http://www.reason.com/staff info@reason.com (Reason Online) http://www.pjdoland.com/chai/?v=0.1 http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127633.html <p>...Why are so many newspapers cutting editorial cartoonists? In the <em>LA Times</em>, James Rainey bleats:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;Cartoonists are disappearing like brunet anchors at Fox News&mdash;about a hundred are scratching out a living today, compared with about double that a couple of decades ago. And this presidential election cycle has been less engaging for their absence....</p></blockquote><p>Uh, no. If this campaign has been lackluster, it's because of the candidates, who are about as exciting as <a href="http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/">Herblock</a> and <a href="http://www.conradprojects.com/Contoon01.html">Conrad</a>.</p><p>I don't know if Rainey's numbers about cartoonists at papers are on target, but I do know as a consumer of cartoons (and a publisher of three excellent guys who work at papers&mdash;<a href="http://reason.com/contrib/show/670.html">Chip Bok</a>, <a href="http://reason.com/contrib/show/232.html">Henry Payne</a>, and <a href="http://reason.com/contrib/show/538.html">Scott Stantis</a>) that I haven't noticed much difficulty in finding cartoons all over the place. But Rainey's lamentation sounds like a case for hiring the handicapped. Here's his gloss on what all those cashiered cartoonists might have brought to Election 2008:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;McCain's reputed explosive temper is a tantalizing prospect,&quot; said Steve Kelley of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, &quot;as is Obama's abiding belief that there is no problem so simple that government can't find a way to waste enormous resources failing to fix it.&quot;<br /><br />On the visual side, Kelley sees something of a replay of the 1996 election between President Clinton and Sen. Bob Dole. In shorthand: &quot;Mr. Charisma against the guy who yells at kids to stay off his lawn.&quot;<br /><br />I'm worried that the loss of cartoonists&mdash;and their verve and vitality&mdash;continues to numb- and dumb-down an audience that doesn't need any help sinking into complacency.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not immediately familiar with Kelley's work, but I look forward to his anthology, which I suspect will be&nbsp;titled <em>Antidote to Laughter</em>. McCain's reputed explosive temper! Obama's abiding belief in&nbsp;whatever. I haven't felt <em>this</em> numb or dumbed-down since my Special K days. Joe Montana's <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/126721.html">textual poaching of Ziggy</a> has more depth to it.</p><p>Rainey continues:</p><blockquote><p>I might have asked The Times cartoonist to sketch out this problem but&mdash;oops&mdash;the paper ditched Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez in 2005 for reasons that remain murky. Ramirez was not replaced&mdash;part of an un-proud tradition at Tribune Co., which owns The Times and has been paring away cartoonists with some abandon.</p></blockquote><p>Here's an example of Ramirez's work, which means to my mind the Trib made the right call:</p><p><img src="http://www.reason.com/UserFiles/Image/ngillespie/toon101507.gif" border="0" width="420" height="282" /></p><p>More Rainey:</p><blockquote><p>The latest blow to the diminishing art comes in Raleigh, N.C., where the News &amp; Observer recently decided to make 33-year veteran Dwane Powell part-time and restrict him to local issues.<br /><br />What will be lost? The kind of zingers Powell fired with regularity which, in recent weeks, included: a lampoon of Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton as bulls led around by the rings in their noses by a Wall Street steer,<strong></strong>and an acid take on GOP alienation&mdash;a pair of Republican elephants so distraught over McCain they are prepared to jump into the abyss from a (flat) Planet Neocon.</p></blockquote><p>Zingers, we hardly knew ye!&nbsp;<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-onthemedia17-2008jul17,0,5884635.story">Rainey's complaint here</a>. And take a look at the cartoon used to illustrate his piece if you need further convincing that cutting their jobs ain't a good thing for art, democracy, the environment, and special ed programs everywhere:</p><p><img src="http://www.reason.com/UserFiles/Image/ngillespie/raineytoon.jpg" border="0" width="450" height="365" /></p><p>I look forward to&nbsp;Rainey's future&nbsp;commentary on how the lack of radio drama gutted American democracy in way from which we've never fully recovered. And lest we forget, please recall the outpouring of <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/printer/127123.html">trenchant commentary (read: craptacular eulogizing)&nbsp;from the quills o' cartoonists in the wake of Tim Russert's passing</a>.</p><p>And while we're on that subject, let me pimp for the feller who is, to my mind, the best editorial cartoonist on the job today, The Onion's &quot;Kelly&quot;:</p><p><img src="http://www.reason.com/UserFiles/Image/ngillespie/kellyrussertcarlin_article.jpg" border="0" width="450" height="324" /></p><p><a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/cartoon/jul-14-2008">More Kelly here.</a></p> 127633@http://www.reason.com Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:13:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127620.html <p><strong>reason</strong> science correspondent Ronald Bailey is in England to report on Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, which is hosting a conference on global catastrophic risks. Will the world end with a bang or a whimper? Fire or ice? And just who is Sir Crispin Tickell and why is headlining the conference's first night?</p><p><a href="http://reason.com/news/show/127610.html">Read all about it here</a>.</p> 127620@http://www.reason.com Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:30:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127611.html <p>&nbsp;Alan Vanneman blogs a <em>Human Events</em>-related sales pitch from truthteller Ann Coulter:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;If you've been wondering why the financial industry has been in meltdown&mdash;and taking your 401(k) or investment portfolio down with it&mdash;now you know.<br /><br />Let's face it: The former frat boys who populate Wall Street today understand economics about as well as the pinko professors whose courses they snored through.<br /><br />That's why betting their entire industry on &quot;subprime&quot; loans to people with no jobs and no collateral made sense to them&mdash;and why betting the entire U.S. economy on the likes of Hillary and Obama makes sense to them now.<br /><br />These jokers don't even know what's in their own self-interest, much less yours. Trusting them with your money is like trusting Bill Clinton to babysit your underage niece.