Miniver Cheevy

Dedicated readers of my blog may recall that I've praised Orcinus for keeping a weather eye on the Bush AWOL story. He has a new summary...

I consider this essay largely supplanted by my later, hopefully more astringent, version , but you may still find it interesting. To...

Marlon Brando 1924-2004 Greatest actor in American film For a man who hated the job, Brando was a hell of an actor. He had all of the in...

Bruce Scheneier argues that Microsoft is unwilling to do what's necessary to meet their alleged goal of enhanced security with their pr...

So I stumble across this online art gallery , which describes itself as providing "The Finest in Contemporary Romantic Realism." ...

Just in case you needed one handy, the Poor Man reminds us in specific detail about how the President of the United States has lied on a ho...

I'm not going to get to see it for a few days at least, but Spiderman 2 opens today. Though I guess if you care, you don't need ...

While looking for a quote about Leni Riefenstahl , I stumbled across an article that looks closely at the incredibly weird opening title...

I've been doing some research to support a motorcycle shopping expedition. The same whirring, clanking, whining, chuffing and shud...

My human readers may want to sit this one out. But the article in question really is interesting, so you may want to be brave. Joel S...

This one's for you, MKB and Clive Thomson . Second Life is a recreational virtual environment. It's a simulated 3D world, wh...

I have a strange weakness for military humour. Strange because of my total lack of a temperament congruent with military service. Here...

So I recently encountered this very strange Japanese product. It's a little can with a pull-top in a cardboard box. The can has a pho...

Statcounter tells me that I have readers in Illinois, North Carolina, and Texas. Nice to have you here. But who the heck are all you p...

By way of DeLong , Larry McMurtry in the New York Times : I doubt myself that Bill Clinton's sex life has been all that different ...

With a delicious excerpt, Michael Bérubé rescues three paragraphs of an an excellent New Yorker article about our recent foreign policy...

I am embarassed to admit that I have personally contributed to the impending snark shortage , as reported on Daily Kos. Science Friday...

Famed software development philosopher Joel Spolsky has a little observation about how you get things done . When I was an Israeli p...

Matthew Yglesias has interesting comments on an important subject consuming the political blogosphere. We have a serious collective ...

Brad DeLong has an interesting little fantasy : There's still time for the House and Senate Republican caucuses to go to Bush and ...

Warren “ die puny humans ” Ellis offers us a dialogue with Don Bastardos of the Amazon Basin. A: I want you to teach me. D: Yes....

Snapped with my phone, on a slummy stretch of Market Street here in SF: Then it hit me I’m not going to be famous I won’t ...

It turns out that Garfield isn't a bad comic strip that got heavily merchandized. It was originally conceived as a marketing exercis...

Today is the centennial of the events in James Joyce's Ulysses . Right about the time I'm posting this, in Dublin, re-enactments are...

Yeah, yeah, you've seen it all before, you're way past this kind of thing, but it's a clever example of the type , and some o...

Now that an appropriate interval has passed, it's time for some antidotes to the treacle. For a quick hit, check out this terrific ca...

Ray Charles 1930-2004 National treasure I just found out. Words fail. Try Stanley Crouch at Slate , who says "he used every second...

The American Prospect argues against the assumption that American conservatism won the Cold War, in service of the claim that it won...

Witty local pornographer Thomas Roche , editor of the magnificent Noirotica anthologies and author of countless clever and racy stories,...

Don't go to the gym! Play video games! John Scalzi has a terrific picture of his five-year-old leaping through the air while playi...