Politics

NOSTALGIC FOR THE 50s?….Just a quick comment on history and foreign relations. How often recently have we seen a statement something like this: What distinguishes the North Korean crisis from any other is the nature of North Korea. The U.S. isn’t dealing with a rational adversary as with the Soviet Union in the Cuban missile […]

NOSTALGIC FOR THE 80s?….Atrios today recommends that you read Haynes Johnson’s Sleepwalking Through History, an “often ignored” history of the Reagan years. Well, it’s a good book, but good books are often ignored because, well, for starters they’re books, and for finishers they might be just a tad on the bland and dull side So […]

STIMULATING THE ECONOMY….I needed a good laugh this morning, so I decided to go ahead and read the lead story in today’s LA Times: Bush Stimulus Plan Calls for More Tax Cuts. I was rewarded with this: Sources said the plan will include a larger-than-expected cut in the tax on corporate dividends, $100 billion or […]

SOCIOLOGY WARS….Daniel Drezner asks, “Why is the left more sensitive than the right?” Kieran Healy replies, “Why is the right more prone to tendentious dichotomies than the left?” And then answers his own question. I almost busted a gut. In honor of Kieran, tomorrow I will spend all day pretending to be Irish. UPDATE: I […]

MORE FUN AND GAMES FROM THE PRESIDENT….Via a long list of links that started at TalkLeft, the Washingtonian is reporting that if Chief Justice William Rehnquist resigns, Bush might replace him with….wait for it….Clarence Thomas. Who writes these scripts, anyway? The guys from 24? And don’t you actually have to talk in order to be […]

DRUNK DRIVING….HOW DRUNK IS DRUNK ENOUGH?….Is it time for MADD to declare victory and disband? I don’t really have a strong opinion, although I suspect it’s true that blood alcohol levels of .08 are probably sufficient to keep dangerous drivers off the road. However, how about a brief counterpoint? I served on a jury a […]

LIBERTARIAN FANTASIES….2blowhards has a guest post by a former Libertarian that explains the problems with libertarians pretty well: Being in the LP is a lot like being in a fantasy role-playing group. They are both about as relevant to the real world. I have some libertarian instincts, especially when it comes to victimless crimes, but […]

PERCHANCE TO DREAM….Where did the phrase “sleeping like a baby” come from? As all new parents will attest ad nauseum if you accidentally allow the subject to come up, newborns sleep exceptionally badly. How about “sleeping like a cat” instead? They seem to have the whole sleeping thing down pretty well.

KOUFAX AWARD WINNERS….Dwight Meredith has finished counting the votes for the Koufax Awards for best lefty blogging. Here are the winners: Best Pro Blog: Talking Points Memo Best Blog: Atrios Best Series: Atrios on Trent Lott (scroll down and down and down and then down some more to see the whole thing) Best Writing: Body […]

PURPLE RAIN?….What’s up with this?