The Wall Street Journal (natch) provides the most concise summary of the resolution and the text of the actual proposal.

But first, writer Peter Wallsten offers this interesting observation:

RNC meetings, traditionally fairly staid affairs focused on mundane rules and convention planning, have become lively in recent years as the party has slipped into minority status. Many committee members are elected by conservative party activists in their home states, and some pushed resolutions in the waning years of the George W. Bush presidency challenging his support for more open immigration laws.

Organizers of the new purity test said they decided to allow deviation on no more than two issues in deference to the mantra of the late President Ronald Reagan, who, as the resolution states, believed "that someone who agreed with him eight out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent."

Still worshiping at the altar of Reagan? Good to know!

The actual proposal is even better - was there any Republican Party before Ronald Reagan - and reads as follows (all emphasis mine):

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama's socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies is necessary to restore the trust of the American people in the Republican Party and to lead to Republican electoral victories; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald Reagan's belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views; and (Wait, is this a repeat from three lines ago?)

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefits all candidates and is not affected by this resolution; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support [...]

And what are these ten key public policy positions? Here's a hint - the list is defined by what they oppose, not what they support.

1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; be further,

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee [...]

The Party of NO has spoken. (And in the case of number nine, spoken in circles. Isn't denial of health care and rationing occurring because of this prohibition on government funding of abortion? Whatever, details, details!)

The NY Times' Caucus blog accurately summarizes the nature of the proposal by explaining:

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, "that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent."

Hence the provision calling for cutting off Republicans who agree with the party on seven of 10 items.

The Times also explains how the proposal is going to cause problems for RNC Chairman Michael Steele:

While it is unclear whether the test will be adopted when it is put up for consideration before the Republican National Committee early next year, its drafting is a striking example of the intensified internal debate among Republicans about how best to handle pressure from conservatives to move the party more to the right and to recapture control of Congress and the White House.

Its introduction increases pressure on the party chairman, Michael Steele, as he tries to maintain a balance between those in his party who have been saying the road to a Republican comeback is to include divergent views and appeal to the political center, and those who say the party needs to more fully embrace conservative principles.

The Times reached out to spurned GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava, who was so thoroughly attacked for her "liberal" views by the Republican establishment that she ultimately ended up endorsing a Democrat earlier this month:

The list was clearly influenced by the divisive Congressional race in upstate New York this fall, when conservative activists deemed the Republican nominee for the seat, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, too liberal and instead supported a third-party candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman.

Under conservative pressure, Ms. Scozzafava withdrew from the race but supported the Democratic nominee, Bill Owens, whose victory removed the seat from Republican hands for the first time in more than 100 years.

On first blush Ms. Scozzafava said she found the new proposal "ridiculous," though she said she would have to read it in full before drawing a final conclusion. "I'm not a big fan of pledges," she said in an interview, "because things don't always fit through a keyhole and governing isn't always that easy."

However, by choosing to create the we-embrace-diversity-until-we-don't doctrine, the GOP has assured the prediction from BarbinMD over at DailyKos: "They're all teabaggers now."

Some Conservatives Push a ‘Purity Test' for GOP Candidates [Wall Street Journal]
G.O.P. Considers ‘Purity' Resolution for Candidates [NY Times]
Conservatives Make a List to Measure Candidates' Commitment [NY Times]
Purity Now, Purity Tomorrow, Purity Forever ... [Daily Kos]

