Category Archives: Uncategorized

Scott Lemieux points out a very silly column about the death penalty. He points out the lunacy of acting like the morality of the death penalty should be judged based on extreme cases. That is, of course, a good point. … Continue reading →

Today I was reading Scalia’s dissent in Clinton v. City of New York (the case that ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional) and was struck by one of his argument, and its applicability to the ACA case: The short of the … Continue reading →

Engine – Neutral Milk Hotel It’s going to be hard to discuss my experience seeing Jeff Mangum last night without treading a bit into the Messianic.  To start with, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is basically a sacred text. It’s … Continue reading →

Kevin Drum has an argument that I agree with in part, but strongly disagree with in another part.  He argues that if there needs to be a limiting test on Congressional power, this is obviously something that the Court can … Continue reading →

Consensus seems to be that the oral arguments on the constitutionality of the health care law did not go well today.  Couple things: 1. Beware groupthink.  I only skimmed some of the transcript and comments.  But it didn’t sound THAT … Continue reading →

Loose Ends – Bruce Springsteen (from Tracks) Keeping Me Alive – Tom Petty (from Playback – the Petty box set) (Tracks chosen to represent Petty doing his best Springsteen and Springsteen doing his best Petty. And to give you something … Continue reading →

Youngstown (live) – from the wonderful Live in New York City I’ve got a an actual review of the new Springsteen record coming up (short version: it’s quite good!), but I wanted to make a separate comment today about the … Continue reading →

Emmylou – First-Aid Kit King of the World – First-Aid Kit A pretty large chunk of my 2012 musical consumption has come from the far north Atlantic. The best song I’ve heard so far this year was from Iceland, and … Continue reading →

I’m hesitant to even waste my time mentioning this, but I do have a slightly larger point to make. So here it goes. The new big ‘scandal’ is that Barack Obama while a law student at Harvard said some nice … Continue reading →

Sunshine in Chicago – Sun Kil Moon This has got to be the best song out of Mark Kozelek in a decade.  He’s always most enjoyable doing pretty, world-weary songs but often has a tendency to let them run away … Continue reading →