Let's hope this is wrong.

A Dangerous Environment

Thomas Friedman: "I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination... Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly."

This Meme Will Never Die!

Modern Lovers

How have I not heard of this awesome band before? Why didn't any of you tell me it had members who went on to join other bands like The Cars and Talking Heads? How could it be that I was so out of the loop, is it because this band broke up before the album was even released?

I blame you.

Schmaltz-y can still be amusing

It's probably the holidays, but this made me laugh. Thanks to JB.

What I'm Reading Now.

I really love Maria Kalman's blog on the NYTimes.com

There's Always Another Side

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Keeping Ravers Occupied Often Doesn't Take Any Talent

...then again sometimes it does.

Sheer Incompetence.

Everyone today (well, not everyone, just politics nerds) is writing about former Bush speechwriter' Matt Latimer who has a new book out about the final days of the Bush presidency, and GQ did one of them publicity stories about it. One anecdote Ezra Klein pulls out below, that more or less sums it up:

It begins in the moments at the bottom of the financial crisis, when serious people were saying things like "the economy is about to collapse." George W. Bush needs to do something. So he does...something.

After Chris, Jonathan Horn, and I learned about the president’s $700-billion-bailout proposal and drafted the remarks announcing it to a stunned nation, Ed said the president wanted to see us in the Oval Office. The president looked relaxed and was sitting behind the Resolute desk. He felt he’d made the major decision that everyone had been asking for. That always seemed to relax him. He liked being decisive. Excuse me, boldly decisive. The president seemed to be thinking of his memoirs. “This might go in as a big decision,” he mused.

“Definitely, Mr. President,” someone else observed. “This is a large decision.”

The problem is that Bush didn't understand his own proposal. He thought it bought low to sell high. He wanted that in the speech. Instead, it bought high to recapitalize failing banks. Eventually, this is explained to him. And he replies with a line that should serve as the epitaph for his presidency. “Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?” he asked.

Helluva question, Georgie.

What a Shot!

I didn't watch any of the Tennis matches recently going on. Apparently Federer lost. But this shot is the sickest.

The Old Spanish Embassy

From Greater Greater Washington:

The structure at the northeast corner of 16th and Fuller Streets (2801 16th Street, NW), was built as part of the ambitious project of Mrs. John B. Henderson to turn 16th street into the diplomatic and social core of Washington. It was designed by architect George Oakley Totten and erected in 1922 at a cost of $500,000.

Mrs. Henderson's goal was to give it to the United States as the home of the Vice President. After much debating and consideration, Congress declined the offer stating that the upkeep alone was too costly.

It remained unoccupied for four years, until purchased by Spain as their embassy in Washington. Spain found the building ideally suited to their needs and remained there for over 70 years.

Today, the Spanish Embassy has moved to 2375 Pennsylvania Ave. Though the building is currently empty, the plan is to turn the former embassy into a Center for Spanish-American Relations.

Beethoven's 5th, Visualized!

Skeet Shooting

Your intrepid blogger went shooting guns. Don't believe me? I have evidence.

Shadowland

Amazing dance scene from Pilobolus's SHADOWLAND: the "Transformation" excerpt.
Pilobolus is a "nonprofit modern dance theater obsessed with experimental digital media."

LED Pin Light

Korean designer sungho lee designed this light in the shape of a clothes pin so it can be attached to just about anything.

	LED pin by sungho lee This one is my favorite:

Senator Al Franken

All Villain Team-Up

(C) 1984

Debunking Indian Levitation

Via BoingBoing.

Christine Nangle

From one of the new SNL writers:

What I'm Listening To

Thanks to EW for turning me on to this. Album drops 9/9/9

Kaleidescope toy

Check this out. Thanks go to EG.

The Speed of Information

Via Beebo:

The book A Farewell to Alms is mostly about economic history, and specifically about how (in the author’s view) living standards were pretty stable and consistent for much of humanity until 1800, after which living standards increased dramatically in rich countries, and declined dramatically in poor countries, to the point where they are less well off than before 1800.

Anyway, part of this argument is a table showing how long in took for news of significant events to reach London. I thought this pretty interesting in itself–we’re not accustomed to news taking days or even hours to go around the world now, and even when reading history you usually get the impression that events were known immediately. (The dramatic speeding up of news reports around 1880 was a result of the invention and deployment of the telegraph.)

Event	Year	Distance (miles)	Days until report	Speed (mph)
Battle of the Nile	1798	2073	62	1.4
Battle of Trafalgar	1805	1100	17	2.7
Earthquake, Kutch, India	1819	4118	153	1.1
Treaty of Nanking	1842	5597	84	2.8
Charge of the Light Brigade, Crimea	1854	1646	17	4.0
Indian Mutiny, Delhi Massacre	1857	4176	46	3.8
Treaty of Tien-Sin (China)	1858	5140	82	2.6
Assassination of Lincoln	1865	3674	13	12
Assassination of Archduke Maximilian, Mexico	1867	5545	12	19
Assassination of Alexander II, St. Petersburg	1881	1309	0.46	119
Nobi Earthquake, Japan	1891	5916	1	246

It's interesting to see how long information took to move around the world in the 1800s, versus the instantaneous access we enjoy today.

They totally liked the Constitution before you.

Via Toothpastefordinner