• New data shows that almost half of the whales harvested last summer in the Antarctic by Japan were pregnant, and several were lactating. The report also contained information on the whale fetuses, which were dismembered for "genetic studies." • In other whaling news, a report released at the International Whaling Commission reveals that countries could make more money if they switched from whale hunting to whale watching, but the delegate from Iceland says he would rather see the two industries grow together. • A new study from the Children's Hospital & Research Center in Oakland indicates that the placenta of healthy newborns may be a viable source for harvesting stem cells, which can be used to treat chronic blood-related disorders. • A religious nurse from the UK recently quit her job after hospital officials asked her to stop wearing her crucifix, which they said "could harbor infection." "I've always worn my cross and I've always been a Christian. It is important to me. I've worked here for 15 months and if it was an issue, why didn't they let me know in the interview?" she said. • Joseph Brooks, the Oscar-winning director and songwriter behind "You Light Up My Life," has been charged with rape and sexual assault. He has been accused of luring young actresses auditioning for roles back to his home where he proceeded to force himself on them. • A recent doctoral dissertation from Sweden has found that a good partner relationship can provide a buffer for work-related stress. • One of Banksy's famous murals was defaced by paintballers last night in an "attack" that left residents of Bristol "disappointed" and annoyed. • Presumably reacting to the advice of, like, everyone, the "Craigslist killer's" ex-fiancee is now "planning a life without him," and has said, "it would be quite a long period of time, if ever, before she saw him again." • The International Gymnastics Federation is now investigating whether it should cancel the results of women's gymnastics events in Sydney due to the possibility that two Chinese gymnasts were underage. • In Ontario, women, and especially poor women, are more likely to suffer from chronic health conditions than men. A majority of Ontario residents have at least one chronic condition. • Researchers report that women with anorexia have lower levels of a brain protein called BDNF, which is associated with poor self-image, anxiety, and depression. • French winemakers attended a "speed-dating" event in which they try to impress US wine writers. Sample pickup line: "You can drink the sunshine." • Kimberley Vlaminck now admits that she asked for all 56 of the stars tattooed on her face, and initially said she had asked for only three because her dad was mad at her. • A group of Mormons called the Committee for Reconciliation is asking the Mormon Church to reconsider its ban on gay marriage. One member says, "I know that there are hundreds, thousands of families sitting in Mormon congregations that have a gay kid or brother or sister, and they are being torn apart inside." • Bear Grylls, the badass host of Man vs. Wild, served as inspiration for a nine-year-old boy who found himself stranded in the Utah forest. Grayson Wynne tore up his yellow raincoat and left pieces tied to trees as clues to his location, followed a creek to safety, and used the remains of his slicker to wave at a helicopter for help. •

The Los Angeles Times:

It also must be emphasized that even though director Howard had all these first-class elements to work with, "Frost/Nixon" wouldn't have succeeded as well as it does without his experience, his professionalism and his skills. He's successfully opened the play up without pushing anything too hard, and he's deftly avoided the sentimentality that, with the exception of the underrated "The Missing," has often been a quality of his films.

The result is involving, engrossing cinema — more thrilling, in fact, than Howard's "The Da Vinci Code" — filmmaking of a type rarely seen anymore and sorely missed.

Wall Street Journal:

What Ron Howard gets, to a degree that's astonishing in a two-hour film, is the density and complexity, as well as the generous entertainment quotient, of Peter Morgan's screenplay. (Mr. Morgan previously wrote "The Queen," in which Michael Sheen played Tony Blair, and "The Last King of Scotland.") "Frost/Nixon" does more than dramatize the high points of the TV interviews. In the frantic run-up to the recorded interviews, and during the early videotape sessions, the film gives us the collateral drama of a talk-show host, accustomed to celebrity chatter, trying desperately to play the role of a serious journalist.

Salon:

But by the time the Frost-Nixon interviews wound to a close — in real life, the 29 hours of taped footage were edited and aired over five nights — Frost, thanks to some wiliness and a little bit of luck, had coaxed his slippery subject into a tacit admission of guilt in the Watergate scandal. And right there, I've gone ahead and given away the ending to "Frost/Nixon" — but this is a story in which what happens is far less interesting than how it happens. Howard has made a picture for grown-ups, a well-constructed entertainment that neither talks down to its audience nor congratulates it just for showing up. That's particularly refreshing around holiday time, when the studios roll out all their big Oscar-bait pictures, bestowing upon us their most boring, stately and somber works — anything that spells "quality" with a capital "Q," even if genuine craftsmanship is sorely missing.