&quot;</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://avanneman.blogspot.com/2008/07/emails-on-my-mind.html">More here</a>.</p><p>I'm not sure I understand, much less agree with, Coulter on financial markets, but is it wrong of me to want her&nbsp;<a href="http://reason.com/blog/show/127605.html">to replace Ben Bernanke at the Fed</a>?</p> 127611@http://www.reason.com Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:45:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127602.html <p>The leader of the Roman Catholic Church speaking at a youth conference in the country that produced Midnight Oil:</p><blockquote><p>The world's natural resources are being squandered in the pursuit of &quot;insatiable consumption,&quot; Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday in a speech urging followers to care more for the environment and reconnect with the principle of peace</p><p>Benedict, speaking to more than 200,000 pilgrims gathered for the Roman Catholic church's youth festival, expanded on a theme that has led him to be dubbed &quot;the green pope.&quot; The crowd, massed on a disused wharf in Australia's largest city, regularly erupted in cheers that gave the event the feel of a sporting event.</p><p>&quot;Some of you come from island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising water levels; others from nations suffering the effects of devastating drought,&quot; the pope said, referring to global warming.</p><p>He noted that during his more than 20-hour flight from Rome to Sydney he had a bird's eye view of a vast swath of the world that inspired awe and introspection.</p><p>&quot;Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption,&quot; he said.</p><p>Types of &quot;poison&quot; are afflicting the world's social environment, he said, such as substance abuse, along with the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation, for which he blamed television and the Internet.</p></blockquote><p>I'm sure there's nothing like a 20-hour first-class flight&nbsp;over the planet to give a fella real perspective&nbsp;about how much the&nbsp;Intertubes are degrading&nbsp;everything.</p><p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080717/ap_on_re_au_an/australia_pope">More here (not that you need it).</a></p><p>Pope Benedict slags <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/109762.html">gay marriage here</a>.</p> 127602@http://www.reason.com Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:46:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127601.html <p>From the AP:</p><blockquote><p><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HOMELESS_BEATING?SITE=OHCIN&amp;SECTION=AMERICAS&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">Hippie town's homeless attack portends trend</a></p></blockquote><p>In Bushitler's America, even the hippies are mad as hell!</p> 127601@http://www.reason.com Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:04:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127579.html <p>A new Reuters/Zogby poll of likely voters in the presidential race says:</p><blockquote><p>More than a month after kicking off the general election campaign, Obama leads McCain by 47 percent to 40 percent. That is slightly better than his 5-point cushion in mid-June, shortly after he clinched the Democratic nomination fight against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.</p><p>But Obama's 22-point advantage in June among independents, a critical voting bloc that could swing either way in the November election, shrunk to 3 points during a month in which the candidates battled on the economy and Obama was accused of shifting to the centre on several issues....</p></blockquote><p>Voters seem more interested in the economy than anything else:</p><blockquote><p>The economy was ranked as the top issue by nearly half of all likely voters, 47 percent. The Iraq war, in second place, trailed well behind at 12 percent. Energy prices was third at 8 percent.</p></blockquote><p>And what about candidates Ralph Nader and Bob Barr?:</p><blockquote><p>When independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, who are both in the process of trying to add their names to state ballots, are included in the survey Obama's margin over McCain grows to 10 percentage points, 46 percent to 36 percent.</p><p>Nader and Barr each picked up 3 percent, but nearly all of their support came from McCain.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKN1535315320080716?sp=true">More here</a>.</p> 127579@http://www.reason.com Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:37:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127578.html <p><em>Los Angeles Times</em>' blogger Andrew Malcolm writes:</p><blockquote><p>When <strong><a href="http://topics.latimes.com/politics/people/george-w-bush" target="_blank">President Bush</a></strong> ordered the surge in January, 2007, [Sen. Barack] Obama said, &quot;I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse,&quot;&nbsp; a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he acknowledged progress, but maintained his position that political progress was lacking.</p><p>Tuesday, while Obama gave a speech on foreign policy, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/07/14/2008-07-14_barack_obama_purges_web_site_critique_of.html" target="_blank">the New York Daily News</a> was first to notice the removal of parts of <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq" target="_blank">Obama's campaign site</a> listing the Iraq troop surge as part of &quot;The Problem.&quot; An Obama spokeswoman said it was just part of an &quot;update&quot; to &quot;reflect changes in current events,&quot; as our colleague Frank James <a href="http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/obama_website_softens_surgebas.html" target="_blank">notes in the Swamp</a>. The update includes a new section on the rise of al-Qaeda violence in Afghanistan.</p></blockquote><p>More, including a video comparing older Obama statements with newer ones by his spokesman, <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/07/obama-surge.html">here</a>. Malcolm concludes that this sort of thing is &quot;a reminder of how carefully voters must listen during these last four campaign months.&quot; Which is good advice, regardless of the candidate and the issue at hand.</p> 127578@http://www.reason.com Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:03:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127577.html <p>Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is addressing an NAACP convention in Cincinnati today. His remarks touch on education and here's a preview courtesy of the Cincy <em>Enquirer</em>:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;If I am elected president, school choice for all who want it, an expansion of opportunity scholarships and alternative certification for teachers will all be part of a serious agenda of education reform,&quot; McCain said in the excerpts.