From an email to a listserv I’m on:
[E]arlier this week, we extended Google Scholar to allow anyone anywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts. We hope that this addition to Google Scholar will empower the average citizen by [...]
From TPM:
The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election — instead, ACORN stole it.
[ . . . ]
The poll asked this question: “Do you think that [...]
Colbert nails it:
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c The Word – Grand Old Pity Party www.colbertnation.com [...]Just watch:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Updated: the more sensitive among you should know that you will encounter seal-food (you know, penguins) in this video.
[...]DougJ explains how:
It’s easy to romanticize the past, of course. But I distinctly remember that 20 years ago, things like sudden increases in the number of people going hungry were considered important issues. Nowadays to even muse about whether this is something we can do something about as a [...]
That’s probably a title I should have saved for another post, but I’ve already gone and used it for this great National Geographic project asking US Senators to draw maps of their states from memory. I grew up with maps on my wall – this is where we live [...]
Bruce Schneier has up another essay well worth reading. It doesn’t contain much that he hasn’t already said, but it does a good job of tying things together. And it makes a point I’m afraid is lost on all the Republicans clutching their pearls over the KSM trial:
The best [...]
I admit it – I’ve been reading (and enjoying) Andrew Sullivan for at least a year now, despite my full knowledge of a what execrable fellow he was with respect the question of Iraq. I thought, perhaps, that he’d learned his lesson. Turns out, no. Still a complete sucker [...]
In the past 25 years, hundreds of children are believed to have died in the United States after faith-healing parents forbade medical attention to end their sickness or protect their lives. When minors die from a lack of parental care, it is usually a matter of criminal neglect and is [...]
Funny, I was just arguing that there should be a decade-long ban on MJ covers (at least), and then I come across this:
Thriller (Michael Jackson Cover) – Speak Low
(You probably have to be [...]
Just returned from a very satisfying week in southern Utah (I know, right?). A write up (explaining my conversion to Zionism (!!)) and pictures to follow, but for now:
[...]This time, Webb is hedging on the capacity of the American justice system to handle terrorists. It’s interesting. He’s wrong as wrong can be, but I believe it’s genuine. That is, he’s genuinely wrong, and not wrong because of political considerations.
[...]Finally found a radio station between Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park today, and its playlist reminded me that some places are just stuck in time. Whenever I go back to Atlanta, it’s the usual early 90s hip hop/R&B. The Twin Cities always seem to play the same late 80s [...]
For future reference, here is the list of Democrats who voted “Aye” on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.
AL-2 Bright, Bobby; AL- 5 Griffith, Parker; AL-7 Davis, Artur; AR-1 Berry, Robert; AR-2 Snyder, Victor; AR-4 AR-4 Ross, Mike; CA-18 Cardoza, Dennis; CA-20 Costa, Jim; CA-43 Baca, Joe; CO-3 Salazar, John.
GA-2 [...]
A year or two ago, I put a link to Gwadzilla in the right bar under “Community”. It’s good to see that the mainstream press is catching up.
(It’s funny. While we’ve got a fair number of friends in common and a city we most certainly share, we’ve only [...]
The National Rifle Association is pushing legislation to ban adoption agencies from asking potential parents if they have guns and ammunition in the home.
NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer said adoption agencies are violating gun-owners’ rights by asking about firearms in an adoption form. She said any request about gun ownership [...]
This is the work of the fifth grade chorus at PS22 on Staten Island.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Go ahead, click on that link up top. Give yourself some time.
[...]We’re coming up on the 20 year anniversary of the Wall coming down. Roger Cohen’s got a video about a man who helped make that happen without bloodshed.
[...]Moran’s not exactly my favorite congressman, but he’s quite right on this:
“I mean, if the Republicans were running in Afghanistan, they’d be running on the Taliban ticket as far as I can see,” Moran declared.
Republicans don’t like it? Then stop putting hateful religious nutcases on your tickets.
[...]Atrios cites a rather amazing metric:
Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.
