So many tasty morsels so many are uncovering. (All that and not one link to Andrew Sullivan. I’ll spend Saturday enjoying his finds.) One topic Sarah touches on that’s relevant to my interest in food is her love of meat. From page 18: I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon-burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. Note, especially,...

I have frequently written on patriotism, “supporting the troops,” the cost of war as measured in “bullets and dollars” and, most important, on the cost of war as measured by the sweat, blood, tears and lives of our valiant troops. This, while Americans back home are not asked to sacrifice in any meaningful manner, and are even encouraged to “go shopping.” My words, however, are woefully inadequate...

Now that she has smooched you-know-who this week, the talented Ms. Winfrey is ready to end the talk show that made her a billionaire and start the next phase of her life as a media mogul with a cable channel aptly named OWN. Like the would-be VP but for much longer and in a far different way, Oprah has been a phenomenon, rising from the depths of poverty to become an American icon with empathy, intelligence...

Is Rep. Virginia Foxx crazy? I don’t know, but she certainly says some crazy things. Consider a couple of things she said yesterday: – “Actually, the GOP has been the leader in starting good environmental programs in this country.” Maybe, if you go all the way back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt. More recently, the GOP is the party of global warming denialism and opposition to environmental...

I told you so 7 months ago in my TMV post dated 3/19/09 and titled “It’s Time to Throw Geithner under the Bus.” Considering the growing chorus from the left, right and middle now calling for his termination or resignation, I re-read my original post. As always, I was prescient, accurate, and possibly clairvoyant on this matter. Yours truly also predicted this entire economic collapse at least 5 years...

Can President Obama persuade China not to be so dependent on growth, particularly trade-dependent growth? Likening Beijing’s obsession with growth to a Chinese version of the ‘Berlin Wall,’ Feng Mengyun of China’s state-run Global Geographic Times expresses his hope that President Obama can do something to talk the Beijing leadership into turning over a new leaf. With some surprising...

Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), writing in CNN, says he plans to oppose raising the debt ceiling what the issue comes up for a vote next month. He’s unwilling to raise this ceiling, he writes, unless “Congress adopts a credible process to balance our books and eliminate the red ink” — and he wants to form a “debt commission” to start the process. A debt commission will...

Just when you thought it was safe to step out of the ballot booth, the hotly contested special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District simply will not die. The latest ripple in the story is that a computer virus reportedly infected a handful of machines in Hamilton County. Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their...

While many proposed infrastructure expenditures are long-overdue and greatly needed across our country, most of the projects will take years to plan, design, meet various regulatory requirements, and build. Associated new employment will be well-paying but cannot materialize quickly. Furthermore, they constitute a long-term policy for the country separate from the immediate need to address high unemployment...

Republican House member (from North Carolina) Virginia Foxx, it is pretty safe to say, has never met a fact she could not challenge.  This morning, Rep. Foxx launched an attack on what she calls “revisionist history” about which political party should get the credit for passing historic  civil rights legislation in the 1960s….. by engaging in her own revisionist history — which was...

Before you read this story, play this video below to set the proper mood: Now read this poll: Losing NY-23 candidate Doug Hoffman became the latest in an increasingly long line of conservative politicians to blame his problems on ACORN yesterday despite the complete lack of evidence the organization played any role in his defeat. The Republican base is with him though. PPP’s newest national survey finds...

The story of Stephanie Spielman, wife of Ohio State University and NFL star Chris Spielman, mother of four children, who was a 30 year old woman 12 years ago who gave herself a self-breast exam and discovered a lump that she then had examined and screened, died of breast cancer today at age 42. Her story represents the stories that I dread will become absolutely the norm and her story represents the stories...

Tomorrow, he turns 92 after passing another milestone as the longest-serving member of Congress in history, almost 57 years. With such longevity, Sen. Robert Byrd embodies almost a century of American history that transformed a nation of backwaters dotted by big cities into a metropolitan sprawl with access to 24/7 knowledge about the whole world. Byrd, a self-made man if there ever was one, started as a gas...

Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Ezra Klein reads over 2,000 pages of legislative language so you don’t have to. His conclusion: This bill is a “grand bargain” that achieves impressive levels of coverage while still cutting costs:

National Healthcare Insurance Reform has moved a bit closer to reality, though it could still be derailed in the Senate. We now have a House Bill and a Senate Bill that will have to be merged into a single bill via an appointed Joint Conference Committee. The committee members will be chosen by Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi so a final bill can be written and voted upon by the Senate...

According to emerging news reports Rudy Guliani has decided not to run for Governor of New York but will instead run for the US Senate seat formerly held by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Spokespeople for Rudy have neither confirmed or denied these reports, simply saying that he will “inform New Yorkers on his own”.

According to this blog entry from the Web site of China’s Global Geographic Times, a U.S. Embassy request that China use a new spelling of Obama’s Chinese name has been met with suspicion among that nation’s ‘Netizens.’ So what’s in a name, one might ask? For the Global Geographic Times, Scholar Jiang Huai writes in part: “On November 12, officials at the U.S. Embassy...

No matter what you may have hoped, some things never change. The intro to this Politico piece really tells the whole story. He may have promised to change Washington, but President Barack Obama is continuing one of its most renowned patronage traditions: bestowing prized ambassadorships on big donors. Of the nearly 80 ambassadorship nominations or confirmations since Obama’s Inauguration, 56 percent were given...

The NYT published today a fascinating (and somewhat frustrating) look at health care reform’s supporters and detractors in Congress, by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver and two co-authors. Their thesis: Critics of the health care reform plan often refer to it derisively as “ObamaCare.” On the policy merits, this is highly questionable: the White House has taken a hands-off approach toward the legislation...

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune This cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

This time when talking about the crowds Sarah Palin is attracting. (Oops!)

The entire text is online. It’s 2,074 pages. Via Ron Chusid, who has a reading plan:

WASHINGTON — Normal human beings — let’s call them real Americans — cannot understand why, 10 months after President Obama’s inauguration, Congress is still tied down in a procedural torture chamber trying to pass the health care bill Obama promised in his campaign. Last year, the voters gave him the largest popular vote margin won by a presidential candidate in 20 years. They...

John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.