from leaving the board. A number of the starting positions look as though they ought to be formally unwinnable, but the cat AI is sort of dumb, […]

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