Happy Friday, everyone. John Stewart is Glenn Beck, upsets apparently abound and if you needed any more, here\’s your morning constitutional: Who knew that a move from \’This Week\’ to \’Good Morning America\’ was a promotion? Rep. Steve Cohen with a touching tribute to Alex Chilton. \”Oh, I keep the beer in the other fridge.\” Nate Silver counts to 216. Tony Judt on Obama, the EU and Transatlanticism. Finally, this is perfect for a beautiful day.
Continue reading...March 2010
Here's to the state of Richard Nixon
President George W. Bush famously hoped that history would vindicate his—er—less popular decisions. Well, it seems that history is beginning to vindicate another president that fell in disgrace in his own era. His bigotry, racism, foul mouth and criminal actions notwithstanding, President Richard Milhouse Nixon, in hindsight, is starting to look downright palatable. The filibuster has been, as of late, a thorn in the side of the Senate’s ability to accomplish anything. “Consider the history,” Bruce Ackerman writes at The American Prospect: It now takes 60 Senators (three-fifths) to end a filibuster, but for most of the...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you\’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I\’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Gail Collins, who in today\’s column entitled \”Sex Scandals to Learn By,\” referring to the recent GQ interview with Rielle Hunter, John...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Thursday, 18 March 2010
Good morning, folks. Conan might be going to Fox, Tebow\’s throwing some balls around, and Jennifer Love Hewitt isn\’t that excited about being single. Basketball starts this afternoon, so let\’s get on with our morning constitutional: Whoo: Jobs bill passes Senate with 11 Republican votes. Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, is mad tall, has an office in the White House but hardly ever uses it, loves fly-fishing and cheap cigars. And he might be the key to solving the world\’s financial problems. Whoever said you can\’t get a fair shake on Fox News?...
Continue reading...Ownership of the means of production
It is both disheartening and convenient when you are struggling to write an essay, forcibly putting words together that do not work, trying ideas that make almost no sense, and working in a direction that isn’t clear, and finding an essay that says what you are trying to say more clearly and cogently than your efforts could lead you. I was trying to write such an essay recently, when today I came across the following spectacular essay by Ken Lowery Eugene Ahn at The Bureau Chiefs. It is a response to Rachael Maddux’s cover story for Paste,...
Continue reading...Morning Consitutional – Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Good morning, everyone. Black Eyed Peas are playing the World Cup Kick-Off Celebration Concert, and that\’s just awful. Now, enjoy your morning constitutional: Support for health care reform is ticking up, according to some new polls. From the Post, President Obama\’s push for health care reform in Ohio convinces a few skeptics. The priest at the center of the sexual abuse scandal in Germany has been suspended. Slate has a piece on the Pope in the Catholic Church\’s child abuse problem. The Pope has announced that he will address abuse in a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics...
Continue reading...B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Finally, bananas might be good for something after all: A simple fruit that many of us eat every day could soon prove to be a powerful new inhibitor of HIV, and lead to new treatments to prevent sexual transmission of the virus. Bananas, according to new research of the University of Michigan Medical School, might be good for you in an exciting new way. Lectins, naturally occurring chemicals in plants, are drawing the interest of scientists because they can stop the chain reactions that lead to a variety of infections. In laboratory tests, BanLec, the lectin found...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Good morning, everybody. Beckham\’s Achilles\’ tendon is really torn, Ovechkin is out for two games, and Spencer Pratt is taking some time off to fight cyber crime. Now, enjoy your morning constitutional: California felt some tremors this morning as a 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit about a mile away from Pico Rivera. The Los Angeles Fire Department has received no reports of damage so far. Is Rand Paul the wrong shade of blue? The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has released their State of the News Media 2010 report. It claims to be the most interactive it...
Continue reading...Saving daylight
Over at Greater Greater Washington, Matt Johnson seems to accidentally make a argument for Daylight Saving Time: In 1895, George Vernon Hudson first proposed Daylight Saving Time, the idea was to make use of an hour of morning daylight which people tended to sleep through. In the modern era, this was thought to save energy by reducing the need for household lighting in the evenings (the lights would not have been on in the mornings because residents were still asleep). Studies by the Department of Transportation and the National Bureau of Standards in the mid-1970s indicated that...
Continue reading...Meet me at the combination doughnut shop and Chinese joint
Over at the Atlantic, Katie Robbins explores the mystery of the Californian combination doughnut shops and Chinese restaurants: Like any good investigator, I searched for patterns, and a few quickly emerged. The establishments tended to be in working-class neighborhoods. As I’d noted at that first sighting in LA, most of the restaurants kept the Chinese food and the donuts in separate counters, and while I occasionally spotted someone with both a chocolate-glazed orb and a plate of Kung Pao on his table, patrons tended to stick to sweet or savory. According to the folks behind the counters,...
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