For those of you who don’t read the long, boring articles, let me briefly summarize why Alito’s elevation to the court will be extremely bad for reproductive rights, with links to some more detailed arguments. There are two viable possibilities, and both lead to exactly the same place. And for both outcomes, it is important […]
Month: January 2006
Every session at this conference revolves around the question of what NATO’s future should look like. One speaker pointed out that this is not a new question; it has been asked in one way or ano
I’m currently at a Wilton Park conference on the future of NATO. The Wilton Park conference series began in the late 1940s, and focused on fostering a democratic culture among German POWs. As fa
Visited the Imperial War Museum yesterday, before almost passing out. If you like war, imperialism, and museums, accept no substitute. This is the entrance of the IWM. The left gun is from HMS Ramillies, and the right from HMS Resolution. The British 15″ was one of the finest weapons ever installed on a battleship, and […]
To elaborate on a point I made in passing below, I’m frankly puzzled about why Matt has switched sides on the merits of filibustering Alito, which remains the obviously correct option. I think b
I thought about coming up with my own questions for the Alito hearings, but to be frank the hearings are unlikely to produce any valuable information, and so we should judge Alito on his (exceptionall
Orrin Hatch: we should vote to confirm Alito because…he’s a baseball fan. (I admit that it’s his best feature.) But you know who else was a big baseball fan? Harry Blackmun! (Although I’d like to think that a list of greats compiled by Alito would include Henry Aaron instead of, say, Harry Hooper.) So I […]
Joe Klein, on the other hand, does do it for a living. Klein, discussing the NSA program, rolls out his usual “let me project my increasingly reactionary politics on the American public so I can
For some reason, I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about seeing Capote. I sort of thought it was my duty to see it, but it was mostly based on seeing Hoffman, who I try not to miss if he’s st
A surprisingly tough NYT editorial about Alito which starts well: Judicial nominations are not always motivated by ideology, but the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito certainly was. President Bush’s previous choice to fill Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, was hounded into withdrawing by the far right, primarily because she […]
9:45am: Arrive at Gatwick. Have never suffered as much turbulence in one flight as the flight from Detroit. On the upside, won the aircraft trivia game three times. 10:00am: Deal with snarky, irritati
Oh, a rare and welcome thing, an article about people who actually like living in cities and actually value things other than the square footage of the house they can purchase: But those plotting a ha