Among Katha Pollitt's many enviable talents is the ability to cut to the heart of an issue by saying something that by all rights should be banal, but is often overlooked. Some people on the left have been arguing for a draft, arguing that it...
General
Via Crooked Timber I learn of a plagiarist suing a university for not explaining to him that plagiarism is wrong. His defense seems to be that since he wasn't caught early.
Via Digby, we find Rep. Tom Davis (R, VA) indulging in demographic fantasies: If you take out the Indian reservation, we would have won," said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), former chairman.
Kevin Drum with an excellent post on Oil. Upshot: Prices are going up. Fluctuations aside, they're not going back down. Depending on who you ask, production has peaked in the last few years, or will peak in the next few years. The ratio between OPEC's production...
Now that's a game. Why this country prefers the dreary postseason of the NBA is beyond me. I'm also grateful to Sports Illustrated for confidently declaring that a Tampa Bay victory.
I should make clear that I don't consider those who gamble on political events to have any special insights, as dsquared at crooked timber has demonstrated. In general the numbers.
Everyone's all over poll numbers for the Presidential election, and everyone's watching the Senate pretty closely as well. (Speaking of which, there is a nice and very flattering profile of Barak Obama in the most recent New Yorker, which doesn't appear to be online--he looks hard to...
The ongoing Canadian election is fascinating from a political junkies standpoint, as it seems as if the reborn Conservative party could capture a plurality government, and it is unlikely that.
Via the incomparable Bob Somerby, this gem from Boston Globe typist Nina Easton on The Tweety Matthews Show ("complacent millionaire pundit values on a cable-access budget!"): EASTON: There is--there's no doubt that that's.
The Democrats are +1 in the House, with Stephanie Herseth having won. Good news--if there's anything better than a Democratic Congressperson, it's a hot Democratic Congressperson. Picking up a seat in the relatively poor, rural, but culturally conservative state of South Dakota reminds me of a...
In one of the least surprising developments in legal history, the recent federal act criminalizing D&E abortions was struck down in federal courts. This was inevitable, because the law directly contradicted.
Despite my first post here, I don't plan to use this blog to engage in handwringing about past failings on my part. I'll comment on blogs and politics, like my.