Monday, June 29, 2009

But at least they don't paint themselves blue any more

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Brad DeLong passes along this tidbit: Caesar, in writing home, said of the Britons, “They are the most ignorant people I have ever conquere...
Friday, June 26, 2009

Froomkin's finale

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Dan Froomkin, indispensable White House Watcher whom the WaPo fired in its relentless (and very successful) war on journalistic quality and ...

Return of a bookslut

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Michael Schaub is back at the Bookslut blog, as acerbic as ever. Yay, Michael! This piece on Thomas Maier's Masters of Sex: The Life a...

Bar codes, younger than I am

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The NYT notes the 35th anniversary of the bar code . First product scanned, presumably in a "real" transaction: a pack of Juicy ...
Thursday, June 25, 2009

Me, I feel fine ... I think.

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Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett , I kind of expected. Michael Jackson , not so much. Coming to an episode of South Park near you, I'd ima...

Fortunately, his attorney is Robert Blarney

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I'm always charmed by people whose names undermine their goals, like the murder defendant named Butcher. Add one to the files. A fellow...

The "Saudi State Secrets" privilege?

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Mark Kleiman has a great post up on " the continuing Saudi-American coverup of 9/11 ." You should read the whole thing, which beg...
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

One of our governors (was) missing kissing

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If I were a politician, I'd feel like cutting out some of the time too, so I'm sympathetic in principle to Mark Sanford and his litt...

Conservatism, and the Bookshelf of the Future

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By "conservatism," for example, we do not mean what is meant by the word in the contemporary United States: a blend of American pa...
Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Remembering the *whole* Holocaust

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June 22 was significant not just for Operation Barbarossa itself, but for its commencement of the race war on the Eastern Front, which bega...

That torture we collaborated in? It was terrible!

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Now perhaps that a new sheriff's in town -- no conscious reference to Blazing Saddles! intended -- the American Psychological Associati...
Monday, June 22, 2009

June 22

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Today's the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Also, therefore, the anniversary of Operation Bagration in 1944, which culmin...

NYT on Rafsanjani

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The paper of record catches up with the internet: "Former President at Center of Fight Within Political Elite." It appears that R...
Sunday, June 21, 2009

Nabokov's mother's faith

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Her intense and pure religiousness took the form of her having equal faith in the existence of another world and in the impossibility of com...

And some people are better heard than seen

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Hendrik Hertzberg , apropos of the Iran (non-)coverage, perfectly encapsulates the uselessness of our 24/7 "news channels": As man...