Good morning, everybody. The Donald wants Lindsay? Now, your morning constitutional: Psst. In case you haven\’t been paying attention: World Cup starts today in South Africa. With at least 17 languages being spoken by the teams, the challenge of enforcing rules against swearing in the World Cup. An effort by Sen. Lisa Murkowski yesterday to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon levels failed in the Senate yesterday, further making energy/climate legislation look harder to pass. Researchers double their estimate of how much oil has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, now believing that over 40,000...
Continue reading...One of Us! One of Us!
So, for those of you who have been reading the group previews on the World Cup, I thought I\’d set up a prediction challenge on Yahoo! First prize is a post for you to write on the topic of your choosing, or for one of us to write a post on a topic of your choosing. Anyway, here are the relevant details: Group ID: 26433 Password: thedudeabides The system lets you edit your group stage picks until 5 minutes before kickoff of that particular match, so you only need to pick tomorrow\’s matches now(ish). Sorry that you...
Continue reading...On Women & This Week's Primaries
Rachael Larimore over at DoubleX is bemoaning the lack of excitement among feminists over the recent electoral victories for Republican women. She writes that “it is disappointing that many liberal women don’t even seem to want the GOP to have strong female candidates.” I don\’t think she’s got it quite right. It’s not that I don’t want the GOP to have strong female candidates, it’s that I’m not going to get giddy over candidates whose platforms I totally disagree with, regardless of their gender. Just like Sarah Palin doesn’t get points in my book for being a...
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 from Nicholas \”The Dark Crystal\” Kristof, who in his column...
Continue reading...Mea Copa: Group F, Where F Stands For Exactly What You Think It Does
Just as yesterday I wrote about teams that find supporters due to reasons outside of nationality, success or other rational sources, so there are teams that foment anger and rage outside their in-game performance. There are folks who will not root for Argentina, Germany, North Korea, the US, and many other countries because of their political or military histories. There are some folks who won’t root for them because of individuals on the team: Cristiano Ronaldo on Portugal is probably the current poster boy for this effect, and personally, it’s Australia and Tim Cahill. There are folks...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Good morning, everybody. Katy Perry apparently doesn\’t care much for Lady Gaga\’s new video. Now, your morning constitutional: Women swept all the high-profile primaries yesterday, with Blanche Lincoln winning in Arkansas, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiona winning in California, Sharron Angle winning in Nevada, and Nikki Haley heading to a run-off in South Carolina. An actual shocker in results yesterday, however: The Democratic nominee for Senate from South Carolina will be unemployed military veteran Alvin Greene, who beat the presumed winner despite spending nothing on his campaign except for the filing fee and doesn\’t even have a...
Continue reading...Diplomats wager on U.S.-England World Cup Match
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...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...
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