Running on Blade Runner
Mayor Villaraigosa sees L.A.'s future, and it's dense.
___________________________
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Give me purity, but not now: If McCain adviser Mark MacKinnon is going to quit the McCain campaign because he doesn't want to "be attacking" Obama, shouldn't he have quit already? McCain's been attacking Obama for at least a week. ... 5:12 P.M.
___________________________
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Is Hillary better off losing Wisconsin? My friend S called with a so-crazy-it-might-be-true theory about the Democratic primary contest, which is this: Hillary does best when Democratic voters sense she's about to get brutally knocked out of the race, as in New Hampshire. That prospect taps a well of residual sympathy for a woman who has devoted her life to politics, etc. But when Hillary is triumphant she seems arrogant and unbearable, and voters feel free to express those perceptions at the polls. It follows that Hillary will do better in the crucial states of Ohio and Texas if she loses in Wisconsin and has her back to the wall. If she wins Wisconsin, and holds a big happy victory rally trumpeting her newfound momentum, the result will be a another surge of support for Obama. ... In other words, it's not that there is no momentum from a primary victory this year ("nomentum"). There's reverse momentum ("mutnemom!"), at least where Hillary is concerned. If she wins a primary one week that makes her more likely to lose the next one. .... 3:06 P.M. link
___________________________
Monday, February 18, 2008
Is that an S-Chip on Your Shoulder or Are You Just Glad to See Me? John Podhoretz argues that Michelle Obama's comment--about how "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country"--
suggests the Obama campaign really does have its roots in New Class leftism, according to which patriotism is not only the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the first refuge as well — that America is not fundamentally good but flawed, but rather fundamentally flawed and only occasionally good.
He could be right! Her comment is also of a piece with the cavalier Obamaesque dismissal of the achievements of the Clinton years and her church's focus on "this racist United States of America." ** But is the explanation necessarily political? Even Dennis Kucinich would probably have no problem finding something to be proud of in the past two decades. If Michelle Obama's default position is set to "Aggrieved," it also suggests something personal, no? Maybe, like many strong wives, she wonders why her husband is the one on the top of the family ticket--which might also explain her strange occasional habit of belittling him in public ("snore-y and stinky" ). Beats me. For whatever reason, she sure seems to have a non-trivial chip on her shoulder and it's not a winning quality. ...
There Is Nothing Miraculous About a Tornado, Wolf Blitzer
Oxford Town, Red Hook, and Every Other Place Bob Dylan’s Ever Sung About, Mapped
A Huge Discovery About Prime Numbers—and What It Means for the Future of Math
Photograph of Ann Coulter on Slate's home page by Brad Barket/Getty. Photograph of a wedding cake with two grooms on Slate's home page by Hector Mata/AFP Photo. Photograph of Princess Diana on Slate's home page by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images.