Over at the New Republic, Marc Tracy asks “Why Is the NFL’s Trade Deadline So Boring?” I won’t tell you why—that would be stealing Marc’s thunder—but I will tell you that Marc notes that “The last consequential midseason trade—the famous Herschel Walker trade that birthed the Dallas Cowboys’ dynasty—occurred in 1989.” I’m glad that someone…
Tampa Socialites Behaving Badly
What Jill hath wrought, eh? Beware of FBI agents, baring chests. Perhaps if the FBI didn’t regard itself as a favor machine for dudes trying to make it with busty married chicks* we wouldn’t be in this mess. FBI DUDE # 1: “Do you think there’s even a possibility of a crime here?” FBI DUDE…
Memo to Matt: Boehner may be bluffing, but so are the Democrats
Over at Slate, Matt Yglesias insists that President Obama doesn’t have to give an inch to House Speaker John Boehner on taxes in the upcoming fix everything we didn’t fix before lame-duck session. Because Republicans under Bush passed “temporary” tax cuts rather than permanent ones, and because those tax cuts are set to expire, Obama…
How about that Charlie Sheen? I hear he gets more tail than General Petraeus!
Glenn Greenwald devotes perhaps too many column inches to the otherwise valid point that usually when a public figure gets caught with his pants down he’s the recipient of delighted, scurrilous ridicule, but that when it’s a four-star general named Petraeus, the rules are different. So, Glenn, I’m helping. More seriously, Petraeus has one major…
New at Bright Lights: Final Fred and More
My review of Fred Astaire’s TV specials, only available on YouTube, is up at the not entirely safe for work Bright Lights Film Journal. I have additional reviews of The Hunger Games and High Noon. Links to my reviews of Fred Astaire’s 27 dancing films can be found here.
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “At least you don’t have squirrels. Am I right or am I right?” “Nah, pinching them off just stimulates new growth. You have to go for the tap root with these babies—a special little something I like to call “Essence of Beaver Tail.” “The hell of it is, if we were just…
Uniquely bad, though better than all the rest
“Mitt Romney was a uniquely bad candidate for 2012. The best of a very weak field. … Obama could hardly have had a better opponent if he had ordered him from central casting”—Megan McArdle, explaining why Obama shouldn’t have won, even though he did.
And what do they know about it?
“The only group that majority-identifies as “Pro Choice” is women of childbearing age”—Megan McArdle, explaining why Democrats don’t own the future.
Outreach to Blacks, A Republican’s User’s Guide
In the last election, Republicans have noticed that no black people voted for them, and, since they lost, they have started to worry about it. I am not black myself, but I am a sport, and so I have decided to provide a few pointers. Stop trying to prevent black people from voting. They hate…
“What’s the matter, asshole? You oblivious or something?”
New York magazine has a nice bit about execs at Random House and Penguin working out a merger as mighty hurricane Sandy bore down on Gotham. At Random House, communications director Stuart Applebaum stayed at his desk overnight on Sunday to help complete the deal. When he left Monday morning he found the street outside…