While I'm not sure I agree with Goldberg's policy prescription (added at the end almost as an afterthought), this article nicely sums up all sorts of global hypocrisy usually overlooked by some of my more mushy-headed friends on the left. UN Hypocrisy Exposed in Case of Murdered Kurd: Jeffrey Goldberg www.bloomberg.com  

Shalit: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Uncertain. The Gilad Shalit Prisoner Exchange www.theatlantic.com  

The normally sensible Frum tries to delude himself into thinking that the Republican Party he grew up in still exists in exile and will re-emerge if only they regain power.

Truly sad. Why I am a Republican | FrumForum www.frumforum.com  

Though it has been self-evident for at least 20 years, it can never be said too many times: Ralph Nader is a douchebag, who would be dangerous if anyone still listened to him. His latest outrage? Hoping Bloomberg runsBLOOMBERG?!? Ralph Nader Finds a Corporate Mogul to Love www.nymag.com  

Though I linked it to make a specific point in a recent column, this brilliant Chait essay on the economic policy differences between the right, left and liberal center is worth a post all its own:

"We were nodding our heads at the way Apple and sports teams and Internet porn fulfills the basic free-market model, offering consumers a wanted good for the market-supplied price...The whole liberal argument is that... Goldman Sachs is not like those other things. It is not a case of one person selling a gadget to another person, with nobody else impacted. It creates externalities. One person sells a financial product to another person, and soon we have systemic risk affecting hundreds of millions of people who are not party to the transaction.

That is why we have millions of jobless, and millions more struggling to survive. There are measures to address that problem, which would also allow corporations to reap enormous profits. Will Occupy Wall Street, as a movement, understand this?" Steve Jobs, Occupy Wall Street, and the Capitalist Ideal nymag.com  

I may be wrong here, but I was always under the impression that one bragged about fucking, with masturbation being the alternative of last resort--but some people apparently feel exactly the opposite.

The one good thing about this is that Weiner’s Abedin in-laws will now understand that there are better reasons to hate their son-in-law than his religion. Anthony Weiner called wife Huma Abedin's parents 'backwards' www.dailymail.co.uk  

Lincoln Restler: the tea party is taking over bed-stuy and bushwick. brooklyn's conservative party celebrates its new assemblyman

Gatemouth: With all due respect, I'd lay a bet Espinal gets a Conservative Party approval rating of under 20% the next time they evaluate voting records--in fact, that would probably be high--what was Vito's rating this year? Why would you assume there'd be any cleavage between Espinal and Lopez? Brooklyn's Conservative Party pays tribute to its winners, Republican and Democrat | Capital New Yor www.capitalnewyork.com  

After lunch at Jay and Llloyd's (the charcoal smoked pastrami on garlic bread made Dybbuk exclaim "Oh my G-d"), Gatey and Dybbuk spent Columbus Day afternoon at the Aquarium. Somehow we missed Senator Savino, but as the picture in the link proves, when you see a politician you're likely to sea lion (Don’t complain Diane—this post is SEALed with a kiss). The Brooklyn Politics Blog www.thebrooklynpolitics.com  

As i can tell you from experience, tshuva is really difficult Elizabeth and Hazel: What happened to the two girls in the most famous photo of the Civil Rights Era www.slate.com