Am I the only one a little mystified by the furor over the supposed debate on al-Qaeda connections to Iraq? As far as I can tell, the substantive stories being told are factually identical: To wit, everyone agrees that senior Iraqi officials and senior al-Qaeda officials met on various occasions. Woo-hoo. Nobody, as far as […]

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I’ve apparently got a trio of invites to hand out; first three people to email me get one. UPDATE: Well, that didn’t take long… I’ve dispensed my three. Thanks for playing.

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I did, in fact, get outside this weekend (though with a group such that we couldn’t go boating without someone bringing a copy of The New Yorker along to read aloud while we swam), but I also saw quite a few movies. The less said about Matrix Revolutions the better. Saved! had its moments, but […]

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My hopes of seeing Watchmen on the silver screen are apparently dashed for the time being.

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The Pope says Americans are in danger of succumbing to a “soulless vision of life.” One hopes. The article has him arguing that “the U.S. church must study contemporary culture to find a way to appeal to youths.” Have these guys talked to Tom Lerher?

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Wonkette sarcasto-fisks the shit out of Michelle Malkin. Snarkalicious.

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Amitai Etzioni makes a point about public intellectuals that’s occasionally flitted through my head, with respect to the academic as well as the punditocratic realm. It seems that, from the point of view of establishing a reputation, you’re sometimes better off for being interestingly wrong than exactly right. I think part of Rawls’s fame has […]

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I just saw a midnight showing of The Day After Tomorrow, the mother-of-all-disaster-flicks that MoveOn is billing (with help from Al Gore) as “the movie George Bush doesn’t want you to see.” Cato’s house global warming contrarian Pat Michaels took it seriously enough to pen a Washington Post piece denouncing the flick. Having seen it, […]

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Now I know how Alex in A Clockwork Orange felt having to listen to lovely lovely Ludwig Van during the Ludowico Treatment. An ad for some cholestorol lowering pill called Crestor features Patrick Stewart reading doggerel, Dick-and-Jane style rhyming couplets about the drug. To compensate, a story, definitely third-hand and possibly apocryphal, about Mr. Stewart. […]

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Maryland’s running a series of public service announcements encouraging drivers to buckle up (or be ticketed). In one bit, an officer encourages people to comply with the law so that officers can devote their attention to other, more important tasks. Which, of course, makes one wonder: If they acknowledge that it’s stupid for cops to […]

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