All a bunch of lazy parents and welfare bums, [...]
Waldo points us to this interesting MeFi question, which seems to indicate that just about every town in America developed an urban legend revolving around the claim that they were #2 on the Soviet nuke target list.
My favorite answer:
The real answer is that everybody was probably correct. US [...]
I’ve been meaning to recommend this episode of This American Life since I’ve heard it. It’s an excellent piece – on par with the Giant Pool of Money episodes – that illustrates just how hard it’s going to be to get a handle on health care costs in [...]
The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance (and Who Gives a Fuck About an Oxford Comma?):
Click here to view the embedded video.
Obama finally ended the US travel ban for HIV-positive people. In signing it, he noted:
Twenty-two years ago, in a decision rooted in fear rather than fact, the United States instituted a travel ban on entry into the country for people living with HIV/AIDS. Now, we talk about reducing the [...]
I was going to link to Mike@Blueweed’s excellent The Tyranny of Quaint with a bit of mocking about how he needs to write more, but I think I need to take some Windex to this glass house, first. So, here goes:
This shockingly useful gadget is running as an ad on TPM:
[...]I very much recommend this article on Matthew Hoh, a Marine and Foreign Service Officer who recently resigned because:
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of [...]
Just picked up this press release, which I’m passing along in its entirety, because it’s such a great idea:
C&O Canal Trust to Hold Open Houses to Launch New Canal Quarters Program
“Stay the Night, Remember Forever!”
Hagerstown, MD – The C&O Canal Trust, in partnership with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National [...]
Courtesy of – of all places – NPR:
Goodie Mob’s Dirty South-
Click here to view the embedded video.
TLC’s No Scrubs:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Outkast’s ATLiens
Click here to view the embedded video.
[Updated]
[...]you just don’t know what to say:
“They were nice people and I got along with them very well which is why I was able to retrieve the information I did,” Gaubatz says. “But just because somebody is outwardly friendly doesn’t mean they can’t be doing something wrong or even [...]
The Onion, as it often does, nails it in this not-exactly-fake op-ed:
I don’t question God. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall put none above Him. Which is why I know that if it were part of God’s plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely [...]
If you’re not a pro cycling fan, click on. Otherwise, from yesterday’s TdF route presentation:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
I’d normally shy away from that, but you, my young friend, are fantastic. I will buy you a beer when you get legal.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Ah, good ol’ fashioned values at work:
A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that [...]
From the folks at BikeDC:
On Saturday, October 17th, thousands of area bicyclists will take over the streets of downtown Washington, DC, and Arlington, VA, as part of Bike DC, a celebration of both bicycling and our community. Bike DC, the Washington and Arlington Community Bike Ride, is a noncompetitive [...]
Remember the Arlington Sun Gazette? The same brilliant mind(s)* that endorsed George Allen over Jim Webb, told citizens to suck it up over the Marshall-Newman amendment, and helped distribute this hateful bullshit? Yeah, well, they’re still at it. This time, it’s Bob McDonnell for governor. Shocker.
*Still [...]
Bike DC, after a successful test-run last year, is back for sure. On Saturday, October 17th, thousands of bicyclists will participate in Bike DC. This year, it expands across the Potomac to be the “Washington and Arlington Community Bike Ride.” For those who are unfamiliar with it, this [...]
Prompted by the last post, this is October to October:
I never thought I’d be surpassing this anytime soon (in terms of kms traveled), but it looks like I did, with ~105,000 km. There’s a slight bit of a cheat in this map – that [...]
I’ve been thinking a bit about travel, lately, and why it’s so important to me. Anthony Bourdain and I share some common ideas on that, it seems:
(picked up from Esme Vos’ blog)
[...]Eric Boehlert ties together nicely what every one of us already knows:
Fox News has exited the journalism community this year. It’s a purely political player, and journalists ought to start covering it that way.
[ . . . ]
A few years ago, the dumbed-down debate surrounding [...]
