I know some of my friends are upset about Dave Weigel’s account of last weeks’ Milton Friedman dinner, which focused on the audience reaction to Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji’s Friedman Award acceptance speech. Now, I was seated a table or two down from Dave, and his description matches my recollection, as far as it goes. […]

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Harvard economist and fellow Catonian Jeff Miron suggests that the Kagan nomination will spark renewed discussion of the question: “Should judges follow the Constitution?” I hope not, because in practice those are seldom particularly useful discussions. I tend to agree with Ronald Dworkin that there is just not that much interesting disagreement about whether judges […]

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Amber Taylor links to a column on “ask cultures” and “guess cultures,” playing with a notion that seems to have debuted in a 2007 comment on Metafilter: In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an […]

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In the instance, waiting for Amazon’s courier service to drop off the 69 Love Songs vinyl box set, which has finally been released after seemingly endless delays. Safe bet tomorrow’s earworm will feature the stylings of Mr. Stephin Merritt.

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Moondog – Paris Found at skreemr.com

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They’re both a little sick of the term—and believe me, at this point, I empathize—but this is as good a summary of what I was trying to talk about as I’ve seen. The whole discussion is pretty interesting and on point. Greenwald is right, incidentally, that technology hasn’t cloistered partisans—research shows online news consumers are […]

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The one I’ve actually had stuck in my head is a substantially slower—and I think better—version, but I take what YouTube gives me. Just for a bonus, here’s Aretha’s version: And Janis’:

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No, I have no idea why this one was lodged in my head all weekend.

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