We’d like to extend our deepest thanks to everyone who has pitched in so far. We know we have loyal readers and thoughtful commenters, but when someone reaches into their wallet and contributes their money, it’s a sign that you’re doing something legitimately worthwhile in their eyes. Full Story »

A funny thing happened to me the other day. I walked into a conversation at work about the health care reform bill, and without any provocation from me i got to hear an interesting view on the matter from a thoughtful, intelligent man who’s every bit a capitalist. He attends church regularly and describes himself as a right-leaning libertarian. He’s from a staunchly Republican family. He likes Rush Limbaugh. In other words, he’s a far cry from a bleeding heart, dirty-fucking-hippie liberal as you’re likely to find. You know what this man said? He said that he’s in favor of universal coverage, but that the bill being voted on looks like hell and that he can’t see how it will fix any of our health care problems.

Now tell me that this bill is the best we can hope for, and do it without blaming what we’re getting on evil conservatives. This bill is not the best we can get, but it is exactly what Obama and the DLC types wanted…because they’re not on your side.
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This week it finally emerged that Tony Blair has been waging a 20 month battle to keep some of his advisory relationships secret, and the committee that vets this sort of thing finally got fed up with Blair’s stalling. On Wednesday The Guardian revealed that Blair has been seeking to protect two relationships, one with a South Korean oil firm, the other with the government of Kuwait. Conveniently, as The Guardian points out, the South Korean firm has interests in the Kurdish area of Iraq. Who knew? The Guardian recounts:

According to a committee spokesman, Blair’s claims of the need for secrecy were first made in July 2008, when the committee agreed to break its normal rules, and postpone publication for three months.

Blair’s office went back to the committee in October of that year and asked for a further six months. They promised to let the committee know as soon as the “market sensitivity” had passed.

Committee sources said they heard nothing further and had to “chase” Blair. This culminated in a formal letter from the committee last November. Blair’s office responded last month, claiming the deal was still too sensitive to reveal.

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About two and a half years ago, when I was running my own little one-man consulting operation, Microsoft killed my computer. They did it remotely via a routine update. If you use PCs, you get these updates all the time, and usually they install automatically and there’s no real issue.

But this time something went horribly wrong. It wasted my ability to use the machine for anything other than a paperweight, and in a stunning display of destructive innovation, the software misfire actually wiped out my USB ports. I’d have been thoroughly impressed if I hadn’t been so mad. Full Story »

- Carolina’s got no culture ’til the mushrooms kick in…

Doco burned the house down last night. Unfortunately, nobody was in it at the time.

The house, in this case, was the Little Bear in Evergreen, CO, a well-respected venue that hosts everything from local mainstays to up-and-comers to significant national acts. And Doco is a band we’ve mentioned before here: Trevor (guitar, vox) and Josh (bass) Booth are the sons of our colleague Jim Booth, and they’re one of the most talented young acts you’re likely to run across.

But any young band trying to put a dent in the market knows nights like last night. Full Story »

In case you missed it, Eldrick Tont Woods, the world’s greatest golfer, has been up against some pressing PR issues of late. Pretty much nobody is arguing that he’s handled it well. Begin with the official record. While it’s not yet 100% clear what touched off the fateful events of November 27, 2009, everybody is denying that Elin was trying to neuter him with a long iron.

But think about the story we’re being sold: The National Enquirer pubs a story saying Tiger is stepping out on his wife. A couple nights later, at two or three in the morning, Tiger decides to leave the house for no apparent reason. While trying to back out of the driveway – stone sober, the reports insist – he manages to wrap the Escalade around a tree. With me so far? Good. Then his wife comes out and tries to “rescue” him by bashing out the windows with a club.

If none of this smells a tad overripe to you, call me. Full Story »

I live in a pleasant little place. Forgotten or unknown, perhaps…after all, the rest of you have a nasty habit of leaving us off the map…but as pleasant as you’ll ever find. In many ways, i’m ok with being left off the map if it means things like Walgreen’s not finding us until last year. So i never imagined that my little corner of the world would be a topic of national, political conversation. But there it is and here we are. All because my Democratic Representative has made a name for himself after just 18 years in Congress. So now many of you have decided that it’s in our best interest that you involve yourself in our local politics. What, did you follow Walgreen’s?

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by John Harvin

My sister in law is lazy. Bone lazy. Dog lazy. Lazy lazy.

She’s the only one in her family like that. My wife, her sister, goes like a hamster on meth–working, child-raising, charities, training for the New York marathon—you name it. My brother in law works ten hard hours each day, comes home and teaches himself stonework so he can build a new wall in front of his house. My sister in law complains.

But this post is not about her, it’s about a litmus test for laziness. Wonder if you’re lazy? Here’s how to tell. 100% guaranteed. Full Story »

This morning the New York Times carries as its lead story something with this headline: States’ Rights Is Rallying Cry of Resistance for Lawmakers. And the article is replete with examples of state lawmakers passing measures that would, in theory, limit the reach of the federal government. So, just to repeat the examples that The Times leads with (having done our work for us already):

Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican, signed a bill into law on Friday declaring that the federal regulation of firearms is invalid if a weapon is made and used in South Dakota.

On Thursday, Wyoming’s governor, Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, signed a similar bill for that state. The same day, Oklahoma’s House of Representatives approved a resolution that Oklahomans should be able to vote on a state constitutional amendment allowing them to opt out of the federal health care overhaul.

In Utah, lawmakers embraced states’ rights with a vengeance in the final days of the legislative session last week. One measure said Congress and the federal government could not carry out health care reform, not in Utah anyway, without approval of the Legislature. Another bill declared state authority to take federal lands under the eminent domain process. A resolution asserted the “inviolable sovereignty of the State of Utah under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.”

The Times article points out that legal and constitutional scholars are pretty much of the view that this is mostly a bunch of hot air. But that doesn’t seem to be deterring state lawmakers from shouting a lot. Full Story »

Jerusalem, by Jez Butterworth, has been one of the hits of the season here in London. There has been pretty much nothing but adulation for the play itself, and the performances, particularly Mark Rylance as the protagonist. It opened at the Royal Court last fall and has since moved on to the Apollo Theatre for what looks set to be a very long run (well, April 24th anyway). And it will undoubtedly be hitting America soon. So we had high expectations when we went to see it last week. And now we’re completely baffled. This is a very long (three hours and twenty minutes, with two intermissions) and very bad play, much of which makes no sense whatsoever. And audiences and critics love it. An “instant modern classic,” according to The Telegraph.
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That pricey apartment shout-show host Rush Limbaugh seeks to unload for about $14 million — you know, the gaudy palace with not one but two grand views of Central Park and environs — sits in zip code 10128, down by Fifth Avenue and 86th.

The 62,000 or so folks in that Upper East Side zip code who don’t rent live in domiciles worth, on average, just under a million bucks. And those people in 10128 have donated $1.7 million in the 2010 election cycle to federal candidates, national parties, or PACs. (Sorry, Rush: Your neighbors preferred Democratic entities.)

But the folks in 10128 are cheapskates compared with the real money farther south on Fifth Avenue. The 100,000-plus people who live in 10021 have given $3.3 million. In fact, eight zip codes surrounding Central Park rank in the top 20 zip codes nationally in political giving by individuals for this election cycle, their residents having coughed up $17.4 million. 10021, 10022 and 10024 are the top three individual donor zip codes in the nation.

I was going to tell you this a few months ago. I had intended to point out that zip codes in and around Washington, D.C., where the real money is, ponied up $22.9 million in this election cycle. I’d planned to tell you that individuals in the top 50 zip codes in the nation had so far contributed nearly $74 million to federal candidates or committees.

But these numbers summarizing individual donations direct to candidates or parties have become meaningless. That means I will likely end four years of writing about them.
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If you’ve ever been driving somewhere and have gotten really lost—I mean nothing looks familiar, don’t know how I got here, and have no clue how to get where I need to go lost—and then, due to maps, a helpful stranger, or blind luck, you experienced the profound relief of finding yourself on the right road heading in the right direction, you’ll understand a little about how I felt when I saw the headline, “Panel Proposes Single Standard for All Schools.” Full Story »

Today one of my good friends will stand before a judge in the company of her husband and dissolve her marriage. It is in one respect a common act, though rarely uneventful: it happens thousands of times a day in courtrooms across the country. But more and more, it seems to be the initiative of women who have been wives and mothers for years – in this case, 26 years, a figure I can relate to, on the brink of observing my own 26th anniversary later this month.

My friend, like me, married young – at least by today’s standards. We are in our late forties. And our generation seems to be one in which women are making this decision in droves, turning the old stereotype of the male midlife crisis on its head, leaving behind hurt and often clueless husbands who are incredulous that this is happening to them.

It didn’t strike me till recently that eight of the ten divorces I’ve been aware of among my circle of friends and colleagues in the last five years have been initiated by women. In every case, these have been women with children who have been devoted to their families for years. None is wealthy, none is leaving on a caprice after which they reinvent themselves with cosmetic surgery and a convertible. And none is a pop-culture cougar, pursuing her own youth via a younger man in a new version of the classic life upheaval. Full Story »

Julius Malema hadn’t risen to prominence when I decided to leave South Africa.  That kick-back came after he used the not inconsiderable power of the ANC Youth League to get Jacob Zuma made president of South Africa.

To give you a flavour of Malema’s oratory, consider this official statement made during soon-to-be President Zuma’s rape trial of women who are raped:  “when a woman didn’t enjoy it, she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money.” Full Story »

“Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. People are not curious about the details. . . . almost everyone seems to feel adequately informed by reading one book about nuclear war.”
– Paul Brians

THE DEPROLIFERATOR — Fear of nuclear war isn’t the only reason that we avoid the subject. Since the end of the Cold War, most of us think the threat has all but evaporated. If tensions between the United States and Russia came to a head again, we always have deterrence. Of course, concern about nuclear terrorism is on the rise, but it’s left in the dust by the economy. Full Story »

This week, something happened that changed everything. Life is like that. Just when we get comfortable, there’s a phone call or a letter or a chance meeting and the ground shifts, the sky changes, and the world is different and can never go back to the way it once was. On Saturday, my wife sent in the card to subscribe to Yankee magazine, and we dropped our subscription to Southern Living. We have officially become northerners. Full Story »

“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.” Who said it? Full Story »

Man, the wannabe auteurs behind Carly Failorina’s campaign are evidently as crazy as she hopes California voters are. Check this latest. What do you think – can we get Pink Floyd reunited for Animals II?

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Part 2 of 2. (Read part 1…)

It’s Time to Separate Church and State, Once and for All

If you recall, anti-Catholic prejudice was once a problem for Catholic politicians in the US. John F. Kennedy went so far as to address the issue head-on in his 1960 campaign – probably because he didn’t feel he had much choice. Here’s what he told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12 of that year:

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters — and the Church does not speak for me.

He went on to assert his respect for the separation of church and state and vowed that Catholic officials would not dictate policy to him. As noted in part 1, the times, they have a-changed. Full Story »