</p><p>&quot;After decades of hearing the same big promises from the public education establishment, and seeing the same poor results, it is surely time to shake off old ways and to demand new reforms,&quot; he said. &quot;That isn't just my opinion. It is the conviction of parents in poor neighborhoods across this nation who want better lives for their children.&quot;</p></blockquote><p>McCain's rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) spoke to the same group on Monday. The Enquirer's gloss: &quot;Obama [said] he would push the government to provide more education and economic assistance, but he also urged blacks to demand more of themselves.&quot;</p><p><a href="http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/NEWS0108/307160019/1055/NEWS&amp;GID=7cl+SCoKQHn08+o0aRiX53biHGgHIKNYe7OPxtVwA7U%3D">More here</a>.</p><p><a href="http://reason.com/topics/topic/231.html"><strong>reason</strong> on education here</a>.</p><p><strong>Update:</strong> If you're interested in McCain's full remarks to the NAACP, <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/07/16/remarks_by_john_mccain_to_the_99th_annual_naacp_convention/">go here.</a>&nbsp;More details&nbsp;from the education section:</p><blockquote><p>When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet...minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children. Some parents may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private school. Many will choose a charter school. No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity. </p><p>We should also offer more choices to those who wish to become teachers. Many thousands of highly qualified men and women have great knowledge, wisdom, and experience to offer public school students. But a monopoly on teacher certification prevents them from getting that chance. You can be a Nobel Laureate and not qualify to teach in most public schools today. They don't have all the proper credits in educational &quot;theory&quot; or &quot;methodology&quot;&mdash;all they have is learning and the desire and ability to share it. If we're putting the interests of students first, then those qualifications should be enough.</p><p>If I am elected president, school choice for all who want it, an expansion of Opportunity Scholarships, and alternative certification for teachers will all be part of a serious agenda of education reform.</p></blockquote><p>That's pretty good rhetoric, for sure (and I say that as someone who would prefer the feds stay out of education). &quot;Education presidents&quot; have a way of disappointing their supporters, but those are some pretty powerful statements and it will be interesting to see if a) anyone really cares what presidential candidates think about education, b) if and how Obama responds, and c) how the teachers unions respond.</p> 127577@http://www.reason.com Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:28:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127569.html <p>Libertarian Democrat Terry Michael takes issue with the <em>Wash Post</em>'s new maxi-series on the unsolved murder in 2001 of Chandra Levy:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;The Chandra Levy case captivated the world.&quot;</p><p>You can see those breathless words for yourself if you navigate to a washingtonpost.com <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071103253.html?hpid=artslot" target="_blank">web page</a> posted Friday, July 11 touting a 12-part series about a dead intern (yes, you read that correctly: twelve!), the first installment of which was plastered across the front page of the Post's Sunday print edition two days later.</p><p>Stop whatever you're doing and think about that.&nbsp; Reporting staffs are being decimated all over the American daily newspaper landscape.&nbsp; Seasoned journalists are being forced into early retirement buy-outs.&nbsp; Hundred-year-old news values--objectivity, fairness, dispassion, fact-based arguments, proportionality--are being trashed in an infotainment media culture that dumbs down public discourse to verbal food fights, featuring talking-pointed-heads on cable &quot;news&quot; channels.</p><p>And the paper of record in the capital of the free world, a few miles up the road from where Jefferson and Madison understood the importance of the printed word to our experiment in liberty, has used its investigative and metro staff resources to publish a 12 part (twelve!!!) tabloid-style series pandering to the prurient interests of readers captivated by the unsolved murder of an intern.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.terrymichael.net/Htm_SiteArticles/ChandraLevyAndTheNewWaPoJournalism.htm">More here.</a></p><p><strong>reason</strong>'s Matt Welch defended the Chandra Levy coverage back in August 2001. <a href="http://mattwelch.com/OJRsave/OJRsave/Condit.htm">Read that here</a>.&nbsp;</p> 127569@http://www.reason.com Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:08:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127555.html <p>Former pro wrestler and Minnesota Gov. Jesse &quot;The Mind&quot; Ventura has issued a definitive statement that he's not going to run for the Senate seat being contested by Norm &quot;Death Warmed Over&quot; Coleman and Al &quot;Whatever Happened to Davis?&quot; Franken. Well, sort of:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;I'll tell you now I'm not going to run at this moment.&quot;</p></blockquote><p>Spoken like a true, er, statesman? <a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/07/no-senate-run-f.html">More here</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127462.html">Background here</a>.</p> 127555@http://www.reason.com Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:05:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127536.html <p>Alan Vanneman sends along this dispatch from The Wash Post, in which an ex-diplomat has been sent to jail for being, well, not very diplomatic:</p><blockquote><p>A retired Foreign Service officer was sentenced yesterday to one year in prison for making threats against Arab American Institute President <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/James+Zogby?tid=informline">James Zogby</a> and other employees there. </p><p>W. Patrick Syring, 50, who served two tours in Beirut during his 25-year <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Department+of+State?tid=informline">State Department</a> career, pleaded guilty to violating civil rights laws. The charges stem from messages he left at AAI in the midst of the 2006 war between Israel and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Hezbollah?tid=informline">Hezbollah</a>. </p><p>&quot;The only good Arab is a dead Arab,&quot; Syring said in a profanity-laden July 2006 voice-mail message delivered to AAI, which promotes Arab American participation in elections and policy issues. </p><p>After federal prosecutors in the District accused him of intimidating the workers based on their national origin, Syring sent an incendiary message to a television station where <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Zogby+International+Inc.?tid=informline">Zogby</a> had been interviewed. In the March 2008 e-mail, Syring repeated some of the language from his phone call and accused Zogby of &quot;promoting the interest of Hezbollah, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Hamas?tid=informline">Hamas</a> and Arab terror.