An increasingly infrequent reader writes: Excitable Andy, You seem surprised (if not fully gobsmacked) by the Atlantic’s survey of your readers: The ideological mix: 2.5 percent of you describe yourselves as very conservative; 9.6 percent as conservative; 33.3 percent as moderate; 38.1 percent as liberal; and 16.5 percent as very liberal. I’m, not sure whether this is a function of my Obama love, or what. Andy, your 54.6% liberal audience (and just

I’m sorry to announce that I’ll be leaving Protein Wisdom to take an editing position at The Ethical Killbot: The Journal for Conscientious Autonomous Killing Machines.  I’ll be missed.  By you.  You wish me well in all my future endeavors.

A conservative radio talk-show host said that “he’s had it up to here” with Sen. John McCain after the GOP presidential candidate repudiated the commentator’s remarks about Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at a campaign event.   John McCain threw me under a bus — under the ‘Straight Talk Express,’ ” Bill Cunningham told CNN on Tuesday, referring to McCain’s campaign bus.  You know, I’m not a big McCain fan, but

Fresh material from OpenLeft’s Chris Bowers and the L.A. Times point toward the likely starting point for the general election campaign. Bowers makes some pretty educated guesses about the remainder of the Democratic primaries and caucuses to conclude that “that the Democratic nomination campaign is pretty much over.”  Even with assumptions favorable to Hillary Clinton: Overall, it is extremely unlikely that Clinton will be able to reduce Obama’s pledged delegate advantage

Moe Lane, on Barack Obama’s plans to push for a worldwide ban on all fissile material: In other words, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) just informed at least four of our allies, one friendly neutral power, one of our rivals, and not incidentally, us, that he wants to turn off the lights: and he’s also told a future strategic rival that the round-eyes are still dedicated to holding down the Middle

Governments around the world are rushing to develop military robots capable of killing autonomously without considering the legal and moral implications, warns a leading roboticist. But another robotics expert argues that robotic soldiers could perhaps be made more ethical than human ones. Let the nishi-bashing begin.

Some videos of our little party put together by Chris Cafiero, the band archivist, are out on YouTube.  Here’s Good Night To Boogie, featuring favorite guest Vince Herman.  It illustrates the often, um, ad hoc nature of the proceedings in Jamaica.  But then, the boys never were afraid to jump in the pool feat first.  Did I actually say that?  A little Cajun Rage, into High Roller (at Bill’s request),

h/t A.Pendragon Yes, it’s a shock.  And I’ll miss trying to figure out how one speaks that way.  Still, he departed before he could decide to do something desperately changey and vote for Obama, so that’s some consolation. NYT delivers a nice eulogy.

Casus belli? Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam – and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion. The country’s powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran. The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings

At TNR, Noam Scheiber casts Barack Obama’s policy advisors as non-ideological: Despite Obama’s reputation for grandiose rhetoric and utopian hope-mongering, the Obamanauts aren’t radicals–far from it. They’re pragmatists–people who, when an existing paradigm clashes with reality, opt to tweak that paradigm rather than replace it wholesale. But Scheiber’s claim does not hold up very well under scrutiny.