After posting the Spirit video this morning, my strange old-guy distant memory regurgitated a bad, obscure movie from the late 1960s titled Body Shop (not to be confused with the 1973 bad-movie classic involving a “mad scientist” recreating his wife from spare parts) in which a surfer dude/car mechanic roamed around L.A. soliciting advice about how to deal with his draft notice. Anyway, the soundtrack was a mixture of Spirit and Bach. Those were the days.
Returning from this reverie, here are some mid-day news items:
* Dick Durbin rates the odds of a debt-limit-driven “grand bargain” on the deficit as “less than 50%.” I’d say that’s about 45% too high, but can’t blame the guy for hedging.
* “Torture Professor” John Yoo tries out cost-benefit analysis on the Iraq War. He should have probably stayed out of the tenth anniversary discussion.
* Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado signs bills expanding gun purchase backgrounds checks and restricting high-capacity ammo clips. But then they probably don’t have filibusters in the Colorado Senate.
* Good summary by Wonkblog’s Dylan Matthews of academic findings on impact of state income taxes on economic development.
* At TNR, Yossi Klein Halevi explains realities of Israeli public opinion to Obama.
And in non-political news:
* Daily print version of Variety folds after 80-year run. So it’s not just hard-news operations having to adjust.
Back after a chore break.