&quot;</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102846.html">Whole thing here</a>.</p><p>While it's easy to see why the guy washed out of the diplomatic corps, it's not fully clear to me that he should be doing jail time for his out-of-bounds comments (at least as reported in the press). I like the idea of holding&nbsp;government officials to higher standards than the rest of us, but it's not clear to me that's in play here.&nbsp;He should (and I'm assuming he will) have a tough time finding work. What say you, Hit &amp; Runners?</p><p><a href="http://avanneman.blogspot.com/">Alan Vanneman site here; always worth reading</a>.</p> 127536@http://www.reason.com Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:34:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127535.html <p>The AP reports on a summer meeting of governors (think <a href="http://www.tv.com/the-adventures-of-jimmy-neutron-boy-genius/league-of-villains/episode/355660/summary.html">League of Villains</a>) at which our duly elected officials catch up with the bandwagon that corn-based ethanol is a bad idea whose time has come&mdash;and hopefully is going, going, gone.</p><p>Here's a snapshot of reactions to the recognition that critics such as <strong>reason</strong> <a href="http://reason.com/news/show/125883.html">science correspondent Ronald Bailey</a> have been right all along in noting that corn-based ethanol mandates distort markets, deliver questionable environmental benefits, and jack the price of food:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;I truly do not believe that a food-based product should be used for energy,&quot; said Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, where almost all energy needs are met by coal. &quot;It should be used for human consumption.&quot;</p><p>Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina called the EPA requirement &quot;a totally bogus government mandate&quot; at Sunday's energy forum.</p><p>The current buzz is cellulosic ethanol, or ethanol made from plant matter. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm pitched the idea Sunday of using more wood products because of the large number of forests in her state.</p><p>Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania says his state &quot;could be to cellulosic ethanol what Iowa was to corn-based ethanol.&quot; A new state law will require a minimum of a billion gallons of fuel annually pumped in Pennsylvania come from renewable fuels.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GOVERNORS_GLOBAL_WARMING?SITE=OHCIN&amp;SECTION=AMERICAS&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">More here</a>. And before you get all excited about cellulosic ethanol, <a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/123759.html">read this</a>.</p> 127535@http://www.reason.com Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:17:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127522.html If you'd like audio versions of recent <strong>reason.tv</strong> segments&mdash;including the latest Drew Carey documentary, &quot;<a href="http://reason.tv/video/show/466.html">Banned: Welcome to Nanny State Nation</a>,&quot; and interviews with <em>Trekkies</em> director Roger Nygard, <em>It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand</em> author Jerome Tuccille, and more&mdash;<a href="http://reason.com/podcast/">go here</a>&nbsp;for easy-to-download MP3 files. 127522@http://www.reason.com Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:22:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127506.html <p>The nation's official (read: subsidized up the ying-yang) passenger rail system, AMTRAK, is swinging into action to secure its customers' safety:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;We want to show we're playing defense&quot; against would-be terrorists, says Amtrak security chief Bill Rooney. &quot;Our focus is counterterrorism. We're thinking along the lines of a Madrid or a London.&quot;</p><p>Rail bombings in those cities in 2004 and 2005 together killed hundreds of passengers and sparked fears in the United States that terrorists will strike the nation's largely unsecured rail system.</p></blockquote><p>What to expect from the new measures? &quot;Rail passengers from coast to coast will be subject to random security checks and may have their luggage scanned for explosives beginning this fall,&quot; sez <em>USA Today</em>.</p><p>The Department of Homeland Security notes there is no imminent threat to AMTRAK (arguably that's because terrorists want to kill people, not depopulated <a href="http://goinside.com/99/1/amtrak.html">legacies of the Nixon years</a>).</p><p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2008-07-10-amtrak_N.htm">More here</a>.</p><p><strong>Disclosure:</strong> I take the AMTRAK service between Washington, DC and New York City several times a year and find that it's much easier and generally more reliable than flying that same distance. Why they don't add a wireless connection is beyond me and, apparently, beyond them, too.</p><p>The route between DC and Boston is, by most accounts, the only AMTRAK line that actually pulls in more money than it lays out in direct costs (some Amtrak lines <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/110356.html">lose over $200 per passenger</a>). <a href="http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;rls=TSHA,TSHA:2006-07,TSHA:en&amp;q=site%3areason%2ecom+amtrak">As this vast archive of <strong>reason</strong> stories</a> about AMTRAK attests, it is a service that will a) never cover its costs and b) never be killed (especially now that there's a spate of <a href="http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&amp;hl=en&amp;ned=us&amp;q=amtrak+ridership">&quot;AMTRAK&nbsp;Is Back&quot;</a> stories in the press, a genre as cyclical and short-lived as the &quot;<a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/28705.html">new drug of choice</a>&quot; story; look for the service to start begging for more subsidies the more passengers it gets).