Unqualified Offerings

The closest book to where I’m sitting turns out to be The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, sparing me from having to admit that Tolkien books sit just beyond it, and to claim, accurately but implausibly, that they belong to my wife. I am now directed to

look up page 123 […]

By Mona
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My co-blogger, Thoreau, who has made no secret of being a practicing Catholic, is thus by definition a member-supporter of:

“The Great Whore,” an “apostate church,” the “anti-Christ,” and a “false cult system.”

Or so says John McCain’s favorite pastor, (brief ad click-through) John Hagee. (Disclosure: As a lapsed Catholic, I also once […]

I think Atrios and I agree that Kyra Phillips wanting to determine that the Armless Boy of Baghdad appreciated "Operation Iraqi Freedom and the meaning" was the paradigmatic depravity of the Days of Shock and Awe.

A few months ago I praised Glassbooth’s political quiz for letting you weight the issues. A member of the Glassbooth brain trust writes to inform me that the company now has a Facebook application. I can’t tell you how it works because, by ancient covenant, James Joyner is the oldest person allowed to have a […]

Nir Rosen, with his Arabic and courage, is one of the few western reporters in Iraq who can get around Iraq without relying on the embed process or stringers. He has a new, sweeping report on "The Myth of the Surge." It probably boils down to the following passage, though I recommend reading all of […]

By Mona
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He has died at age 82. All over the blogosphere one can find excerpts from his late 50s article in National Review — the magazine he founded in the mid-50s — claiming the South had a right to maintain its culture against blacks, until they were “improved.” In later years […]

By Thoreau
A mathematician has proved that the two most symmetric lattices are diamond and some funky lattice called (10,3)-a. (Don’t ask.) In the article that I’m linking here, it says that nobody knows if this crystalline structure occurs in nature, but some subscription-only articles note that it does occur in certain inorganic compounds.

Not […]

Jeet Heer probably has the best William F. Buckley appreciation today.
I hope someone will write as good an appreciation of Myron Cope, who also died today. Cope was the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers for 34 years, and invented the Terrible Towel on-air one night while doing the sports for WTAE Channel 4. In my […]

Garfield Minus Garfield == Bitchin’!
One from yesterday is especially good.
Via, among other places, Poliblog.

By Thoreau
I’ve been reading it for a few months now and loving every issue.  It’s definitely accessible to the layman.  So far the best article I’ve read in the latest issue is an interview with Darius Rejali, an expert on torture:
If it doesn’t work, why does it persist?
Myths and rumours. There is a perception that […]

By Thoreau
We go to our good friend Jennifer who interviewed a state legislator proposing a ban on smoking in cars when children are present:
So if enclosed spaces are the issue here, will the bill make an exemption for smoking in open-top convertibles?
No, Genga said firmly. “If you’re in a vehicle with a child in a […]

By Thoreau
Jason Tylianakis in the latest PLoS Biology for “Understanding the Web of Life:  The Birds, the Bees, and Sex with Aliens.”
I don’t know anything about the science, but I respect the titular artistry.

By Thoreau
Like salmon!
I don’t have any opinion or expertise on salmon policy, but I’m glad to see that good scientific minds are turning their attention to assuring a continuing supply of salmon.  Otherwise, life wouldn’t be worth living.

By Thoreau
All of this @$$e$$ment talk in academia is making me question natural selection.  The people who are big on these buzzwords seem to be easily appeased:  Generate a thick stack of dead trees that makes frequent use of the buzzwords, and they’ll eventually be happy.  OK, they might ask for more, but they’ll only […]

Notwithstanding the new Census data on American religious belief, Hilzoy is my God. I particularly love the quote from the older piece at the end.

By Thoreau
A Diebold software glitch accidentally leaked the results of the 2008 Presidential Election ahead of schedule.
A Diebold spokesman apologizes profusely.  Methinks he’d better watch his back, lest he wind up in Sona.

By Thoreau
I stand by my assertion that the American Empire is a net drain on our standard of living rather than a necessary underpinning of our way of life, producing concentrated benefits for certain interest groups and dispersing the costs among numerous taxpayers and grieving widows and orphans.
Ideally I would dismantle it. Failing that, […]

In the Los Angeles Times, I question the value of the NEA’s "Big Read." The piece has already deeply moved reader Steve Moseley, who e-mailed the following:
Hi Jim, at the new library in  Encinitas California, I picked up their flyer on March’s "Big Read."  After reading about all their varied activities, I told my wife […]

For Thoreau, via Balloon Juice, Bill Kristol as minor Daredevil villain:
KRISTOL: [Obama’s] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear.

That’s from the ThinkProgress video clip. And you thought villains […]