The New York Times:

And devour Mr. Langella does, chomp chomp. Artfully lighted and shot to accentuate the character’s trembling, affronted jowls, his shoulders hunched, face bunched, he creeps along like a spider, alternately retreating into the shadows and pouncing with a smile. That smile should give you nightmares, but Mr. Howard, a competent craftsman who tends to dim the lights in his movies even while brightening their themes (“A Beautiful Mind”), has neither the skill nor the will to draw out a dangerous performance from Mr. Langella, something to make your skin crawl or heart leap. Unlike Oliver Stone, who invested Nixon (a memorable Anthony Hopkins) with Shakespearean heft but refused to sentimentalize him, this is a portrait designed to elicit a sniffy tear or two along with a few statuettes.

Slate:

Frost/Nixon's emotional climax is, in my view, the script's weakest moment. On the eve of those last two crucial interviews, Nixon makes a drunken late-night phone call to Frost in his hotel room and feeds him the oldest line in the serial-killer-vs.-cop playbook: Deep down, you and me, we're the same. Langella makes the most of this booze-sodden monologue, but its central premise—that Nixon and Frost shared an insecurity about social class that fueled their drive to succeed—seems more British than American: Wasn't Nixon's persecution complex far too vast to be reduced to class anxiety? If our 37th president has proved such an enduring subject for on-screen fictions (see Mark Feeney's 2004 book, Nixon at the Movies), it's precisely because we can never finally fathom his bottomless pathologies. If we did, we wouldn't have Nixon to kick around anymore.

USA Today:

Howard establishes a mounting sense of tension, interspersing interviews with talking-head-style analyses from each camp. Oliver Platt, Matthew Macfadyen and Kevin Bacon are excellent in these roles.

Morgan seamlessly blends actual interview dialogue and imagined conversations.

The film convincingly conveys how uncomfortable the 37th president was in his own skin.

NPR:

Happily, director Ron Howard takes a quasi-documentary approach that has the effect of giving Frost more heft on screen — there's news footage, plus behind-the-scenes shots of TV monitors, all conspiring to make it clear that he's better at using this emotionally cool medium than Nixon, especially in the interview's big showdown.

Entertainment Weekly:

With the transcript as his guide, Morgan explores psychological terrain: how Frost found the chutzpah to land the interviews; how Nixon played cat and mouse with his interlocutor when asked to admit wrongdoing and apologize; how both men of humble beginnings felt stung by the scorn of those born with more 
privilege; and how both were superb manipulators. But Sheen (who played the very model of a modern British go-getter as Tony Blair in The Queen, also written by Morgan) and Langella (operating at the peak of his powers) are disciplined enough to crop their performances to close-up size. (The sizing echoes the look of the 
 actual interviews.) And Howard is smart 
 to enhance the one-on-ones with journalistic context, weaving archival Watergate-era 
 footage into his fictionalized re-creation.

The New York Observer:

Mr. Howard and Mr. Morgan have very astutely established Frost’s mercurial personality in advance by having him brazenly pick up Rebecca Hall’s all-too-willing Caroline Cushing on a Concorde flight from Australia to California. Indeed, the impression is given that Mr. Frost habitually makes passes at any lone and attractive woman on his many worldwide flights.

The New Yorker:

“Frost/Nixon” offers considerable insight into the Nixon mystery, without solving it; the movie is fully absorbing and even, when Nixon falls into a drunken, resentful rage, exciting, but I can’t escape the feeling that it carries about it an aura of momentousness that isn’t warranted by the events. Why is it meant to be so important to us whether David Frost revives his career? Frost and Reston did finally goad Nixon into saying that he let the American people down, and that he believed that “when the President does it, that means it’s not illegal,” and they have extracted a considerable amount of copy out of the broadcasts (including two books). But it’s possible that both journalists and playwright have confused a media coup (and a less important one than that of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) with a cleansing act that forever chastened the Presidency. It was anything but that: after all, twenty-four years later, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney entered the White House.

Newsweek:

Langella and Sheen originated these roles on stage, and it's impossible to imagine anyone else playing them. Sheen, who was Tony Blair in Morgan's "The Queen," dazzles as the debonair media high-wire artist holding on for dear life when the slippery Nixon ducks all his early-round punches. More presidential than the real president, Langella gives Nixon a stature and poignancy that the man himself rarely displayed: it's a towering, witty performance that reaches its peak in the drunken late-night phone call he makes to Frost, sizing him up as a man, like himself, with a fiercely competitive chip on his shoulder. The scene is Morgan's invention, but it's an illuminating, inspired fiction. Not everything in "Frost/Nixon" happened in real life, but both sides would probably agree it should have.