</p> 127506@http://www.reason.com Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:34:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127505.html <p>Back in the olden days, when GOP presidential candidate John McCain admitted he knew nada about economics, he brought in failed presidential candidate and former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) to burnish his cred. Gramm's main contribution to date? Either fearlessly telling the truth or being a headline-grabbing, poll-killing idjit. You decide:</p><blockquote><p>McCain was already running into a stiff headwind because of an ailing economy, and his task only became tougher after former senator Phil Gramm...suggested that the United States has &quot;become a nation of whiners.&quot; </p><p>Gramm, who has helped shape McCain's presidential campaign and is a close friend of the candidate, expressed no regret on Thursday for the comments he made in an interview with the Washington Times, saying: &quot;I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true.&quot; </p></blockquote><p>McCain's official response?</p><blockquote><p>Gramm &quot;does not speak for me. I speak for me. I strongly disagree,&quot; McCain said during a press availability here, which took place at the same time Gramm was wrapping up a discussion with the Wall Street Journal editorial board about the candidate's economic program. </p><p>&quot;The person here in Michigan who just lost his job isn't suffering from a mental recession,&quot; McCain added. Asked whether Gramm would play a significant role in shaping economic policy in a McCain administration, the senator joked: &quot;I think Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus, although I'm not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that.&quot;...</p><p>For the first time since August 2002, the Labor Department said, every metropolitan area registered unemployment rate increases over the previous year, with Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn leading the way with a 2.1-percentage-point leap. The region lost 47,400 payroll jobs, nearly double the next highest job-loss total, in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR2008071003085.html">More here</a>.</p><p>I almost think McCain should lose for the Belarus joke alone. </p><p>What say you, Hit &amp; Run readers? Are we a nation of whiners? Or a nation of <em>winners</em>?</p><p>John McCain's <a href="http://www.eyesonobama.com/blog/content/id_21922/title_McCains-Eight-Most-Inappropriate-Jokes">eight greatest gag lines</a>.</p><p><strong>Bonus:</strong> In a 1978 <strong>reason</strong> article, Phil Gramm, then an economics professor at Texas A&amp;M&nbsp;wrote:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;We might rely on collectivism to produce goods that we don't really need and goods we have a lot of substitutes for; but those things that we must have&mdash;that we cannot live without, at least in the manner in which we choose to live&mdash;those things have got to be reserved for private production, not government production.&quot;</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/30315.html">Click here</a> to see exactly what changed Gramm's mind in&nbsp;1997. The answer may surprise you.</p> 127505@http://www.reason.com Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:51:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127491.html <p>The real Bill Wyman&mdash;the journalist, not the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Wyman">Humbert Humbert&nbsp;Rolling Stones bassist</a>&mdash;asks:</p><blockquote><p>What if Pixar released a ferocious broadside attacking the American way of life and the movie reviewers didn't notice?...</p><p>If Michael Moore, or Oliver Stone, or, God forbid, some effete French director, had crafted a feature film that was a thinly disguised political broadside portraying Americans as recumbent tubbos who moved around on sliding barcaloungers with built-in video screens and soft drinks always at the ready, don't you think there'd be some sort of notice taken? </p><p>But Pixar does it and ...</p><p>... the reviewers barely mention it. The new Pixar film, <em>Wall-E</em>, does indeed, as you have heard, tell the story of an adorable robot working alone on a depopulated earth. There's an obvious ecological lesson here, and this has been duly noted, along with mentions of unspecified &quot;themes&quot; and &quot;messages.&quot;</p><p>But what was rarely analyzed in the reviews is that the earth is deserted because a Wal-Mart-like company called &quot;Buy n' Large&quot; has filled it up with trash, and the departed humans, expanded to Big Gulp size, are contentedly gorging themselves amid the comforts of a flying Club Med, where they slide around on those carts, on which they watch TV continuously without even having to sit up completely. While some of the better reviewers mention the beglotted humanoid forms, I found it odd that most mainstream reviewers didn't bother to point out what the film was saying.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.hitsville.org/2008/06/30/what-if-pixar-released-a-ferocious-broadside-attacking-the-america-way-of-life-and-the-movie-reviewers-didnt-notice/">More here</a>, at Wyman's interesting Hitsville blog.</p><p>As someone who saw <em>Wall-E</em> the day after it opened, I've got a slightly different question: Why didn't reviewers say that <a href="http://www.fandango.com/walle_102903/movieoverview?wssac=131&amp;wssaffid=11828_MoviesDotCom">the&nbsp;film sucks eggs</a>? The goddamn thing, in my humble and useless opinion, was as bloated, slow-moving, and&nbsp;soft&nbsp;as the fat fucks populating the film like <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0002916/images/2005/08/06/twins%5B1%5D.jpg">so many twins riding on motor scooters</a>. It even somehow manages to misuse Fred Willard, who is every bit as much a national resource we desperately need to exploit as the ANWR oil reserves.</p><p><strong>reason</strong> gives thumbs up to Pixar's <em>Toy Story</em> <a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/30136.html">here</a>; fat people <a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/29240.html">here</a>.</p><blockquote><p>&nbsp;</p></blockquote> 127491@http://www.reason.com Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:16:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127490.html <p>Andy Guess of Inside Higher Ed writes up a recent study that seeks to quantify errors in citations in scholarly papers. The results are more than a bit disturbing:</p><blockquote><p>As it turns out, scholars have already done some work quantifying problem citations, divided into two categories, &quot;incorrect references&quot; and &quot;quotation errors.&quot; The authors of the paper, J. Scott Armstrong of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and Malcolm Wright of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, write of the former type, &quot;This problem has been extensively studied in the health literature ... 