Unqualified Offerings

Researching the history of the NEA for a paper I’m writing I discover an official document from the agency, National Endowment for the Arts 1965-2000: A Brief Chronology of Federal Support for the Arts (pdf). Said “brief chronology” is 77 pages long.

in a single sentence, from my Agitator patron R. Balko:
If you ask me, the most remarkable thing about blogs and the 2004 campaign was just how ready formerly independent voices on both sides were willing to spew out official campaign talking points, eschew criticism of their own guy, and otherwise fell into line in order [...]

Back from traveling, Juan Cole responds to the Iraq the Model controversy. It includes clarifications of intent and a forthright apology to the Ali brothers. From a metablogging perspective, what interests me is that it starts out with a very familiar explanation:
In my own mind, I was merely drawing attention to Mailander’s entry on an [...]

The Command Post lists multiple ways to donate to Asian tidal wave relief. (Via Virignia Postrel.)

I’ve never opened comments on UO. When I started blogging, comment functionality was rare. You had to go out of your way to activate it. When I converted from Blogger to Movable Type way back when I set the default switch for Comments to NONE in preferences and removed that code from my templates. At [...]

The Command Post’s Global Recon blog has constantly updated coverage of the disaster in South Asia. Our hopes and concerns are with everyone affected by the event, both those we know and those we don’t.

78% on John Tierney’s year-end news trivia quiz. This surely means I’ve been blogging too much. (Via Just One Minute.)

is your barking-mad Talking Dog. Sign me up. I mean, I’m not a Democrat, but sign me up.

Your Christmas quote only seems, initially, a non sequiter:
Even if dogs, sexual humiliation, or sleep deprivation don’t rise to one’s particular uninformed definition of torture, I assume we can all agree that being dropped on barbed wire or having a lit Marlboro jammed in your ear does.
From Thomas Nephew.

It’s become a Christmas tradition, if one likely to end this year: Nate Bruinooge reviews the latest Lord of the Rings extended-edition DVD. Future Christmases will have that much less magic to them.