Finals means no real post from me, just a roundup. Enjoy folks. And “finals” isn’t over until Wednesday–such is life when you have 58 pages of papers do (I have drafts of 38 of the pages done).

Baudrillard is dead, and Derrida has emerged from the grave to avenge a vampire by taking his papers back from UC-Irvine.

When I grow up, I want to be a Pirate! Cue theme from “Curse of the Black Pearl”….

There was some nasty weather in Pennsylvania on Valentine’s Day, a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain. That kind of weather is not unusual, but by the time the last flake had fallen, there was a 50-mile backup on one interstate highway and major stretches of two others had to be closed. Thousands of motorists were stranded for over 24 hours and had to be rescued by National Guardsmen with water,...

Today’s focus: People who strawman liberal bogeymen without knowing what they actually are saying. No specific news trigger, but God is it irritating.

How narrative unavoidably constrains and perverts our perception of reality (as applied to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict).

They don’t call it a blog, of course. It’s a police blotter. Powered by Movable Type. With sitemeter. And comments. And trackback. It’s a blog. Via Majikthise.

If you are, say, older than 30, you probably rode in a Checker cab at one time or another. If you’re younger than that, you’ve certainly seen the yellow leviathans rumbling down big city streets in movies. Checker was the mainstay of American tax fleets for about a half century. Their cabs were ungainly looking, but they had acres of room on the inside and were incredibly durable. Then, in the early...

If federalism sometimes leads to worse results for minority rights, and sometimes leads to better results for minority rights, why should we care about federalism?

Via Natalia Antonova, I’ve come across the truly amazing story of a little Floridian duck named Perky: A duck that survived being shot and spending two days in a refrigerator has now overcome major surgery — despite briefly dying on the operating table. Florida vets working to repair gunshot damage to Perky’s wing panicked when the duck twice stopped breathing. But they managed to resuscitate...

…but this is ridiculous.

Back when I was a little sprat, I opened my very first savings account at the Wilmington Savings Fund Society office on Market Street in that northern Delaware city, a semi-bustling burg of 80,000 or so souls dominated by the mighty Du Pont Company. Hand in hand, my mother and I walked through the revolving door and into the bank. I was stopped dead in my tracks by a magnificent mural looming on a lobby wall....

A “tag cloud” has been generated for the recent State of the Union Address by President George W. Bush. Tag clouds were originally created to indicate which tags used to label/categorize blog posts were used the most; it lists the words (or tags) used in different sizes, with the larger sizes for the most used tags. In this case, the larger words are the ones used more often in the speech. I am...

His apology at Brandeis is a good first step.

John Judis feels compelled to ask: Is the US a rogue state? Maybe we’re not. But it’s disturbing that mainstream publications like The New Republic feel compelled to ask.

If you go to school in Minnesota, and did not originally hail from a southern state which thinks ice doesn’t occur in nature, not owning a pair of ice skates is a crime punishable by excommunication.

Our coblogger Michael Stickings has “tagged” yours truly to answer a bunch of questions. His post with his thoughtful MUST READ ANSWERS is HERE. He was “tagged” by Balloon Juice’s Tim. F, who did it “here.” Note that I usually totally avoid putting these kinds of posts on TMV. I feel that too often weblogs become chatty websites that write more about Blogtopia (word...

Good morning, Northfield (and everyone else out there)! Just writing to let you know that I should be making an appearance on the radio show “World Have Your Say,” which is broadcast from 18:06 – 19:00 on BBC World Service (that’s around 1-2 PM eastern, and 12-1 PM central. All other time zone conversions you have to do yourselves). I gather you can listen to a live stream here, though...

One of my oldest readers, Mark Olson, asks if any of his liberal readers can produce a pro-America ode that does not in any way mention America’s flaws: “without the normal put downs, praising ‘America as it currently is.’” I’ll open the floor to any of our more liberal readers. But for my part, I wonder what purpose such an ode would serve. Why should we privilege a purely...

Hello readers. There are now quicktags/buttons in the comments that allow you to do strong or bold, emphasis or italics, blockquotes, and code listing. The buttons open and close the tags. Also the overzealous comment moderation monster has been reigned in some. Please be patient as it “learns” and stops moderating legitimate comments. Comments that were mistakenly moderated have been “freed”. Happy...

A reminder to those who use RSS feed reading software that the URL for The Moderate Voice feed is now: http://themoderatevoice.com/feed/ Please also note that the site is still undergoing changes associated with the content management software, so do not be alarmed if comments you add to posts do not immediately appear.

Beginning at 4 this afternoon, visitors to the Philadelphia Museum of Art will be able to see something that only a couple of months ago seemed impossible — “The Gross Clinic,” one of the great masterpieces of American realism — which was about to be snatched from the city where it was painted and had been on display for 128 years. The Thomas Eakins painting had been owned by Jefferson...

This is very creative. Enjoy!

As part of the transition of The Moderate Voice to new content management software, the URL for the RSS feed has changed. It is now: http://themoderatevoice.com/feed/ Please update your feedreader software accordingly.

May the year 2007 bring us more deposed tyrants and fewer new plots in Arlington. Upon this hope, we can all agree. Best wishes for 2007 and a cordial goodnight to all!