Good morning, everybody. Ellen\’s leaving American Idol, and Diddy wants in. Now, your morning constitutional: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia are meeting in Beirut to work together to help stabilize Lebanon if a UN tribunal indicts members of the Hezbollah movement for the killing of Rafik Hariri. Republicans succeeded in filibustering a Senate bill that would create a $30B fund for small business lending. July has been the deadliest month for American troops since the beginning of the war nine years ago. Economic growth in the U.S. slowed to 2.4% in the...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Friday, 30 July 2010
Good morning, everybody. Ellen\’s leaving American Idol, and Diddy wants in. Now, your morning constitutional: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia are meeting in Beirut to work together to help stabilize Lebanon if a UN tribunal indicts members of the Hezbollah movement for the killing of Rafik Hariri. Republicans succeeded in filibustering a Senate bill that would create a $30B fund for small business lending. July has been the deadliest month for American troops since the beginning of the war nine years ago. Economic growth in the U.S. slowed to 2.4% in the...
Continue reading...Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning), or Welcome to the "No-Spin Zone"
Filed under “Science is freaking crazy.” Witold Fraczek from Esri ran some models using ArcGIS on an interesting—but unlikely—question: What would happen if the world actually stopped turning? The answer is actually rather fascinating: If earth ceased rotating about its axis but continued revolving around the sun and its axis of rotation maintained the same inclination, the length of a year would remain the same, but a day would last as long as a year. In this fictitious scenario, the sequential disappearance of centrifugal force would cause a catastrophic change in climate and disastrous geologic adjustments (expressed...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week
Have you ever before encountered a poem with a camel in it? I hadn’t. Man and Camel by Mark Strand On the eve of my fortieth birthday I sat on the porch having a smoke when out of the blue a man and a camel happened by. Neither uttered a sound at first, but as they drifted up the street and out of town the two of them began to sing. Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me— the words were indistinct and the tune too ornamental to recall. Into the desert they went...
Continue reading...Connecticut Senate candidate Rob Simmons wants to remind you he's still in the race
< Today’s Hartford Courant, the largest newspaper in Connecticut, makes an interesting endorsement today: Former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons has a gold-plated public-service resume. His votes over time have been in line with the mostly moderate traditions of the Republican Party in Connecticut. It is for those reasons that The Courant’s editorial board, with hesitation, recommends that Republican voters in the Aug. 10 primary choose Mr. Simmons to be their standard-bearer in the fall election for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Christopher J. Dodd. Interesting because, well, it’d be a surprise to many in Connecticut...
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 Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, who in his...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Thursday, 29 July 2010
Good morning, folks. Kanye performed at Facebook HQ and got a Twitter account. Now, your morning constitutional: U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton has blocked some of the more controversial measures in Arizona\’s new immigration law from going into effect while the federal lawsuit goes forward. The Pima County morgue in Arizona is getting crowded as the number of immigrants found dead in the desert surrounding Tucson has soared. Republicans who served with Elizabeth Warren on the TARP oversight panel offer praise for her work. Elizabeth Warren is widely rumored to be a potential nominee to head...
Continue reading...Meet Tennessee gubernatorial candidates Basil Marceaux and James Reesor
I’m Basil Marceaux dot com, the Republican candidate for governor. I’d like to recall all permits and registrations for guns. Everyone carries guns. If you kill someone though, you get murdered, you go to jail. And uh, I’d like to put—plant grass or vegetation across the state on any vacant lot and sell it for gas so we can use it for our expenses. Also I’m going to remove all gold fringe flags from the state and apply the real flag with three stripes. I also want to stop traffic stops. Set it up like the Supreme...
Continue reading...The "news-and-information conveyor belt"
Mark Halperin, in his latest piece in Time, compares the “news” media coverage of O.J. Simpson (really) and the recent Shirley Sherrod ordeal, and actually comes out of it with a good point: Just as there was something intrinsically interesting about one of America’s best-known and best-liked athletes being charged with a brutal double murder, the craven sacking of Sherrod contained some elements that are undeniably compelling. And both stories involved racial elements that increased their news velocity. But the coverage of both sagas — Simpson’s, literally, for years; Sherrod’s for the better part of a week...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Good morning, folks. Spain\’s finally getting their own version of The Golden Girls. Now, your morning constitutional: No matter who wins, whether it be Republican U.S. Representative Mary Fallin or Democratic Lieutenant Governor Jari Askins, Oklahoma is virtually assured of electing its first woman governor in November. Interestingly enough, Oklahoma ranks 49th in percentage of women in their state legislature; South Carolina, which ranks 50th, may also elect its first woman governor (Nikki Haley). The oil spill in the Gulf seems to be clearing faster than anticipated, but of course, concerns about unseen effects remain. A study...
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