News on the internets

[Cross-posted at a la gauche]

Several weeks ago (in a move he'll surely live to regret) lefty invited me to contribute to his blog whenever the mood should strike me. Now that he's on vacation (and can't see what I'm writing), I thought this might be a good time to help him out and offer his readers some entertainment. Here's a rundown of what's new on the internets:

-The new blog Open Left, a project of Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller (both of MyDD fame) as well as Mike Lux, has been pleasantly surprising. Two good recent posts examine why a possible independent run for Congress by Cindy Sheehan against Nancy Pelosi can only do good things for the Democratic party (i.e. pushing the party to offer more substantial opposition to the far-right agenda of the Republican Party) and how the hideous Lieberman amendment on Iran passed last week with little opposition (or prior knowledge) from progressives. There's more on the Lieberman amendment over at Digby's Hullabaloo.

-In other Iran news, there is word that Bush and Cheney don't "trust" the next president (whether Republican or Democrat) to deal with the Iran "conflict." Oy.

-Still in Iran news...has anyone noticed the recent report that at least half of "foreign fighters" in Iraq are Saudis??? For any potential conservatives out there, I'll speak slowly and spell it out for you: Saudis are not Iranians.

-For the econ geeks among you, Matt Yglesias and Brad DeLong further discredit the Laffer Curve and the Wall Street Journal.

-Matt also has a funny new ad from Mitt Romney that seems to resemble all those ads for erectile drugs. I'm just wondering how clean water and internet porn are related??? Seriously, I don't get it.

-Baby Bush promises aid for our puppet regime in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

-Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has a 71% approval rating (you know, about 50 percentage points higher than our dear leader).

-Portuguese author suggests Portugal will one day be part of Spain. I doubt that will win him many fans in Portugal.

-There are a ton of great sporting events going on right now, but you probably haven't heard much about them. The Pan American games recently got underway in Rio, with U.S. athletes performing well. The Copa America recently concluded in Venezuela with Brazil destroying a favored Argentina team 3-0. Of course there is also the Tour de France and the Under 20 World Cup (though the U.S. team recently lost in the quarterfinals to Austria, despite a good performance).