February 2012
19 posts
Calling Your Girlfriend: A Dialogue | The Hairpin →
Funny, but a scandalous misrepresentation of “Call Your Girlfriend.”
Who Is IOZ?: Diving into the Dreck →
This is aimed at libertarians, but is of broad import: Feminist analysis matters.
President's Day
Is obviously a lame holiday. At the same time, the country badly needs a three-day weekend to facilitate the playing of the Super Bowl. The NFL should tweak its schedule to bring the playing of the Big Game into mid-February and the day should be renamed Get As Drunk As You Want While Watching Football Day.
Lin Restaurants - New York City, Menus, Ratings,... →
Lucky Chinese restaurants.
The World's Most Confusing Conversation
lazybookreviews:
…is what occurs when it gradually becomes clear, over the course of a Dadaist five minutes, that your husband has Kate Upton and Kate Middleton mixed up.
For future reference: Kate Middleton is certainly not dating Mark Sanchez. No one from Victoria’s Secret has been talking trash about her. Kate Upton does not have a balding husband. No one has airbrushed the top of Kate...
Drawing the Line at Power Lines - NYTimes.com →
Nobody wants to build anything ever.
NBER Reporter 2011 Number 4: Research Summary →
Wonky!
Grant The Great
This President’s Day Weekend there’s no question in my mind that U.S. Grant is the most underrated American president. I highly recommend Jean Edward Smith’s biography.
The Tools Of The Trade
Rajiv Chandrasekaran memorializes the late Anthony Shadid: “What made him unique was his gift with both languages. He could speak to the Iraqis like a native, and he could pen his stories like few others in American journalism.”
I will for obvious reasons always be the first to defend the practice of not reporting. But I’m slightly baffled that among the group of American...
The Growth Of Party Discipline
An aside from James Fallows that’s worth an essay all its own:
Compared with the last two times a Democrat was in the White House—during Jimmy Carter’s administration in the late 1970s and Bill Clinton’s in the 1990s—I found Democrats much more careful about criticizing their own party’s president during an election year. It’s not that Democrats have become so much more disciplined, nor,...
Talking About War
Here’s one question I have about the idea of starting a war with the government of Syria to halt their repression: Would military action be likely to, on net, increase or decrease the number of civilians who end up getting killed?
A second question: Would a new post-Assad regime be likely to have a better general human rights record than Assad’s?
If the answer to those questions are...
The Geography Of A Blog
I was in the Starbucks near the Astor Place cube yesterday and suddenly struck with an overwhelming sort of Proustian feeling. That was the location where the old Matthew Yglesias blog really put its reps in during the summer of 2002. One of the key locations in its life.
The real start, of course, was at 20 De Wolfe Street in Cambridge, MA. Lots of early hours also put in down in the Harvard...
On "Ladyblogs" →
Josh Foust on Libya →
“Q: I think that in all fairness if you are going to have an all football mailbag...”
– http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7536111/the-half-bag-super-bag
January 2012
23 posts
We Are Old
Every political junkie under 40 I know thinks it’s hilarious that Google thinks we’re over 65 years old. But there’s interesting information there. The subscriber bases of Ye Old Political Magazines — American Prospect, Nation, New Republic, Washington Monthly — were always legendarily high in their median ages notwithstanding the young staffs. Many have assumed that...
Query
When will “retro” film cameras become a thing?
Chop Bouie: SOPA and the Importance of Playing... →
chopbouie:
Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, isn’t hopeful for the long-term prospects of internet freedom:
But what will happen when the MPAA buys the next SOPA? We can’t protest every similar bill with the same force. Eventually, our audiences will tire of calling their senators for whatever we’re…
Economics Jargon Band Names
— Recognition Lag
— Kaldor-Hicks
— Production Frontier
— Deflationary Spiral
— Current Account
— Marginal Demand
— Supply Shock
— Elasticity
— Giffen Goods
Praying With Your Eyes Open
From “Dr. King’s March on Washington, Part II” by Jose Yglesias in the March 31, 1968 New York Times Magazine:
King said he had been frightened twice. There was the time he was marching through Chicago for open housing while people jeered and threw rocks: “It was then I faced the inevitability of death for the first time.” The other time was in Philadelphia, Miss.,...
The Short List
Went to see Cults last night, the first show I’d been to in like a million years. Love the album, enjoyed hearing them play but … they only have the eleven songs! Super-short show ends up being oddly deflating. How hard is it to work out some fun covers or something?
The Short List
Went to see Cults last night, the first show I’d been to in like a million years. Love the album, enjoyed hearing them play but … they only have the eleven songs! Super-short show ends up being oddly deflating. How hard is it to work out some fun covers or something?
Yo! Sushi
I see something called Yo! Sushi is coming to my neighborhood. What’s Yo! Sushi? It turns out to be a British chain just like Ping Pong Dim Sum which is already in the neighborhood. What’s the deal with UK-based Asian chains moving to DC?
Shit My Dad Says
“… but I ate wildebeest, kudu and ostrich today so I won the day! L, Dad”
Annals of Security Theater
Nice work, Secret Service: “Delonte West, signed by the Mavs prior to this season, will not be able to join the team because of a criminal record that did not pass the White House’s background check, the Mavs confirmed Sunday.”
I am willing to bet any sum of money that you care to name that Delonte West was not planning to use his NBA career as a vehicle for a presidential...
The Gathering Storm
I think everyone trying to finely parse the latest recess appointment controversy, whether calmly and sagely supportive or calmly and sagely critical, is sort of missing the point. I am supportive (largely on policy grounds) but actually alarmed.
What we see over and over again is a recurrence not over legal minutia but over the basic question: “who governs?” And rhetoric about...
On Cranks And Consensus
Let’s thing of crankery as a dispositional attribute, a characterological feature of different people. Some are cranks by disposition, and some are non-cranks by disposition.
If you’re a non-crank and have basically any opinion about tax policy, you can find a comfortable non-cranky political home for yourself. There’s very little political consensus about this, so the...
Pork Chile Verde
1. Some pork.
2. White beans.
3. Green onions.
4. Cilantro.
5. Tomatillos.
6. Serrano (or jalapeno) peppers.
7. Pasilla (or anaheim) peppers.
8. Cumin seeds.
Roast 4-6, then combine 3-7 in a blender to create a slurry. Place 1, 2, and your slurry in a pot, and cook it slowly for a long time. A long time. If you want it to be spicier, put in more of the spicy peppers. If you want it to be...
LeBron James Engaged →
Some good friends of mine got engaged yesterday, too, and I couldn’t be more excited for them. Still, LeBron’s way better at dunking.
December 2011
40 posts
Evaluating The GOP Primary Field
From a liberal perspective, I think it’s clear that Ron Paul would be the best possible GOP nominee. It would put some useful pressure on Obama in terms of executive power, foreign policy, the drug war, etc. and give Bernanke & Company a powerful incentive to deliver monetary stimulus to ensure Obama’s re-election. Next up I’ll take Newt Gingrich who manages to be a comically...
Lesson of the Day
Taste the wine before you cook with it! If you braise veal shanks in incredibly astringent wine you got randomly sent by the Free To Choose Foundation, you end up with funny-tasting meat.
duh squared: Forgive the bleg →
duhsquared:
I’m just going to copy/paste this email from my wonderful roomate Greg. The work Bread for the City does is truly amazing and innovative. I’ve learned so much about DC and poverty and non profit models by living with Greg and learning about his organization, and the main thing I’ve learned is:…
For FY 2011, the Observer Media Group will post a... →
spiers:
Been dying to let that cat out of the bag for a while now.
