New Yorker Summary of Financial Collapse

I found this recent New Yorker article about the financial collapse very illuminating. It seems like a pretty clear, and scary, explanation for how things went south.

State Dept. Resignation Over Afghanistan

As I'm sure you've heard by now, Matthew Hoh, a State Department representative in Afghanistan and former Marine captain who served in Iraq, very publicly resigned his post over our involvement in Afghanistan. His resignation letter is seering. Hopefully, this will shift the debate from "How many more troops should we send?" to "How can we quickly get out of Afghanistan without letting the country plunge into chaos?"

Congrats to Bridget!

Congrats to Bridget for her great performance in the Chicago Marathon!

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

I'm sure you all saw this already, but President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning. Apparently, this came as a shock to the White House, especially since Barack took office only a couple weeks before the eligibility cutoff for this year's award.

The Nobel Committee cited Obama's initiatives to reduce nuclear weapons, to ease tensions with the Muslim world, and to rely more on diplomacy than unilateralism in world affairs. I immediately also thought that they wanted to pressure Barack to stick with his guns--a thought I believed to be uniquely insightful until I saw it all over the Web this morning.

It does make me reflect, though, on America's role in world affairs. The last two sitting presidents to win the award, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, did so because they directly brokered peace talks. Barack has done nothing of the sort and stands poised to intensify the conflict in Afghanistan. But, we are a much more powerful nation than we were in 1906 and 1919. Obviously, those on the Nobel Committee believe that we have a disproportionate impact on world peace because of our overwhelming military strength. Thus, incremental moves towards peace and diplomacy by America have a large impact.

If Barack follows through with his statements in favor of diplomacy and follows through on his efforts to the world's nuclear arsenal he could earn this honor. I really hope he does.

UPDATE: Of course the Repugs are losing their minds over this crying that Obama hasn't done anything to deserve the prize. The Prez answered those criticism well in his remarks.

I Am ENRAGED

30 (THIRTY!) out of 40 Senate Republicans voted against an amendment that would withhold defense contracts from companies that "restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court."

This has actually happened, most infamously, to a Halliburton/KBR employee, but to others as well. The amendment did pass 68 to 30.

Here are the twisted details.

Oh and everyone's favorite Maverick was one the distinguished 30. Seriously, how do he and the rest of these little creeps sleep at night?

Not Even Bronze (sigh)

Despite the combined power of Obama and Oprah, Chicago was the first city eliminated from the Olympics 2016 running today in Copenhagen.