Hillary’s Amazing Balkan Adventure
It’s the little fabrications that tell you all you need to know about a Presidential candidate. This, then, is very entertaining. [Via Mr Yglesias]
Alex Massie
Sunday
Location, location, location
Daniel Drezner praises Elaine Sciolino, who is leaving Paris after five years as the New York Times’ correspondent, as a “fine reporter/observer”. Not so fast, cautions Arthur Goldhammer: Her swan song reminds us why she will not be missed. For our national newspaper’s chief correspondent, France means above all sexy underwear, friendly butchers, nasty haberdashers,
Lord Ted’s XI
In the wake of Armstrong and Benaud and Constantine we come, as we must, to Dexter. THE D XI 1. Stewart Dempster (NZ)2. Ted Dexter (ENG) (Capt)3. Rahul Dravid (IND)4. KS Duleepsinhji (ENG)5. Martin Donnelly (NZ)6. Basil D’Oliveira (ENG) 7. Jeff Dujon (WI) (Wkt) 8. Alan Davidson (AUS) 9. Bruce Dooland (AUS) 10. Allan Donald
Saturday
Mikes Blog Roundup
As Katherine Mangu-Ward says plenty of normal people aren’t following the presidential race. Then there’s rapper DMX who’s given the best interview of the year so far. Choose your own highlight… Are you following the presidential race? Not at all. You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary
The Obama Curve
Charles Murray on Obama: I understand how naïve it is to read a presidential candidate’s speech as if it were anything except political positioning, but that leads me to my final point: It’s about time that people who disagree with Obama’s politics recognize that he is genuinely different. When he talks, he sounds like
Top of the Table!
Selkirk’s Lee Jones tackles a West of Scotland player during this afternoon’s splendid 24-10 victory at Philiphaugh. My boys, it’s fair to say, gave Mr Eugenides’ boys one hell of a beating… Promotion to Scottish rugby’s Division One – for the first time in nearly 20 years! – remains a dream that will not die.
Friday
Obama is Obviously Just the New Bush…
Lord knows there’s no shortage of stupidity swishing around Barack Obama’s candidacy. But this, from Victor Davis Hanson – the Cincinnatus of the National Review – is as dumb as a bag of spanners: Whence Obama’s problems? It is not that he believes in the venom of Rev. Wright, or that when he says something
Thursday
Westminster and Whitehall dishonour Britain again
Need it be said that the treatment of the Gurkhas – by successive governments – is disgraceful and a harrowing indictment of the civil service and politicians alike? Have these fools no shame? Apparently not. They came in their Sunday best — a sea of tweeds, brogues and blazers with gold buttons — and mingled
Huckabee’s Moment
It’s striking how refreshing Mike Huckabee’s reaction to the Jeremiah Wright frenzy is. We’re so used – and too many conservatives have demonstrated this again this week – to the grinding tedium of knee-jerk My Party Rules, Your Party Sucks* political discourse that it’s almost astonishing when a leading figure (from either party) can come
Department of World Begins in 1492
Clive Davis: I might as well remind Barack Obama that the war in Iraq hasn’t lasted longer than WW2. There were some isolated outbreaks of fighting before Pearl Harbour.
New Labour’s Bankruptcy
If you doubted that Gordon Brown’s government is already exhausted, consider the nonsense being peddled by Stephen Carter, the former PR supremo brought in to salvage something – anything! – for Gordon. From Iain Martin’s column today: A couple of takes on Carter’s actions are being briefed: either a justified clear-out of the team that
Ban the Badger!
Marvellous. From The Scotsman’s diary column: YOU’LL never eat lunch in this town again: the landlord of the Easter Road bar and eatery, Utopia, has placed a poster in his window, warning Alistair Darling to keep off the premises. It shows a noose above Mr Darling’s head, with “Barred” above his picture and “Not Welcome
Wednesday
Jeremiah Wright & Ken Mehlman
Impolitic though it is to say, I’d suggest that the idea that a) the United States government created the AIDS virus and unleashed it upon the African-American community is no less plausible than the notion that b) a virgin once gave birth to a son in a Bethlehem stable. Still, some beliefs gain legitimacy from
Poor people can fly: something must be done
Highly amusing leader in the Guardian today: Flying has become a modern middle-class hypocrisy, a source of guilt and pleasure all at the same time. Everyone is confused. OK, if you say so… It is easy to preach about the need to restrict air travel but harder to do anything about it. Er, what need?
Guns in Britain and America
Good news, for once, from Washington as the US Supreme Court looks likely to uphold a ruling that the District of Columbia’s blanket prohibition on owning handguns is unconstitutional. Frankly, people, I’m confused. That is to say, I’m confused that there’s ever been any confusion over the meaning of the Second Amendment. It all hinges
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Froze
Ah, sweet, sweet New York City.
Tuesday
Obama’s speech
Barack Obama’s speech today on race and America should, if there’s any justice, seal the Democratic party’s presidential nomination. It is a remarkable, subtle, nuanced discussion of how and why America remains so polarised on race. No other candidate could have delivered this address (and certainly none of them could have written it). It is
Monday
The Cheney School of Parenting
Harlan Coben takes to the op-ed pages of The New York Times to recommend parents install spyware on their kids’ computers. Make no mistake: If you put spyware on your computer, you have the ability to log every keystroke your child makes and thus a good portion of his or her private world. That’s what
Wherever the Green is Worn
The ten worst Irish accents in cinema history? Check ’em out here. Amazingly, Tom Cruise doesn’t take the top spot… So, yeah, Happy St Patrick’s Day. Time then, to dust off this unnecessarily dyspeptic take from a few years ago: When I was a student in Dublin we scoffed at the American celebration of St.
Department of Prissyness
Ezra says this New York Post headline – ‘Whore-ible Ordeal: Dad – demonstrates that – shockingly! – the NYP “isn’t a very classy newspaper”. And thank god for that. There are enough humour-free newspapers in America already without needing to scold the Post for daring to make it’s readers laugh in fine, classical tabloid fashion.