By request, a thread to discuss the nominations. I will have a couple of movie roundup posts in the near future, but I would say that after a couple years of better-than-usual Best Picture nominations, all 5 this year are all again definitively middlebrow Oscar-type pictures, although with varying degrees of doorstopness. I do have […]
Month: January 2009
As someone who could very much do without Kennedy worship in general and JFK worship in particular, I suppose that I’m happy, on balance, that Caroline Kennedy has removed herself from considera
America’s Shittiest Op-Ed Columnist (Not-Named-Bill-Kristol Division), 16 January 2009: [Bush] leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will s
The Bush administration authorized the waterboarding of prisoners. Waterboarding is torture. Torture is prohibited by the Convention Against Torture, to which the U.S. is a signatory. This treaty requires a state to prosecute officals under its jurisdiction who violated the treaty. The U.S. Constitution makes this treaty binding law on U.S. officials, including Barack Obama, […]
Just found a couple weeks worth of research that I believed I had lost. This means, in effect, that I have accomplished two weeks worth of work before 11am. With that under my belt, time for a beer!
I forgot to post on this earlier in the week, but indeed Marty Lederman taking over the job once held by John Yoo is fantastic news. And, of course, these kinds of actions are even better.
Now this, from David Axe, is a fascinating story: Susan Katz Keating posted a photo depicting, among others, “Uncle Jimbo” — one of the men behind the popular, and far-right, Blackfive blog — in front of Blackwater’s North Carolina headquarters last week. It seems Jimbo and others flew to Blackwater from the private air terminal […]
Drop a nickel in the can, if you have a chance.
Late for the bus, dashing out the door at 8 this morning, I scrambled to quickly record the inauguration and speech, I absentmindedly recorded CNBC’s coverage. Without getting in to the gruesome
About two years ago, I wrote optimistically about today: [Dad] outlasted Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Frist and Tom Delay, and he’s optimistic that Alberto Gonzales’ tenure as Attorney General will self-immolate before the [pancreatic] cancer returns, as it most certainly will. It’s a long wait to January 2009, but one way or another I’m planning to […]
My vote for the best (and most important) passage from the address: As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils
Somehow, I liked the non-smooth oath. There’s something reassuring to know that, amidst all the not-terribly-appropriate monarchical pomp, something so genuinely important is happening that even