Megan hails Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle* and makes a pretty persuasive case. But what happens when you lose or break your Kindle? Does that mean you’ve lost your library too? James Joyner is not quite so convinced and complains: And the fact that e-books are still priced at 50-80 percent the sticker price of the
Speaking of country music, I’m going to guess that this is the sort of thing that’s not news to anyone but me. But did you know that you can create your own music TV station? If you have a lastfm account*, just enter your user name here and, by the magic of youtube, you’ll get
There’s been an encouraging start to polling in our quest to determine the most over-rated and under-rated Presidents in American history. Turn-out is healthy. Many thanks to those of you who have already voted. However the work is not complete. Not by any means. So there’s no need to be coy or bashful: it is
Godwin’s Law turns 18. [Hat-tip: Mr Eugenides]
As best I can tell the newspapers have largely ignored the characteristically appalling Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that’s currently making its way through parliament. This BBC article is the only mainstream piece I – or rather Google News – can find that talks about its pornography clauses. Thanks god for Steven Poole then, who
At Tapped Mori Dinaeur says no-one should be surprised by John McCain’s lack of interest in policy detail. Well fine. The there’s this, however: After Iraq and Katrina, I don’t think the public needs to be convinced of the link between conservatism [and] the failure of government. Half of this, at least, is entirely wrong.
As an addition to this post on wartime France, Clive Davis directs one to this Max Hastings op-ed from a couple of years ago that makes similar points: Hearing a recent conversation about collaboration, I made myself unpopular by suggesting that, if Britain had succumbed to Nazi rule, our own people would have behaved pretty
But that’s where I’ll be this weekend, attending a wedding. First one of the season for me. Little blogging, then, except for a couple of post-dated items. See you next week.
Do you use Microsoft Word? If so you’ll probably remember the hideous “Clippy” who’d pop up to offer entirely unwanted, un-needed, chatty advice every time you tried to write anything . This hideous creation must have been planted in Redmond by Steve Jobs. Or something. Anyway, “Clippy” is, mercifully, no more. All praise to James
Since I’m too young to have seen Dennis Lillee in his absolute prime, Malcolm Marshall is the greatest fast bowler I’ve watched in my lifetime. He would have been 50 this month, but for the colon cancer that killed him. Pat Lynch remembers the great Barbadian here. One fine story that has just a hint
My super-talented wee sister is the latest to succumb to the blogging temptation. Hence the founding of Palette Knife, a daily does of painting, photography and Manchester United. Highly recommended, obviously. Don’t just read, however: buy Claudia’s paintings!
So, this series has so far featured teams skippered by: Armstrong, Benaud, Constantine, Dexter, Edrich, Fry, Gower and Hutton. Now it’s Imran’s turn to stroll onto the field. 1. Frank Iredale (AUS)2. KC Ibrahim (IND)3. Ijaz Ahmed (PAK)4. Inzamam-ul-Haq (PAK)5. Asif Iqbal (PAK)6. Imran Khan (PAK) (Capt)7. Imtiaz Ahmed (PAK) (Wkt)8. Ray Illingworth (ENG)9. David
From the BBC: Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who is accused of keeping his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years, refuses to answer further questions, police say. They said he had signed a statement admitting imprisoning and raping his daughter and fathering her seven children, but refuses to explain. Just what the hell
I’m indebted to Rod Dreher for the reminder that Willie Nelson celebrates his 75th birthday today. And there was me thinking he’d been around for longer than that. Here he is with that other great survivor Merle Haggard, singing the classic Pancho and Lefty: In 2003 Reason named Willie one of its 35 Heroes of
Via Norm comes this entertaining, if fairly pointless, parlour game: pick a novelist to represent each letter of the alphabet and a book of theirs you’ve read (and enjoyed!). My list: A: Kingsley Amis, Lucky JimB: John Buchan, GreenmantleC: Albert Camus, L’EtrangerD: Alexandre Dumas: The Three MusketeersE: F: F Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the NightG:
Heartening news from Ireland: when the government banned smoking in pubs in 2004, 27% of Irish folk smoked. Now 29% consume these little tubes of delight*. True, there’s a long way to go yet but every journey begins with a single smoke… *Dennis Potter’s description, if memory serves. [Hat-tip: Taking Liberties.]
Shamelessly plundering the idea from Norm, it’s time for an exciting new development here at Debatable Land HQ: Polling! Yes, indeed… And given that this is a Presidential election year in the United States, what better way to begin than by conducting a Presidential poll? We are familiar with polls in which historians rank US
Marty Peretz links to this Daily Mail account of an exhibition of photographs taken in wartime Paris which is, for obvious reasons, a matter of some debate in France. And yes, the photographs are shocking. Just not in the way in which either Peretz or the Mail seem to think they are. The Mail headline,
Understatement of the Day: Learning a valuable lesson from his predecessors, Friedman is an incrementalist. “I want to talk about what to do this year, not how to colonize the galaxy…There aren’t that many people who are wiling to drop their lives and move to the ocean.” The always-estimable Katherine Mangu-Ward has much more on
This paragraph tells you most of what you need to know: The Scottish Government wants all primary schools to offer two hours of physical activity for all children each week – but figures from 2005 show that 5% of primary schools were meeting the provision. I suppose the situation may be better in secondary schools