Frost/Nixon:

A totally mesmerizing battle of the wills between the occasionally charming yet wily Nixon and the increasingly desperate Frost. Supporting roles are bolstered by Kevin Bacon as Nixon’s ex-military pitbull Chief of Staff and Platt and Rockwell as the crackerjack researchers dying to crucify Nixon.

'Frost/Nixon' opens today in theaters nationwide.

Earlier: "Excuse Me For A Second," But, Helen Thomas Is An American Patriot
Longtime White House Reporter Helen Thomas Is Critical Of Even Her Own Behavior

MEGAN: Let us kick off the first of two airport-edition Crappy Hours! Impressions of Frankfurt: very large and very shiny, and the people behind me are either eating egg salad or changing a baby's diaper.

SPENCER: Part I: Germany. What's in german egg salad? Is it like the potato salad, which is like potato salad here except flossy?

MEGAN: I'm going to take a wild guess and suggest it probably includes dill, since I always think dill smells like ass and have trouble eating it without a touch of a gag reflex kicking in. There was a potato salad consumed at some point this weekend, but I'll be damned if I really noticed a difference.

SPENCER: you're out of your mind! Dill is one of the most soothing aromatics you can have. My mother immediately disapproves of this CH and speaking of things to disapprove of, should we talk about McCain & Obama on Iraqhanistan or is that just me hijacking your feature?

MEGAN: We should definitely talk McCain and Obama and the Surge and whatever. And please apologize to your mom for me. If she wants me to give it a second chance, I will. So, like, they disagree about it, is what I'm given to understand.

SPENCER: what's amazing is that as recently as two months ago, McCain was denying the need for additional troops in Afghanistan

MEGAN: Oh, well, I mean, if we're going to be in Iraq in 100 years, we probably need a refueling point.

SPENCER: even as 2008 casualties in Afghanistan are nearly match the US death toll in all of 2007 and we're only at July 16 but Obama has been saying for almost a solid motherfucking year that we need to redeploy some forces from Iraq, which is not strategically crucial, to Afghanistan, which is.

MEGAN: Oh, man, that ain't good. Actually, I was talking about that with some Germans, too, they think we've fucked up Afghanistan pretty well.

SPENCER: yesterday McCain flipflops and basically adopts Obama's position, except he starts acting a bitch and saying Obama doesn't understand the "success of the surge":

“Senator Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards. It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan. It is by applying the tried and true principles of counterinsurgency used in the surge, which Senator Obama opposed, that we will win in Afghanistan.”

MEGAN: Oh, well, that's me, you, Obama, more than half of all Americans and a majority of Congress, so I feel like Obama's in good company.

SPENCER: now, on the one hand, I admire McCain's tactical savvy — he's disguising his retreat with an artillery barrage, which is sensible, but substantively, it's fucking crackers

MEGAN: Wait, so, like, when we're done surging in Iraq we're going to surge in Afghanistan? Is that what McCain's suggesting?

SPENCER: the idea that we can apply the "lessons" of Iraq — and McCain is dead-set on applying the wrong lessons — to a much, much much different country is insane yeah and that we've got to call it a SURGE because SURGEs are totally rad and he was in favor of the SURGE and the SURGE worked except when it doesn't.

MEGAN: I'll bet you he calls it surging rather than thrusting when he takes his once-a-year Viagra and bangs Cindy, too. Also, what are the lessons of Iraq? If you stick enough cannon fodder on the street the insurgents will quiet down until we go? Good plan.

SPENCER: and the most asinine thing? Obama is saying, fine, ok, you want to say Iraq is safer, whatevs, that means we should take our troops from a safe place and put them in a place that we need to make safe McCain says that security in Iraq means we have to stay forever; violence in Iraq means we have to stay forever; we need to redeploy some forces from Iraq so we can SURGE in Afghanistan; but not too many because that will mean Iraq will become less secure and that means we have to stay there forever. Okay, what else should we talk about?

MEGAN: Does McCain think that if he talks about it in the most confusing and obfuscating way possible that the rest of Americans will be as confused as the 30 percent that still like Bush and vote for him?
SPENCER: oh man - i want to make a web video of the 26 percent that still supports Bush

MEGAN: We could talk about McCain advisor Phil Gramm's porn career? And particularly the Nixon-imitator porn film, only I might start gagging again if I think too hard about that. Nixonland has a whole new meaning to me over here.

SPENCER: as, like, forming the 26 Percent Nation and harassing people on their way to work as street preachers dressed in weird robes and vestments with swords

MEGAN: Oooh, I would totally go harass Bush supporters. Only it would be hard to find any in Germany outside the Merkel government and even really in.

SPENCER: "You know you know you know Katrina was a hoax! They they they they said the levees broke but they they they they never broke, they never broke! We fight in Iraq so the terrorists won't make us fight in Dubuque and they'd follow us home because they like to chase freedom because they they they they hate freedom! You only chase what you HATE!"

MEGAN: And don't forget how they want to hurt our malls. Our malls! The symbols of our culture!

SPENCER: i recall reading a Doonesbury comic like 15 years ago about Phil Gramm bankrolling pornosbut Mighty Max gets yet another hot story.

MEGAN: And, yet, it's actually fucking true? The hell? And his bankrolled Nixon porn. He might as well have bankrolled Reagan bukkake porn.

SPENCER: hahaha Truck Stop Women

MEGAN: No rig too big?

SPENCER: i had a girlfriend last year who's an artist and she also used to drive trucks w her ex-bf; she designed an entire metallurgy show around truck stops, and made this awesome belt buckle around the 'No Lot Lizard' symbol, lot lizards being truck-stop whores

MEGAN: Yeah, I'm actually aware of the term. Actually, every time I drive home, between Hazleton and the NY border, there are all these billboards for massage parlors and every single time I wonder... that would be easy for the cops to figure out, right?

SPENCER: I'm waiting for Rick Perlstein's take on naked Nixon. Yeah, you should get a massage, see what they offer you.

MEGAN: I'm going to guess we will all be equally horrified.

SPENCER: oh before I forget, the new Nas record totally shouts out Jezebel
on a great track called "America".

MEGAN: Usually, by that point in the ride, I am considering it even though I'm totally sure it wouldn't be as good as my normal masseur, Antoine's, hands.

SPENCER: You have a normal masseur?

MEGAN: When I had a grown-up job I hated that paid me a lot of money, I paid Antoine to rub my naked body with oil and talk to me with his French accent once every two weeks in the middle of the work day. Usually about the time my Wonkette column was set to run. Both made me hate my life marginally less.

SPENCER: And at this point every dude who reads CH has just excused himself to furtively enjoy a tender moment.

cMOE: Dude I don't want to forget this so I'm just showing you now. From Dick Morris's column on how McCain can beat Obama:

If the GOP nominee were Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, independents and Democrats might not vote Republican even if they became convinced that Obama is some kind of sleeper agent sent to charm and conquer our democracy.

MOE: um no kidding!
MEGAN: Why doesn't Dick Morris go back to sucking prostitutes' toes and leave the rest of us alone. Have you seen his teeth? He ain't stopped sucking stanky feet yet.

MOE: So there is too much to write about today but anyway Iran is still building a nuclear program, treaties be damned and we can't do anything about it, Burma is still letting its people die and Asian governments won't do anything about it, Hugo Chavez is supporting FARC and by any standard probably now qualifies for our state sponsors of terror list but we probably shouldn't give him the satisfaction, and now they're saying it's the end of American Superpower. For realz?!
MEGAN: Wait, wait! The NY Times is reporting this morning that Myanmar/Burma is going to let ASEAN help. I'm skeptical but maybe they actually will?

MOE: Ah, so their "soft approach" did work!

