IOZ is right, of course when he sez:

There are the DailyKoskyites of the world, party loyalists for whom membership constitutes identity. Insofar as there's any policy left in politics, they remain largely unaffected. Party failures are invariably chalked up to apostasy. They are always in the middle of a gaudy excommunication--the Lieb, Steny Hoyer, the "blue dogs", and so on. The idea that the True Church might be flawed, though, that's the worst heresy of all. These people are interesting as targets for water balloons.

This is good news indeed, as Nancy Pelosi has proven to be a miserable failure as a House Speaker. That was no surprise of course, but still.

Break on through to the other side for some of the article and further commentary:

This March 19th marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. That's five years too many! To mark the occasion, fellow blogger Godless Liberal Homo has set up March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm. To give you some idea of what it's all about, here's the mission statement:

This blogswarm will promote blog postings opposing the war in Iraq and calling for a full withdrawal of foreign occupying forces in Iraq. Five years of an illegal and catastrophic war is five years too many. On the March 19 anniversary of the conquest of Iraq by the Bush Administration, there needs to be a loud volume of voices countering the pro-war propaganda from far too many politicians and corporate media outlets.

More on the flip.

Friday Pre-Election Day Meditation

"Never being afraid isn't what fearlessness is about. What fearlessness is really about is knowing that you are afraid...and acting anyway. When you cultivate fearlessness, you are making true bravery a part of your life. You are claiming your warrior-spirit. We call people brave when there is a dangerous situation that they are fully aware of and they still take the risk. "Aware" is the key word. Even if we accomplish great things and are considered successful by others, we can't be considered brave if we're not aware of what we are doing."

-- Angel Kyodo Williams

From Steve Soto of The Left Coaster: Upon Closer Inspection, Another Gallup Poll Is Suspect

There are numerous ways in which polls can be misleading, as I suspect many of us are aware. I typically suggest to my research methods and stats students to ask themselves a few basic questions when interpreting poll data:

vs.

Bush/Cheney: "hate and fear"

It's that simple.

This is from the May/June edition of Draft NOtices, the COMD bimonthly newsletter. I'll give y'all the whole column, with some key take-home messages highlighted:

I think one of the most important take-home messages from this body of social psychology research is that destructive behavior, such as torture, does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it occurs in a social context in which the parameters of that social environment invite those abuses to happen. There has to be an established psychological framework accepted by the participants in order for destructive obedience to occur. That framework includes: