Glad(well) tidings of joy.
Galley Slaves points to a nice little parody in Vanity Fair: Malcolm Gladwell takes on Christmas — with social science!
Yearly Archive: 2009
Pertinent Facts
Jules Crittenden sneers at Ambassador Eikenberry’s recommendation not to deploy troops to Central Asia, noting “that Eikenberry commands no troops in Afghanistan.” Well, bashing the diplomatic corps is de rigueur among the more vulgar...
I don’t actually recall having any debate
This Gallup poll has gotten a bunch of attention, and I figure it’s worth posting here: Yesterday, Ruth Marcus (or rather, whoever writes her subheadline) called the House debate over the health care bill...
Health Care and Ping Pong
By Wyeth Ruthven Forget conference committees, any observer of health care reform needs to add the term “ping-pong” to their legislative vocabulary. Ping-pong is a little known but increasingly used procedural device to pass...
Good news, no more Lou!
Via Kevin Drum it looks like nobody stuck watching CNN will have to suffer through any more of Lou Dobbs’ nonsense! CNN still employs Nancy Grace, however, so not all is true and good...
Friedersdorf v. Hawkins: Round 2
Round 2 of the debate on the future of the American Right between John Hawkins of Right Wing News and Conor Friedersdorf is up. It is again quite civilized even as both participants remain...
Ambassador Speaking Sense On Line 1
When the Ambassador to Afghanistan tells you the host gov’t is for s–t and not to bother sending any more troops until they get it together (i.e. never imo), the President ought to seriously...
The Race to Join California
This report pretty clearly demonstrates why “not as bad as Corzine” will, in practice, amount to “no different than Corzine.” New Jersey needed a governor with an actual plan to attack its fiscal problems beyond...
Breaking…
Nate Silver breaks down international soccer (ratings here). In related news, Mark Thompson and Ordinary Will have achieved nirvana.
Why Media Matters Is Bad for Liberalism
So, the Heritage Foundation puts together a database and a project intended to create public awareness about the overcriminalization of federal law, highlighting just some of the many problems with our criminal justice system. ...
The Evolution of Blogging: An Interview with Charles Johnson
Few bloggers have had quite as controversial a career as Little Green Football’s Charles Johnson. Johnson began blogging in earnest back in 2001 after the attacks on the twin towers, and continues putting out content...
Deadspin’s bind
Another embarrassing moment for Deadspin. It’s almost as if you shouldn’t run completely unsubstantiated, unverified stories from functionally anonymous emailers and then convince yourself that there’s some, like, totally deep and challenging thinking behind...
Return of the Yellow Press
Via David Weigel, I see The New York Post is getting sued for workplace harassment. The allegations of sexual and racial abuse are pretty bad, but The Huffington Post also reports that “the publication’s...
Healthcare and monopoly
Russell Arben Fox asks: How should a distributist or localist or communitarian in America feel about proposals which would attempt to provide the same sort of equalization which Democratic party reformers are squawking about,...
Larison endorses the McChrystal surge?
I’m not sure if Daniel Larison’s latest column should be interpreted as an endorsement of McChrystal’s political independence or his actual strategy for Afghanistan, but it’s worth reading in full. His criticism of the...
Football in the Northeast
…which, for football purposes, includes South Florida. In 2005, the Big East – long a basketball-heavy conference – lost three of its five traditionally strong football programs to the ACC, while one of the remaining...
Tricky Linguistics
I was an English major, so this really speaks to me. And it’s hilarious, as is everything Fry and Laurie did together. I don’t watch House, but I loved the old Jeeves and Wooster...
The answer, of course, is to send Bloomberg off to fight the Parthians
The New Yorker’s take on Bloomberg’s plutocratic, all-encompassing nannyism is worth a read. Are the parallels to Marcus Licinius Crassus a harbinger of the coming pink police state?
Anti-Fascist Super Heroes
Like James, I find that almost everything that needs to be said about this Ron Rosenbaum hit piece has already been said by Steve Menashi. It”s a thorough and fine job by Menashi and...
