Due to the extended holiday season, we’ve re-dated and reposted even more posts than usual for the following day’s blog. We do this routinely so posts put on this site at night are on the following day’s site, to get maximum readership (permalinks are not impacted, just the “history” of the post). Today we’ve reposted our comment on Dick Clark — which was actually done yesterday morning — and put it out of order because TMV himself was touched by it...

You could say Russia is “Putin on the pressure” by cutting gas to the Ukraine in a move that could have a slew of big implications — political and economic. For instance, the New York Times reports: Russia cut off the natural gas intended for Ukraine on Sunday as talks over pricing and transit terms unraveled into a bald political conflict that carried consequences for Ukraine’s recovering economy and possibly for gas supplies to Western Europe. The dispute comes a year after...

NOTE: This was posted early yesterday but due to some of the issues raised we’re posting it again today, higher up in the actual order in which it was posted. Newer posts are below this so please keep scrolling down. He was called “America’s oldest teenager” until way after that phrase even remotely made sense. He produced a classic rock T.V. show, branched out into topnotch concerts, TV production, business commications and even restaurants. Then, suddenly, he was felled...

Happy New Year to everyone! Though I won’t be back at full-blogging strength until I’m settled back at Carleton (I fly back tomorrow, will be up and running by Tuesday), I do have a rather lengthy post regarding Iowa Law Professor (and Palestine/International Law Expert) Adrien Wing’s trip to Israel, and her observations there. I do issue fair warning on the length (and it starts off rather angry at first as well), but I think it’s worth the read. I should be receiving several...

Newsweek adds a new troubling twist to the controversy over the Bush administration’s warrantless spying. It reports that even then-Attorney General John Ashcroft would not authorize the spying sought by the administration: On one day in the spring of 2004, White House chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a bedside visit to John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, who was stricken with a rare and painful pancreatic disease, to try—without...

William Safire isn’t happy. Will more Republicans, particularly libertarian Republicans, take a similar stance?

Cross posted at The Smoking Room The war on smoking seems to be spreading to those forms that are casual and infrequent, like Arabic water pipes (hookahs): “There’s a myth that the smoke is filtered by the water,” says Thomas Eissenberg, a psychology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and co-author of a hookah study. The smoke passes through gurgling water before the user inhales it, but, he says, “Every risk of cigarette smoking is also associated with water pipes.” But...

It’s the Eighth (and last) Night of Hanukkah and here is an Online Menorah for you!

Some ideas here. What do YOU think? And if you want to write something funny, just make sure it’s PC.

…..an era is ending.

If you’ve been following the sad saga of our talented co-blogger Jack Grant’s holiday loss it’s time for an update. First, re-read our post here about the bittersweet Christmas Eve of Jack, who shut down his life working in France to rush home to Texas to be with his father — who had been diagnosed with grave, quickly spreading cancer. And spread it did: on December 26th William Martin Grant passed away. Now, read his tribute to his Dad here. Then read this. And this. And...

The New Republic Online: Since inaugurating the “Today in Despotism” series earlier this year, TNR Online has chronicled the activities of a number of strongmen. Some are old, some are young; some are religious, some are atheist; some are called “Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”; others are called “Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party...

He’s off! And let’s all try real hard to keep him on the correct path.

And so we start a new one; let’s all get it right this time. The baby is up for it…