The British Parliament is holding elections on Thursday, with perennial majority Labour looking certain to lose 10 Downing St. to the Tories, or perhaps the Liberal Democrats. Today, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City — the English football teams supported by Ghost of Hemingway’s Gun and Estes, respectively, square off in Manchester to potentially decide who finishes fourth in the English Premier League, reaping the financial windfall (and prestige bump) of appearing in the Champions League, in which neither has appeared for at least a decade. Estes and I are here to guide you through both of these...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 5 May 2010
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: David “Yawny-Pants” Brooks, 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. Maureen “Refrigerator” Dowd is off today, so today’s has to be from Tawmy Frieds, who in his column “No...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Good morning, everybody. Bret Michaels is out of the hospital. Now, your morning constitutional: Yesterday’s primary results: Neither Secretary of State Elaine Marshall nor former state Senator Cal Cunningham won the North Carolina Democratic nomination for Senate outright, forcing a run-off. Former Senator Dan Coats won the Republican nomination for Senate easily in Indiana. Lt. Governor Lee Fisher won the Democratic primary for Senate in Ohio. Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American man arrested for the attempted Times Square bombing, admits role in bombing plot. BP announced Wednesday morning that they have managed to shut off one of the...
Continue reading...The Number of the Beast
You’d be remiss to not check out Richard Eskow’s new post on his blog: Revelation/Channel 13: “Biometric ID,” The Mark of the Beast, and Immigration Reform, where he does a spectacular job explaining why many evangelical/fundamentalist Christians will fear the proposal in immigration reform requiring workers to carry biometric identification by comparing it to the the “Mark of the Beast” referenced in Revelation, and why the administration may want to tread carefully on this: If Arizona’s draconian new law has put immigration back in the public consciousness, the proposal for a national “biometric ID” is about to...
Continue reading...Guns vs. Hammers
I read an article yesterday about a recent spate of violence at schools in China. In the latest attack, on Friday, a farmer attacked children at a kindergarten with a hammer before setting himself on fire. This story is horrific, as were the other two recent attacks, which took place with assailants with knives. It’s awful and scary when unhinged people (the MSNBC article says the attacks “have been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness”) seemingly randomly turn violent. I was struck, though, with the contrast between the recent attacks in Chinese...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 4 May 2010
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 “The...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Good morning, everybody. Will there be a sequel to the hit comedy Anchorman? Now, your morning constitutional: Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan, was arrested last night in connection to this weekend’s Time Square bombing attempt. He was on board a plane to Pakistan at the time of his arrest. Statement from Attorney General Eric Holder. How the attempting bombing will bring terrorism politics back to the forefront. Three lessons from the Times Square bomb. Talks over renewing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an exercise that takes place every five years, pits Iran against the West....
Continue reading...Tony Award Nominations
The 2010 Tony Award nominations were announced this morning. Quick thoughts: It’s nice to see a female playwright get a nomination for Best Play (Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play). I’m a little surprised that Kristin Chenoweth didn’t get a nod for Promises, Promises despite the fact that I haven’t seen her performance. Lots of Hollywood folks got nominations: Jude Law, Alfred Molina, Liev Schreiber, Christopher Walken, Denzel Washington, Laura Linney, Kelsey Grammer, Sean Hayes, Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Alan Grier, Angela Lansbury, Scarlett Johansson. Actually, every actor in the Best Leading Actor in...
Continue reading...Baking Case File 1: Cinnamon-Chocolate Cookie Strips
When I was starting college, my dad gave me a cookbook as a present. It is Betty Crocker’s Quick & Easy Cookbook: 30 minutes or less to dinner every night. I was appreciative but skeptical. For one thing, my parents’ cookbook shelf is full of Moosewood tomes, full of lovely vegetarian dishes by the lovely Molly Katzen, who writes things like “Pile up everything in a provocative yet compelling arrangement” in the margins of the recipes. Whereas Betty Crocker seemed too… old-fashioned? Midwestern? Full of recipes like “Cheesy tuna broccoli skillet casserole”? Yes, all that. So I...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 3 May 2010
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 Paul “The Little Professor” Krugman, who in his...
Continue reading...
Recent Comments