I wonder if the accumulation of scalps in the blogosphere’s trophy room hasn’t finally driven a few bloggers a little ’round the bend, to he point where they’re hallucinating scandals everywhere in hopes of collecting their own. Even while I thought the Eason Jordan scandal was overblown, at least there what he was supposed to […]

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One of the things Republicans tell each other about Social Security reform—behind closed doors more often than in their op-eds—is that by creating more investors, it’ll alter public culture and create more Republicans, since people who hold investments tend to be more fiscally conservative. In the current Reason‘s cover-story debate on SS reform (not yet […]

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Jon Stewart’s interviewing Tom Fenton, author of Bad News. Fenton confirms that he thinks the news media’s hit an “all time low” and Stewart, apparently totally seriously, says “you don’t often hear people in the industry standing up to say so that boldly.” Right. Breaking The News : How the Media Undermine American Democracy by […]

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Coverage of the recent California gay marriage decision seems to be missing the most interesting (and novel) thing about the ruling; I take a look in “Protecting Adam and Steve.”

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“[One possibility is that] the Americans will decide to use the atomic bomb while they have it and the Russians haven’t….In any case this is, I think, the least likely outcome of the three, because a preventive war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy.” —George Orwell, […]

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Erstwhile roomie Glen Whitman has a good, thoughtful post up on why most analogies used in abortion debates don’t really work. Now, I don’t often find myself reaching argument of this kind. I don’t think fetuses are persons or that they have any rights, and you don’t need elaborate thought experiments to explain why you’re […]

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This Slate squib on the current generation of anti-smoking ads seems to me to get it right. Slightly amusing to note, however, that these new and more sophisticated ads manage to be more subtly manipulative by warning teens that tobacco company marketers are subtly manipulative. The message, vaguely evocative of the liars paradox is: Don’t […]

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We’ll know there’s something seriously deranged about the blogosphere if this ridiculous story lasts more than 48 hours. Nutshell version: Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tells an audience at a Lincoln Day dinner that We don’t do Lincoln Day Dinners in South Carolina. It’s nothing personal, but it takes awhile to get over things. Prompting a Democratic […]

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There is something deeply surreal about listening to Terry Gross, the prim, breathy-voiced embodiment of all that is NPR, interview the RZA. (“The RZA’s new book is The Wu-Tang Manual; this is Fresh Air.”)

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In addition to fine prose and more finely honed insight, Jim Henley’s Unqualified Offerings is now purty, too. Check out the new, redesigned UO.

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