(Apologies for the terrible video, but it’s all I could find.) There’s a great post on MetaFilter right now about the story behind President George H. W. Bush’s “This is crack cocaine” address to the nation. “This is crack cocaine,” Bush solemnly announced, holding up a plastic bag filled with a white chunky substance in his Sept. 5 speech on drug policy. It was “seized a few days ago in a park across the street from the White House . . . . It could easily have been heroin or PCP.” In 1989 the White House came...
Continue reading...August 2010
New York Times Columnst 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. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Paul “The Little Professor” Krugman, who in his column “Appeasing the Bond Gods,” writes:...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Friday, 20 August 2010
Good morning, everybody. Steven Tyler will be a judge on American Idol. Now, your morning constitutional: Israelis and Palestinians are expected to resume direct negotiations for the first time in 20 months. More donors are pledging money for Pakistan, which has suffered devastating flooding, after an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly. The election season in Australia comes to an end today with the two rivals in a virtual tie. Conservative leader Tony Abbott is challenging Labor’s Julia Gillard, the first female prime minister. Labor lost its very close lead in polls in recent days. Now...
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. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Gail “The Colander” Collins who, in her column “Rich Man, Bad Yacht,” writes: Once...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Thursday, 19 August 2010
Good morning, folks. Conan O’Brien is releasing two albums on vinyl featuring Frankenstein’s monster and rockabilly. Now, your morning constitutional: The last combat brigade has left Iraq, two weeks ahead of schedule. Around 50,000 troops will remain in advisory roles. At least four million are homeless due to the extreme flooding in Pakistan. New applications for unemployment reached 500,000 last week, the highest number since November. The bulk of job losses are coming from small businesses. A growing number of Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim, according to a new poll by the Pew Research...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week
On Saturday, I’m leaving for vacation! On the beach! I’m rather excited. In this week’s poem, Ogden Nash celebrates the joys of doing nothing. On the beach. Thanks to my friend K., who introduced me to this very pleasant piece. Pretty Halcyon Days by Ogden Nash How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done! No letters to answer, No bills to be burned, No work to be shirked, No cash to be earned, It is pleasant to...
Continue reading...Private buses and the government as a business
Yglesias suggests that the future maybe should involve privately-owned intracity bus lines: Bus lines don’t have the power to transform neighborhoods that rail construction possesses. But buses are by far the cheapest and simplest way of adding mass transit, and municipal leaders should always have their eyes on potential ways to improve things. One possibility that naturally suggests itself is to let entrepreneurs start private intracity bus lines just as we have inter-city buses running from New York to DC, Philadelphia, Boston, etc. Unlike the barbering field I would want to see regulation of this kind of activity...
Continue reading...Why Muslims
Mark Silk knocks it out of the park: In recent years, the wise guys in the Republican Party have cottoned to the fact that the U.S. of A. has become a good deal more Latino than it used to be, and that it might not be such a good idea for the future of the GOP if it embraced (at least publicly) such anti-Latino-immigrant laws as Arizona passed a few months ago. Why not find a less politically potent body of Americans on which to vent one’s nativist animosity? I give you: The Muslims. Unlike the Latinos,...
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. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Maureen “Dowdy Doddy Piper” Dowd who, in her column “Our Mosque Madness,” writes: Some...
Continue reading...Happy Anniversary, Women's Suffrage!
On this day 90 years ago, Tennessee became the final state to ratify the 19th amendment, finally giving women the right to vote. If you haven’t yet, go read Gail Collins’ excellent column last week describing the circumstances leading up to that historic vote: My Favorite August. I was thinking about how to best celebrate this occasion, and I think it’s in the spirit of gratefulness. Granted, that’s not my usual mood, particularly when it comes to women’s issues. As you know from my repeated rants, being a pro-choice feminist can be frustrating. When it comes to...
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