31 percent of the references in public health journals contained errors, and three percent of these were so severe that the referenced material could not be located.&quot;</p><p>More serious than such botched references are articles that incorrectly quote a cited paper or, as the authors put it, &quot;misreport findings.&quot; For example, in the same study of health literature³, they write, &quot;authors' descriptions of previous studies in public health journals differed from the original copy in 30 percent of references; half of these descriptions were unrelated to the quoting authors' contentions.&quot;</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://insidehighered.com/layout/set/print/news/2008/07/08/citation">Whole story here</a>.</p> 127490@http://www.reason.com Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:08:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127467.html <p><a href="http://gertrudestein.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/gertrude-stein%E2%80%99s-biographical-body-more-than-remains/"><img src="http://www.reason.com/UserFiles/Image/ngillespie/gertrudestein18741946alicebtoklas.jpg" border="0" width="250" height="282" align="right" /></a>Via the interesting and entertaining website <a href="http://www.nybarfly.com/">NY Barfly</a>&nbsp;comes this <em>NY Times</em> tale of the cost of social progress: Rubyfruit Bar and Grill, a 14-year-old establishment&nbsp;catering to lesbians is closing because the closet just isn't as full in these Sodomite end of days:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;Back then in 1994 there wasn't this liberation yet for lesbian women, so it became a haven with private, intimate dinners, great wines, a place to hold hands and feel comfortable being out and having dinner,&quot; said Rubyfruit's owner, Debra C. Fierro, who told customers of her decision to close the business at a private event last Monday, then publicly announced her decision over the weekend. &quot;Here we are in 2008, where they no longer need to have their own place. They can go anywhere and do whatever they want. It's kind of a good thing, I guess.&quot;</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/pride-month-letdown-lesbian-bar-will-close/">More here</a>.</p><p>Rita Mae Brown's groundbreaking novel, <em>Rubyfruit Jungle</em>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rubyfruit-Jungle-Rita-Mae-Brown/dp/055327886X/reasonmagazineA/">on sale here</a>.</p> 127467@http://www.reason.com Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:20:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127464.html <p>Here are the top 10 most-popular baby names for boys and girls in 1950:</p><blockquote><p>1. James / Linda<br />2. Robert / Mary<br />3. John / Patricia<br />4. Michael / Barbara<br />5. David / Susan<br />6. William / Nancy<br />7. Richard / Deborah<br />8. Thomas / Sandra<br />9. Charles / Carol<br />10. Gary / Kathleen</p></blockquote><p>Here's the same list, updated in 2007:</p><blockquote><p>1. Jacob / Emily<br />2. Michael / Isabella<br />3. Ethan / Emma<br />4. Joshua / Ava<br />5. Daniel / Madison<br />6. Christopher / Sophia<br />7. Anthony / Olivia<br />8. William / Abigail<br />9. Matthew / Hannah<br />10. Andrew / Elizabeth</p></blockquote><p>What's most impressive is how the top baby names, like the top-selling records or most-watched TV shows or you-name-it, command less and less in terms of market share:</p><blockquote><p>The diversity in U.S. <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/storytext/mostpopularbabynameschangedramatically/28165897/SIG=124fe7ggr/*http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070821_ap_infant_sites.html">baby names</a> has exploded since the 1950s. Back then, a quarter of all boys and girls got one of the top 10 baby names, according to Laura Wattenberg, author of &quot;The Baby Name Wizard&quot; (Broadway, 2005). In recent times, the top 10 names account for only one tenth of all baby names, Wattenberg writes. <a href="http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager">Her blog has an interactive tool</a> that displays the historical popularity of thousands of names from the 1880s to now.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080708/sc_livescience/mostpopularbabynameschangedramatically;_ylt=Am7oSDVXjfxFk37Jf.jXHwKs0NUE">More here</a>.</p><p>My favorite, probably misheard, baby name: In the late 1990s, in a park in Huntsville, Texas I&nbsp;swear I&nbsp;heard a mother call her son <a href="http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/propox_ids.htm">Darvon</a>. Given that Huntsville is a prison town (indeed, a death-chamber town) filled with a&nbsp;large substance-abuse community, that made some sense to me.</p><p><strong>reason</strong> on the glorious and liberating proliferation of <a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/30975.html">just about everything here</a>.</p><p><strong>Update: </strong>Commenter Kevrob points the way to the <a href="http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/index.html">Bad Baby Name Site</a>.</p> 127464@http://www.reason.com Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:05:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127462.html <p><img src="http://www.reason.com/UserFiles/jesseventura.jpg" border="0" width="389" height="514" align="right" />ABC's Jake Tapper is reporting on rumors that former Minnesota Gov. Jesse &quot;The Body&quot; Ventura may get into the Senate race between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken. It sure would be fun to watch:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;I'm not a politician, I'm a statesman,&quot;&nbsp;[Ventura] told Wineheads. &quot;I do one term, and then I go back to the private sector. If I get back into the fray again this year, it's only because I've been gone five years back to the private sector. That's what I did when I was mayor. That's a statesman. That's not a career politician.&quot;</p><p>Ventura said of Coleman, &quot;the guy has not had a job in the private sector his entire adult life. He's been collecting government checks since the day he got out of law school and went to work for the attorney general's office. So when Norm Coleman tells people in the private sector he feels their pain, how? He's never been in it. At least Al Franken knows what the private sector is. I would like to send him out and get a real job in the private sector.&quot;</p><p>Ventura called Franken an opportunist and a carpetbagger. &quot;He hasn't lived here in 30 years, and he's only coming back to Minnesota for the convenience of his own political agenda. Why didn't he run in the states he was living in? Clearly, for being a Harvard graduate, he's not too smart on taxes, is he? Everybody laughs, saying I came from wrestling. But at least I knew when I wrestled in 40 states, I had to pay taxes in those 40 states. You just have to do the paperwork. I find it unbelievable that someone who could go to Harvard didn't know that or let it slip. Blaming his accountant is worse, because now he's turning into a politician. He's not accepting responsibility for his actions.