In a clear departure from the usually secretive style of the military junta, state television in Myanmar on Sunday showed video of the leader, Senior General Than Shwe, touring a refugee camp, checking supplies, patting the heads of babies and shaking hands with survivors. Some of the cyclone victims, surrounded by neat rows of blue tents, clasped their hands and bowed as the general and other senior military officials walked by.

MOE:

"Are we going to continue to cover the earthquake?" the Guangzhou-based reporter asked in an instant message to his editor, a day after China's deadliest earthquake in three decades struck Sichuan province."Of course," replied the editor, surnamed Yang. "Why not?"
Then, the reporter said, he forwarded to his boss the text of the latest edict from the propaganda department of the Communist Party Central Committee, ordering domestic news media not to send any more journalists to Sichuan.
Yang wrote back, "If everyone pays no attention to this, then it won't really be a ban."

MEGAN: Oh, she's probably still under house arrest. Like the regime wants to allow her ot be showed doing good work?
MOE: 40 years of mind control, propaganda, a string of incomprehensible, and incomprehensibly destructive political campaigns combined with severe rationing and poverty followed by 15 years of steady marginal increases in living standards and the appearance of openness will...do that to a citizenry!

MOE: I guess we should talk about how the crowd that showed up for Obama was like 1/8 the population of Portland? And maybe we should talk about how tiny his advance for Dreams From My Father was?
MOE: Oh and how a place as shit poor as Yemen manages to hide a guy with a $5 million price on his head. And also we should talk about oil prices. And McCain's continued purge of his aides who love lobbyists, which is getting like New York politicos with whores. And Anthony Shahid's fucking depressing story on Lebanon.

MEGAN: Ok, well, I can speak to the continued purge of lobbyists. Because there's one guy who isn't getting out. He's McCain's Mark Penn only potentially slightly less stupid. He's practically consolidating power in the campaign by getting rid of the other guys with lobbying ties, so that in November-January when clients are looking for someone with a good relationship to McCain that hasn't been accused of fucking him, he's the only one left. It's all very wonderfully Machiavellian.

MEGAN: Also, I think it's fair to say that Republican lobbyists understand the least about why people think they're shills out to destroy America and don't love McCain that much anyway, so it probably never occurred to anyone that it might be a teeny tiny problem to the electorate that the guy writing McCain's energy policy was an active lobbyist for energy companies. Because, hey, that's how this Administration has run things for 8 years anyway.
9:15 AM
MEGAN: As for the Yemen thing, it's actually a little funny because here, more and more people are tipping off their neighbors to pay their electric bills and shit and the economy goes into the toilet. So either the Yemenis are more loyal, or we're just that more desperate? Either way, my position has always been that I would totally turn in criminals for money, which is probably why my friends are all nerdy-upstanding types. One year at college there was a $1200 reward for a serial fire alarm puller and I was dying to know who it was because that was like, half of the money I'd make all semester otherwise.

MOE: Which reminds me of a point that I hope that Obama can make fairly. Re the "eight more years" thing. I think anyone who goes out of his way to say that a McCain administration would be "another eight years of the same" is doing a disservice to history. I think it's safe to say it would be historically impossible for another Administration to match this administration's singleminded dedication to the pursuit the interests of such a tiny group of corrupt people in all blatant disregard of democracy. I think we would be ill-advised to cheapen George W. Bush's "Worst President Ever" stain that way. No matter what happens in the general election January 20 will be a relatively good day for this country.
MOE: And regarding Yemen, I think it's safe to say we are less desperate.

MOE: And don't let me forget to bring up this fucking depressing story on the end of the era of cooperation between First and Third World countries that SOMEHOW begat the Green Revolution on the basis of a basic shared interest in the end of human suffering and not ADM profit margins.
MEGAN: Um, I don't thing McCain will be bad in the same way, but I think he's spent the last 8 years selling his soul to the Rovian devils in order to secure the nomination, and that doesn't make me particularly happy. There won't be a ton of turnover in terms of the kinds of people in middle management and shit because they're all working on his campaign and will be "owed"
MOE: This is pretty stark.

Adjusted for inflation, the World Bank cut its agricultural lending to $2 billion in 2004 from $7.7 billion in 1980.

MOE: Well, but what does McCain need with the Rovian devils now? Karl Rove is dispensing him free advice via his various punditry positions now.
MOE: There is just something that chills me about the "eight more years" refrain.

MEGAN: Well, and let's not forget that part of the problem with the IRRI's budget and people not working there is the fact that they were a proponent of biotechnology to get certain properties out of rice (salinity resistance, vitamins) that simply could not be bred in by convention means, and they were shit on by the world and the environmental movement, targeted for eco-terrorism and a lot of their developed-world money dried up over it, even though the Gold Rice project could've had serious benefits for the malnourished people of the world. I kept waiting for the article to mention that and it didn't.
MOE: Fuckin ecoterrorists. Anyway here we see shades of the pharmaceutical industry.

The insect is not a new problem. In the 1960s, the rice institute, nestled between jungle and the bustling town of Los Ba os, pioneered ways to help farmers grow two and even three crops a season, instead of one.

MOE: You talk to guys who develop drugs at pharmaceutical companies and they think it's absolutely shameful that if they want a drug to come to market these days they have to go to work on the next generation of lipitor or abilify or the drug that finally cures metabolic syndrome when there are still so many infectious diseases to be cured. At one point there was a Nature article suggesting the industry establish a non-profit pharmaceutical company to address diseases whose cures would not be money makers. The same should go for agriculture, you'd think. I don't really understand why all the philanthropy targeted at making life-improving technology more available to the third world seems to focus on hand-cranked laptops and stuff like that.

MEGAN: I think it's because a lot of philanthropy is corporate, it's designed to make companies look good to their consumers and stock holders, but those decisions are made by people within the company. So, of course that's the kind of corporate philanthropy they would engage in. And the pharmaceutical companies will pay tons of money to run those Prescription Partnership for America commercials and send out the buses and take a hit on giving medicines to a small subset of people who can't afford it rather than risk price controls, and they'll give away some AIDS medications in developing countries to keep patent rights.
9:35 AM
MEGAN: And Monsanto will spend millions of dollars spraying RoundUp on farmers fields to see if they're cheating on licensing rather than donating to the IRRI or developing drought-resistant wheat or something.
MEGAN: And everyone will give Bill Gates $1 million to research a cure for malaria or AIDS or whatever and claim that they're doing great shit and then go back to making money.
MEGAN: Anyway, if we're going to take today to be depressed about injustice, how about if you're taking medical marijuana while waiting for a transplant, you're pretty much not eligible for the transplant anymore?
MOE: Well I actually have a better answer to my own question that is not QUITE as cynical. The culture of Silicon Valley and the rapidness of the wealth creation that's happened there, the "open source-ness" of ideals, the existence of Microsoft monopolistic practices as a sort of anti-standard...the newness...the fact that the scientists in the case of the technology industry WERE the business founders and ARE the wealth holders...this swirl of factors makes electrical engineers and software engineers more idealistic and philanthropic I think. Whereas in pharmaceuticals and agriculture a lot of the scientific talent is still being managed by corporate shareholder-driven assholes because the barriers to entry are so much higher.
MEGAN: So, geeks think computers really can save the world, and everyone else is just faking it like I said? I'd buy that in moderation.
MOE: The thing is that: there are certain classes of people you might to run their businesses more ethically, less greedily...more thoughtfully...Hasidic-founded Kosher agriprocessing plants are no longer among them. (Did you read this story?) (Holy shit.)

MEGAN: I would be more surprised and outraged that this Administration is targeting illegal immigrants for arrest and deportation and doing virtually nothing to the management that hires them if I hadn't been living in this country for 30 years, probably.
MEGAN: And/or hadn't read that series in the WaPo last week about how unethically and illegally we treat supposedly-illegal immigrants while in custody.
MOE: And on that note I'll leave you with this from George Packer's New Yorker piece on conservatism:

MOE:

Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—"A little raw for today," he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading "Dividing the Democrats." Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in "the Old Roosevelt Coalition," it recommended that the White House "exacerbate the ideological division" between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon's policies; highlight "the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party"; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare.

Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. "Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country," Buchanan wrote. "We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention." Such gambits, he added, could "cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."

MOE: Okay I cannot tell you how much I read and forgot last night while trying to get to sleep. And then a fucking earthquake came and toppled a thousand cell phone towers and trapped 900 high school students in school and if it's anything like the 1976 earthquake of a slightly lower Richter 240,000 people stand to die.
MOE: Did you also read how in Burma they are counting the survivors because it's easier than counting the dead? I guess the death toll there is supposed to reach 100,000...
MOE: But the Most Emailed story is this thought provoking Tom Friedman column.
MEGAN: That was last week, before the military decided that all the food was for them. So, I think we can safely assume that the total survival rate will be about equal to the members of the junta, the military and their families, since apparently everyone else is just supposed to die quietly and let the soldiers dump their bloated bodies in waterways so no one knows.
MEGAN: Fucking Tom Friedman.
8:55 AM
MOE:

That restriction has angered local government officials like Tin Win who are trying to help rebuild the lives of villagers. He twitched with rage as he described the rice the military gave him.

"They gave us four bags," he said. "The rice is rotten — even the pigs and dogs wouldn't eat it."

He said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had delivered good rice to the local military leaders last week but they kept it for themselves and distributed the waterlogged, musty rice. "I'm very angry," he said, adding an expletive to describe the military.

"The government told us that school must reopen June 1, if you have a schoolhouse or not," Myint Oo told his visitor. "'Teach under a tree if you have to,' they said."

When he began describing the devastation to the school and village, a portly man in a white T-shirt who also seemed to hold a position of power interrupted.

"Don't tell these foreigners anything," the man said.

Myint Oo replied that he wanted to talk to the visitors in the hope that they could help rebuild the village.

"They will send the facts to the world and show the weakness of the Myanmar government," said the man in the white shirt.

"This is not just a new generation, but a new kind of generation...In the omphalocentric process of self-construction and discovery," today's youth "stalks love like a wary hunter, but has no time or target — not even the mellowing Communists — for hate."

MEGAN: Maybe he can talk about how he held the Metro system's budget hostage until they agreed to spend more than a million dollars to change all the signage in the system to reflect the full name of National Airport.
MEGAN: But to guarantee his ability to fuck over the Republican Party and my ability to have something interesting to write about, I would totally make my first political donation to him.
MOE: No Peggy is totes the weird answer to Maureen Dowd. Her prose is kind of hilarious, like the way she seems to go inside a dark room and close her eyes and meditate and return with a Very. Melodramatic. Assessment. Of the feelings and attitudes governing the political awareness of the American populace. I should have Maria do a Best Of Peggy I think. And does McCain really need Bob Barr undermining his campaign when he's got RON PAUL undermining it already?
MEGAN: Scroll down, by the way, for the picture of them standing in front of the Eiffel Tower with a Ron Paul sign. Crazy ass motherfuckers.
MOE: Also: didn't two McCain advisers just step down after admitting to representing the Burmese junta? (That might lose Laura Bush's vote.) McCain is kind of a lousy subject right now.
MOE: Here we go.

Doug Davenport, the regional campaign manager for the mid-Atlantic states, founded the DCI Group's lobbying practice and oversaw the contract with Myanmar in 2002.
"Doug has tendered his resignation and we have accepted it," Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's communications director, wrote in a e-mail.
He joins former DCI Group CEO Doug Goodyear, who resigned yesterday from the post of convention CEO after Newsweek reported that DCI was paid more than $300,000 to represent Myanmar's ruling junta.

The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.

A procedural hearing on Fossella's drunken-driving arrest - which ultimately exposed his double life - is slated for a Virginia courtroom Monday.

MEGAN: Ah, that's the brilliant thing! When he got pulled over for running a red light drunk, his excuse was that he was on his way to a friend's house, after which he admitted he was going to see his sick kid.
MEGAN: Only his official kids were in NY with his wife. And, OMG, they've been having an affair since at least 2003? Five years? Dude, what the fuck. Even Kennedy got a divorce.
MOE: Even Prince Charles got a divorce! Dude did we learn anything over the weekend about this minister who officiated the Jenna wedding?
MEGAN: He's an Obama supporter who also does weddings?