Many years from now, when historians look back on this decade, which day will they say “changed the world” more: 9/11/01, or 9/15/08? Perhaps the answer is 9/11 simply because it was more of a self-contained event, which, all by itself, set enormous changes into motion — whereas the collapse of Lehman Brothers was merely one catastrophic event among many… Read more »
Glenn Reynolds, advancing the conservative talking point du jour, asks: “Is it representative government when your representatives don’t read the bill?” Perhaps not. But if not, then it also wasn’t “representative government” when the Republican Congress passed the 342-page-long Patriot Act, or the 415-page-long Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, or the 1,700-plus-page-long Bush/Cheney energy bill of 2005, without reading them…. Read more »
Two years ago today, the great Tommy Makem, the Irish folk singer whose voice has a place of high honor on the soundtrack of my life to date, died at age 74. In Tommy’s honor, I thought I’d post a few videos of his live performances over the years decades. The first clip above is of “Brennan on the Moor,”… Read more »
As I mentioned previously, I’m in Steamboat Springs this weekend. You may have noticed that I have a new masthead banner, with a photo from my trip. Here are some more pictures: I particularly like that last one — an armed armadillo inside a tourist kitsch shop in downtown Steamboat. Heh. Lastly, here’s a vertical panoramic shot (made by stitching… Read more »
TPM’s David Kurtz suggests a new “Cash for Clunkers” plan: “How about a program where we can turn in the old, washed-up pundits and talking heads on the cable nets for ones that spew less dangerous emissions?”
I’m in Steamboat Springs for the weekend, at a legal education conference thingy. The drive up here was, as you’d expect, gorgeous. I captured a bit of it by putting my digital camera on the dashboard and just letting it sit there, and shoot video, while I drove. The result turned out pretty well, I think. The “soundtrack” is provided… Read more »
Becky posed an interesting question to me the other day, and I thought I’d pose it to all of you: What do you think will be the big MSM news story of August, when Congress is in recess? August is traditionally the peak of the summer news lull, a time when stories like shark attacks and Gary Condit/Chandra Levy can… Read more »
I don’t mean to obsess over this stupid Cambridge case, which is really not all that important in the grand scheme of things. There are far worse examples of police misconduct; this one is a prominent story mainly because of a question asked at a presidential press conference, and because we’re in the midst of the annual midsummer news lull…. Read more »
No, not like that, you sickos. Here’s Captain Kirk himself, on the Tonight Show, reading a verbatim excerpt from ex-Governor Palin’s farewell address the way it was intended to be read — as poetry: (Hat tip: B. Minich.) P.S. Shatner is short!
I am in the progress of switching servers from WestHost — which has served me well over the years, but now, alas, just cannot seem to handle the load caused by my WordPress blogs — to the WordPress-recommended site BlueHost. We’ll see how it goes. In the mean time, there will undoubtedly be some technical hiccups as the switch happens…. Read more »