&quot;</p></blockquote><p>Polls currently have Coleman beating Franken 52 percent to 40 percent. With Ventura in the race, that turns to Coleman with 41 percent, Franken with 31 percent, and Ventura with 23 percent.</p><p><a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/jesse-ventura-t.html">More here.</a></p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Body-Slam-Jesse-Ventura-Story/dp/0312972024/reasonmagazineA/">Tapper's 1999 bio of Ventura here</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/30973.html"><strong>reason</strong>'s Q&amp;A with Ventura here</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/126554.html"><strong>reason</strong>'s Damon W.&nbsp;Root on Ventura's &quot;long, sad decline&quot; into 9/11 paranoia among other things,&nbsp;here</a>.</p> 127462@http://www.reason.com Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:40:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127461.html <p>Iran has launched nine missiles, as a sign that it's got some push-back capabilities in response to possible attacks from Israel or the U.S., <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0937347120080709">according to news reports</a>.</p><p>So how are presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)&nbsp;and John McCain (R-Ariz.) responding?</p><p>Here's Obama: </p><blockquote><p>&quot;I think what this underscores is the need for us to create a kind of policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behavior. And, frankly, we just have not been able to do that over the last several years. Partly because we're not engaged in direct diplomacy.&quot;</p></blockquote><p>Obama has also suggested we need economic sanctions against Iran. And here's McCain:</p><blockquote><p>&quot;Iran's most recent missile tests demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel. Ballistic missile testing coupled with Iran's continued refusal to cease its nuclear activities should unite the international community in efforts to counter Iran's dangerous ambitions.&quot;</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/09/obama-says-iranian-missile-tests-prove-need-for-diplomacy/">More here</a>.</p><p>And here's <em>The New Yorker</em>'s Seymour Hersh on stepped-up covert operations against Iran, which were suspended (according to press reports) in the immediate run-up to the invastion of Iraq:</p><blockquote><p>Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh/?currentPage=all">More here</a>.</p><p><strong>reason</strong> on &quot;<a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/122023.html">the next Iranian Revolution</a>.&quot;</p> 127461@http://www.reason.com Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:42:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127459.html <p>...or maybe it's just the owners of NASCAR. From Politics:</p><blockquote><p>Voters should not expect to see either John McCain or Barack Obama making appearances at NASCAR events in <a href="http://www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com/">Daytona Beach Florida</a>, or a dozen other speedways across the country before Election Day. According to officials from the International Speedway Corporation (ISC), which owns the Daytona International Speedway, as well as major facilities in both candidates' home states of Arizona and Illinois, the company is implementing a firm policy that prohibits political candidates from campaigning in any capacity at their racing events. </p><p><em>Politics</em> was informed of the policy after a credentialing request had been denied to cover an unofficial appearance in Daytona by Libertarian Party presidential nominee, <a href="http://www.bobbarr2008.com/splash/video/?s0618">Bob Barr</a>. ISC officials explained that credentialing a political reporter would, in their view, constitute the facilitation of a campaign event, in sharp violation of their policy.</p><p>The officials declined to provide details of the policy, and offered only a vague explanation of when the policy had gone into effect. But they expressed a belief that fans attending events at their speedways are sensitive to what might be construed as intrusive political activity.</p></blockquote><p>Needless to say, that policy wasn't in&nbsp;place earlier this year when motoring enthusiast Rudy Giuliani campaigned at the Daytona Speedway.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.campaignline.com/stories/?StoryID=00920057-1422-17E0-F849D21D676EF2CE">More here</a>.</p><p>So fans attending events might not want to be burdened by politicians showing up (and who can blame them?), but it's worth remembering that NASCAR and racetrack owners (and others involved in stadiums, arenas, and what-have-you) are never shy about getting public subsidies for their venues. Even when the venue is a <a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/119238.html">NASCAR museum</a>.</p> 127459@http://www.reason.com Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:37:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127440.html <p>I just clicked through this story at Drudge headlined &quot;<a href="http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/08/FreshH20.ART_ART_07-08-08_B2_R9AMG2Q.html?type=rss&amp;cat=&amp;sid=101">Ohio town split over teacher accused of preaching...</a>.&quot;</p><p>It takes you to a <em>Columbus Dispatch</em> tale of John Freshwater, who might be bounced from his job as a Mount Vernon eighth-grade science teacher for pushing creationism in the classroom:</p><blockquote><p>An investigator for the district found that Freshwater's teachings undermined science education in the public school district and that his students had to be re-taught science principles when they got into higher grades.</p></blockquote><p>Far more important, to my mind, is what got buried toward the end of the piece:</p><blockquote><p>The family of one of Freshwater's former students who had a cross burned onto his arm by the teacher sued the school district and Freshwater last month. The suit says the boy's civil rights were violated.</p></blockquote><p>I'm as pro-evolution as the next mammal or Pokemon desperately trying to rise above both nature and nurture, but I really think burning a cross onto a student's arm deserves to be in the first paragraph.