Via Laura Rozen at Politico (although she gets the order of the conversation backwards and calls it the UK team), an email exchange between the Philip Breeden at the U.S. Embassy in London and Martin Longden at the U.K. Embassy in D.C. unveils quite the wager (and nerdy trash-talk). Of course you know, England plays the U.S. in their first game in South Africa this weekend, and they’ve decided on a bet: steaks in D.C. if England wins, dinner in a London pub if the U.S. wins; loser pays. On England boasting their long history of football,...
Continue reading...June 2010
Mea Copa: Group E, Where E Stands for Every Team a Looker
There are certain teams in every sport that engage even the most casual observer. Whether through their energy, their story, their uniforms, their players (see: hotness thereof, often), they pull in the folks who just happen to be in the room. Think about the Cinderellas every year in March Madness. Think about the Rockies run to the World Series a couple years ago. Think about any team that met legitimate tragedy during their play and persevered, even triumphed, to reach an improbable height. Consider a team that has sat at the precipice of success for years, poised...
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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &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 David \”Yawny-Pants\” Brooks, who in his column \”History...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Good morning, folks. First ThunderCats, now Voltron\’s coming back. Now, your morning constitutional: A headline I, for one, never thought possible: Obama looking for \’whose ass to kick.\’ Although, the AP\’s is pretty great as well: Obama talks tough on spill; keisters in peril. Iran is defiant in the face of potential sanctions as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warns that Iran will not agree to talks on its nuclear program if the UN passes sanctions this week. “Fuck my victims. I carried them for twenty years, and now I’m doing 150 years.” Bernie Madoff: class act. A 25-year-old...
Continue reading...No, John Roberts, judges are not umpires.
I had read about former Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s recent commencement address at Harvard, but it wasn’t til today that I read the entire speech, available here. The address is an eloquent and persuasive response to (and take-down of) the theory of Constitutional “originalism” espoused vehemently by Justice Scalia, among others. I’ve been thinking lately about liberals’ persistent inability to win the war of words, and conservatives’ great skill at manipulating language in their favor. Scalia, for instance, has done an excellent job of making originalism sound like duh, the only possible legitimate method of engaging in...
Continue reading...Mea Copa: Group D, Where D Stands for Death
I came late to soccer. I never played it, aside from whacking a ball around in friends’ yards, until I got to college, where it was more an excuse to get out and enjoy the fall than it was anything like an athletic pursuit. But because I didn’t grow up with it, I tend to analogize things for myself using the prism of baseball, which is the sport I did grow up with, and which still holds a place deep in me. Players and teams in soccer become baseball teams: Real Madrid is the Yankees. Barcelona is...
Continue reading...Doctor Who, "Amy's Choice"
Doctor: “This is going to be a tricky one.” Doctor Who returned this weekend after a short break with a strong episode that I’m late reviewing because my laptop was in the laptop hospital for most of the weekend. “Amy’s Choice” was an exploration of one of the major ongoing conflicts this season: will Amy choose a life of adventure with the Doctor or settle down for a quiet country life with Rory?
Continue reading...Traditional Marriage
Glen Greenwald is pretty brilliant on Rush Limbaugh giving the marriage horse a fourth go-around: As is so often the case, the Traditional Marriage movement is led by people who discard their wives and get new, younger replacements the way most people change underwear. That’s how so many Americans sit on their sofas next to their second and third spouses, with their step-children and half-siblings surrounding them, and explain — without any recognition of the irony — that they’re against same-sex marriage because they believe the law should only recognize Traditional Marriages. And it’s how Rush Limbaugh can...
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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &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 Ross \”Do That Thing\” Douthat, who in his...
Continue reading...Was President Obama in the "Whoomp (There It Is)" video?
Via Gawker: Finally, a Barack Obama conspiracy theory for the rest of us! Everyone from Tea Partiers to hip hop message boardsthinks Obama was an extra in the music video for Tag Team’s single “Whoomp (There It Is)”. Before you do anything else, check out 1:01 of the music video for Tag Team’s 1993 smash hit “Whoomp (There It Is)”. A tipster sent in the video along with a note: Barack [is] in the Tag Team “Whoomp there it is” video. Don’t believe me? Judge for yourself. We were highly skeptical, since “Judge for yourself” sounds like something from a multi-colored...
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