February 2008
46 posts
“Alone at Last: The stage does look a little bare without those other candidates....”
– Katherine Seelye, Live Blogging the L.A. Debate - New York Times Blog. So very true. And this year, the Democrats have a good chance of winning the whole ball of wax.
“Democrats were debating for the presidency of USA while republicans were...”
– A commenter on Marc Ambinder’s post-Dem debate analysis. Attitudinally, this difference between the parties really couldn’t be more true.
“Just to be clear then, to the extent that there is any purpose to the law, i.e.,...”
– Dahlia Lithwick, on US Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s testimony before the Senate judiciary committee. Question for Bushies: if the law is completely malleable and situation-dependent, I can just send the IRS an empty envelope on 15 April, right?
January 2008
29 posts
Simpering Answers to Stupid Questions
This correntewire post by lambert starts off adequately enough, but then goes completely off the rails. The post allegedly answers Matt Stoller’s question, “What’s with the affinity between Gen X and the millenials, and the older gap millenials and the boomers?” But the lambert is really just venting vitriol. The post begins: The voter of 30 was 23 when Bush stole Florida 2000,...
“Someone somewhere invented a vaporware condensation machine and has been running...”
– Psy-Kosh on reddit
Alas, As It Ever Was
Scott Horton’s response to the “torture president’s” 28 January 2008 State of the Union address is well worth a read. But one interesting effect of his analysis is that it reminds us that Bush has not changed in seven years
What Horton describes about the SOTU has been true from the beginning, from 1999, 2000, 2001.
On Dubya’s style as a leader:
Bush spurns...
“Even Champagne loses its allure in six-packs.”
– Alan Schwartz in the NYTimes article, “Uncommon Wealth of Success in Boston for Big Three Teams,” on how the sudden and overwhelming success of Boston’s big-three sports teams isn’t all sunshine and roses.
"A Change We Made" →
When the forces of political nerdery and web/design nerdery intersect, you end up seeing links like this posted to their respective blogs.
“The internet is a series of noobs”
– Reddit user ‘digital’
More, Later: The Feeling of the Other Shoe...
This is the followup to my earlier post on the Stevenote. In that post, I wrote:
My fear is that Apple is positioning their consumer-grade products to be digital download appliances that integrate with their growing digital download business…. their focus is going to be on portable appliances. Black boxes for their download store.
That was the heart of the piece, for me. That issue what I...
The Democrats' Clinton Education -- The Daily Dish... →
Sullivan quotes a reader: “Clinton Derangement Syndrome, including the insane impeachment, wasn’t due entirely to right-wing hysteria.” This is simply amazing if this is not just an isolated feeling. That long-time Clinton supporters have essentially come ‘round to seeing the Clinton attacks in the 90’s partially from a Clinton-hater point of view really surprises me. By...
WatchProto-Clinton in the making
I'm sick and ornery! →
Yes, yes I am. Just see some of my latest reddit posts for confirmation.
How to live 14 years longer. (Maybe.) →
Stevenote Post-Mortem
So they announced a bunch of updates for Leopard, Time Machine/Time Capsule, the iPhone, the AppleTV, the iPod Touch, and iTunes downloads. None of which I have or use. And then there’s the Macbook Air (MBA) — the super-thin, super-light. It’s impressive. It’s sexy. It’s even sorta eco-friendly. But… It’s still kind of disappointing. Don’t get me...
"The Magnificent Contrarian" →
Harold Bloom is the foremost literary critic in the US today. I was unaware that he was also an outspoken political critic (although what thinking person could fail to be in this political, rhetorical, and cultural environment?). Good stuff from Horton’s great blog.
Boom: On Tomorrow's Nerd/Punditry Event Infogasm
So tomorrow, Tuesday 15 January 2008, will feature both a Stevenote at the Macworld Expo 2008, and the Michigan State Dem and GOP presidential primary. What this means for, say, tens of thousands of mac/tech geeks like me is that we will be completely distracted all morning by following along at the multiple sites live-blogging from the Stevenote. What this means for, say, hundreds of thousands...
Surprises for Today
There is a braille edition of Playboy. It is popular. Congress pays to distribute it to (presumably blind) people for free.
“Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and...”
– Douglas Adams. Yes, this is true, except for me the ages were 12 and 32.
Just what DO I have to roll? →
Funny, funny, funny. Every so often, I actually wish I played more games when I was younger. Or now.
Reviewing What I Viewed
I’ve been reading (and enjoying) a lot of Best-of-2007 movie lists and reviews (including the annoyingly herky-jerky four-way discussion on Slate.com). I’ve been realizing there were a lot of movies I wanted to see when I first heard about them or read a good review (or even a super-superlative mention, but then never got around to seeing. What’s weirder, though, is that...
A Human Pledge →
My bachelor’s thesis advisor wrote her doctoral thesis — all 600 pages of it — on Creeley. He was a big influence on her and, indirectly, on me, although I never read much more than his anthologized works. Strangely, I never knew the thing about his eye. That’s formalism for you.