</p><p>I did a quick Google search to get more background on the story&nbsp;and came across <em>National Review</em>'s Kevin Williamson thinking the same thoughts (only more quickly and succinctly):</p><blockquote><p>I might have written this <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/08/FreshH20.ART_ART_07-08-08_B2_R9AMG2Q.html?type=rss&amp;cat=&amp;sid=101"><em>Columbus Dispatch </em>story </a>a little differently. Seems a teacher in Ohio is going to be fired after accusations that he has improperly inserted his personal opinions into the curriculum....They're arguing about whether the guy went a little too Genesis during eighth-grade science when he <em>burned a cross into a student's arm? </em>Egad. Mightn't that have been a little higher in the story?</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGZkZWJhZTcwNTNkYWUwZTUwM2VkNTg0ZGI2NTk0ZjQ=">More here</a>.</p><p><strong>Update: </strong><em>National Review</em>'s Williamson pointed me to this additional story. Freshwater has been fired and seems likely to appeal his dismissal. Snippets from the story:</p><blockquote><p>Freshwater's friend Dave Daubenmire defended him.<br /><br />&quot;With the exception of the cross-burning episode....I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district,&quot; he told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published Friday.<br /><br />Several students interviewed by investigators described Freshwater, who has been employed by the school district located 40 miles northeast of Columbus for 21 years, as a great guy and their favorite teacher....<br /><br />Freshwater used a science tool known as a high-frequency generator to burn images of a cross on students' arms in December, the report said. Freshwater told investigators he simply was trying to demonstrate the device on several students and described the images as an &quot;X,&quot; not a cross. But pictures show a cross, the report said.</p></blockquote><p>Daubenmire sounds like a great friend, but that's a pretty big exception, don't you think?</p><p>The longer story and an image of the cross on a student's arm <a href="http://www.keprtv.com/news/national/20614599.html">is here</a>.</p><p>I am tempted to turn this into a pro-school-voucher story because, well, you know, nothing bad ever happens at private schools. But I think in the end it might just be an anti-school story. Or an anti-Ohio story. Or maybe just a summer vacation story.</p> 127440@http://www.reason.com Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:12:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127431.html <p><a href="http://extrememortman.com/">Howard &quot;Extreme&quot; Mortman</a> points to culinary dictates of the ruling junta at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. From a Rocky Mountain News report on the mandatory inclusion of blue/purple foods, among other things:</p><blockquote><p>The Democratic National Convention host committee guidelines for caterers suggest serving mostly organic fare or Colorado products, and avoiding fried foods. The guidelines even suggest color schemes on plates.</p><p>&quot;This is the food police,&quot; groused Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown on Monday. &quot;These people stood in line too long at the Aspen Food and Wine Festival.&quot; ...</p><p>DNC host committee meal guidelines</p><p>* Half a meal made up of fruits and/or veggies</p><p>* At least three of the following five colors on a plate - red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white (garnishes don't count)</p><p>* No fried foods</p><p>* At least 70 percent of ingredients (based on precooked weight) certified organic and/or grown or raised in Colorado</p><p>* Use of reusable serviceware</p><p>* No bottled water, use pitchers instead</p><p>* Encourage staff to use alternative modes of transportation</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.extrememortman.com/food-politics/food-police-from-the-files-of-police-squad/">More here</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/127137.html">Recently dead comic</a> George Carlin asks &quot;Where's the blue food?&quot; below:</p><p> </p><p><strong>Update: reason</strong>'s Katherine Mangu-Ward blogged the DNC's quest for healthy food back on June 25, noting that there was also a problem with getting organic fanny packs for attendees. And she commented on the manifold challenges facing the official &quot;director of greening,&quot; Andrea Robinson:</p><blockquote><p>I'm sure Ms. Robinson will be able to handle these challenges. After all, what better preparation could there be for running the Verdant Directorate than a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0732365/bio">degree in environmental studies from UC Santa Barbara</a>, a guest role as &quot;Barbara&quot; on <em>West Wing</em> season 3, episode 4 (&quot;<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0745725/">Ways and Means</a>&quot;), and an appearance as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0732365/">Party Guest/Bridesmaid</a> in <em>Nutty Professor II: The Klumps?</em></p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127184.html">More here</a>.</p> 127431@http://www.reason.com Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:47:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127427.html <p>Still <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/119229.html">more evidence</a> for <a href="http://www.reason.com/news/printer/33866.html">the Roth Effect</a>, the idea that reality is simply far too weird for novelists to credibly portray it in fiction:</p><blockquote><p>[Adolph Hitler] would often break from the serious nature of waging his campaign to &quot;pull the legs&quot; of his entourage of generals and hangers on. </p><p>His favourite victim was the Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering, who was notoriously fond of awarding himself medals and decorations. </p><p>According to the book by the last surviving member of his bunker, Hitler recounted how Mrs Goering found her husband waving a baton over his underwear in the bedroom and asked him what he was doing. </p><p>&quot;He replied: &quot;I am promoting my underpants to OVERpants&quot;&quot;, Hitler then joked. </p><p>Hitler was said to be so proud of his joke that he had medals made from gold and silver paper for Goering to wear on his pyjamas. </p><p>On another occasion he noticed his official photographer Heinrich Hoffman had drunk too much and told him: &quot;Don't stand to near the fire Heini&mdash;you might burst into flames.&quot;</p></blockquote><p>These laff-riot lines come from a book to be published later this year by &quot;Rochus Misch, 90, the telephonist in the Berlin Bunker where Hitler spent his last days before killing himself in April 1945.&quot;</p><p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/2185507/Adolf-Hitler-told-bad-jokes-about-Nazi-friends.html">More here</a>.</p><p>Random question: <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127151.html">Does this change Pat Buchanan's opinion of World War II</a>?</p> 127427@http://www.reason.com Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:17:00 EDTgillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie)