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OK, this is obviously extremely odd behaviour. But where’s the crime here? There’s no victim. There’s no lewd or offensive public display. Nothing at all. And yet this poor sod is now on the Sex Offenders’ Register for three years. Madness. If they can convict you of this, what can’t they convict you of? A
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Union Edition: About 30 people picket in front of a bank in downtown Washington, D.C., wearing big yellow signs that read: “Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters.” They shuffle about in circles, many wearing hooded sweatshirts and jeans. Their coats are draped over parking meters; their belongings sit in plastic grocery bags on the sidewalk. I
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Bob Marshall-Andrews, the independent-minded Labour MP for Medway is a Whip’s nightmare. But he’s the sort of stout citizen any parliament worth the name needs more of. Years ago, we received good value from him when we invited him to speak at my undergraduate debating society. So, it’s nice to see that he’s lost none
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Sure, Roger Federer has not been quite so magnificent this year as he has been these past three years. Defeats to Canas (twice), Nalbandian (also twice) and Djokovic in Montreal have dented his air of effortless (non-clay court) supremacy. But, seriously, how can you write an article with the headline “Federer’s Ability to Dominate May
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Mitt Romney was so desperate to serve his country in the late 1960s that rather than go to Vietnam (as he so very much wanted to) he was compelled to spend years in France as a Mormon missionary. But what about Rudy Giuliani? Glenn Greenwald has a useful reminder: Romney’s draft-avoidance isn’t quite as shameful
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Sometimes it is useful to be reminded that the English are often barely more knowledgeable about Scotland than Americans are about Canada.Today’s Guardian piece “Life Without Scotland” is by turns juvenile, irritating, superficial, irritating and ignorant. It’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek funny but it misses each and every one of its targets. Nonetheless, the most
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The Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Hope wanted to know who Gordon Brown has been inviting to dine at Chequers since he became Prime Minister. Not an unreasonable Freedom of Information request you might think – especially to a Prime Minister who pledged a new era of openness and accountability. Well, how’s that working out? Not so
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Definitely from the Department of Too Good to Check: CORRECTIVE: Paris Hilton Story Tuesday, November 13, 2007 sfgate_get_fprefs(); (11-13) 15:44 PST GAUHATI, India (AP) — In a Nov. 13 story,
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Jack Shafer explains why journalists are so keen on writing about the Hollywood wrtiers’ strike and, more to the point, why we all root for the plucky scribblers in this fight. There’s a natural hack-to-hack sympathy here that might, one would imagine, infuriate teachers or postmen or miners or train drivers whose industrial action tends
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My pal Mike Crowley’s (good!) New Republic piece on Hillary’s tough press operation is drawing lots of attention from the blogosphere. It’s a reminder that the subject hacks and bloggers like best is, well, stories about hacks and bloggers. I daresay it’s doing wonders for TNR’s web traffic today. Which reminds me that this ability
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To the extent that the United States Congress has abandoned any pretense of honouring the idea of fiscal restraint, it should be said that earmarks – or pork barrel spending – is a tiny problem when set beside the Pentagon’s budget and future spending commitments on entitlements. Still, earmarks are what folk like to huff
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The most surprising headline of the day? Step forward the brave sub-editors at The New York Times who produced this gem: In Interview, Musharraf Defends Rule by Decree Well, fancy that!
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Rupert Murdoch reveals his plans to destroy the Wall Street Journal: News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday he intends to make access to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue. “We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having one million
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For once the hype proved accurate. Black Watch, which closed its New York run yesterday, is every bit as good as the reviews, advertising and word of mouth had suggested. It goes to Sydney and Wellington next before returning to the US and Toronto next year (I think the next US venue is Norfolk, Virginia).
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Hugo Chavez is hardly the world’s greatest problem. But Spain’s King Juan Carlos shows how best to deal with this buffoon. Via Foreign Policy and a helpful correspondent, I came across this: The king of Spain told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to “shut up” Saturday during a heated exchange that soured the end of a
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Jamie Kirchik seems very upset that some unpleasant people give money to Ron Paul’s campaign and, worse, that people who have some time for Paul aren’t demanding that he hand the money back: Today I learned from Dave Weigel that the Paul campaign has no intention of returning the money it has received (and will
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In the comments to this post on Bookmanship I’m delighted to see commenter Jim make excellent use of what one would term the Foreign Poet Gambit: Personally I’d swing for the fences with: “A shame to devote so much time and money to yet another translation of a writer who does not wholly merit his
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Of course, it is too late for Tom Tancredo’s presidential ambitions. And yes, he’s a loon. But still, this advertisement he aired in Iowa repays watching. This sort of thing is terribly unpopular – and vulgar – in Washington, but there are plenty of people who will agree with the guts of what Tancredo has
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Having just made the mistake of watching Hillary Clinton deliver a stupefyingly dull speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa, I knew that Clinton’s mannequin-like delivery reminded me of something… Oh, you want substance? Check out GFR, Crowley and Ben Smith for that. Suffice it to say that Obama’s speech is a collection of a
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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. Tyne Cot Cemetery, Paschendaele, Flanders.