ninme

A very good 10 minute video on the history of the commerce clause and how it’s the source of all our present federal governmental joy:

Curtsy: RC2.

Categories: History

The Times (£) – From Beijing to London in 48hrs? Now that’s a great rail journey

High-speed technology and investment is about to make railways competitive again. Bargain airlines may have made previously forgotten cities accessible but security and congested skies have added hours to the journey. Trains can offer [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

Hats are enjoying a revival:

WSJ – Discovering Hats, a New Generation Brims With Anxiety Over Etiquette<br/> Old Rules Flummox Young Hipsters; ‘I’m Wearing an $80 Fedora!’

Many companies are no longer around to see the current revival. The number of manufacturers of fur-felt hats, wool-felt hats and hat forms in the U.S. totaled 185 in [...]

Categories: History

This amuses the heck outta me:

Greg Gutfeld of Fox News Channel and The Daily Gut has proposed the best response yet to Park51, a.k.a. Cordoba House, the 13-story “community center” and mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero: “I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

(Because we signed escrow papers today, woohoo!)

…What our Crazy Eddy! All Mortgages Must Go! interest rate is?

(This is the third escrow place I’ve been to for signings, plus I worked at an escrow outfit for a couple of weeks as a temp when we first moved here, and I’m still not entirely sure I get [...]

Categories: Wildcard

This is amazing. All the artsy Brits in my Twitter stream have been moaning about the UK Film Council getting the axe, but then the author Ian Rankin mentioned this article as a “sharp and persuasive critique”.

The Times – Good riddance to the UK Film Council, by Chris Atkins

The real scandals, however, came [...]

Categories: Entertainment

Uh oh:

Michael Wolff – What’s Really Going on Behind Murdoch’s Paywall?

My sources say that not only is nobody subscribing to the website, but subscribers to the paper itself—who have free access to the site—are not going beyond the registration page. It’s an empty world. The wider implications of [...]

Categories: Business & Media

WSJ – Curse of the Greedy Copyright Holders, by Tony Woodlief (author of the memoir on fatherhood and marriage, “Somewhere More Holy”)

Further, this editor noted that one reason literary anthologies and college-course syllabi have replaced classics with less edifying sources like newspaper articles and diaries is simply that major artists in the American [...]

Categories: Art and Literature

Here’s an article that Target might be expanding into Canada. They have Costco and Walmart and Sears, but no Target. I just find it interesting how some stores go across the border and others don’t.

And I heard on my free-for-six-months-satellite-radio-feed-of BBC Radio 1 that they’re allowing product placements on TV shows in the UK (but [...]

Categories: Business & Media

My parents were up today and my dad was talking about this story which, naturally, I hadn’t heard of. Congress raised the minimum wage again and this time, in their wise benevolence, didn’t give American Samoa an exemption:

When Democrats in Congress increased the minimum wage in 2007, the U.S. territory of 65,000 in [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

Telegraph – Australians ‘don’t give a XXXX’ as they abandon beer for wine

Beer consumption in Australia has dropped to a 60-year-low as the younger generation abandons the “amber nectar” in favour of wine.

Oh noes!

Categories: Food

Liberals should like this argument tho. It’s all about interconnectedness:

PJM – VDH: The New Old German Problem

[W]hat will happen with Germany, when it is lectured by the French, insulted by its debtor dependencies in southern Europe, and starting to become angry that only its own work ethic and productivity—not some grandiose platitudes about [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

The country’s in the very best of hands:

CNN Money – Health care law’s massive, hidden tax change

“HIDDEN,” “MASSIVE.”

Section 9006 of the health care bill — just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document — mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract [...]

Categories: Business & Media

Telegraph – First flight from Baghdad to London in 20 years ends in farce with plane impounded

The first flight from Baghdad to London in 20 years has ended in farce with the plane impounded at Gatwick airport after Kuwait went to the High Court demanding £780 million for planes stolen by Saddam Hussein.

Ouch.

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

The Corner:

Some of the Arizona boycotters want people to quit drinking Arizona Iced Tea, even though it’s brewed in New York. Next, they’re going to call for a boycott of Rand McNally maps that include depictions of the 48th state.

Now that’s funny.

Categories: Politics