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Very Last Points on Wawa, Romney, and the USPS
For previous items, see this and this.1) Wawa and the mysteries of perception.I have seen these convenience-store signs many times over the past twenty years or so, and I have always noted the oddity...
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Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us (Part 12,813)
As anyone who follows U.S. immigration law knows, the first big restrictive measure America imposed was the "Chinese Exclusion Act" of the 1880s. This was in reaction to the large-scale Chinese...
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'Apologizing for America': Finally the Parties Can Agree!
As I mentioned late last night, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for the discriminatory nature of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Here is a late 19th century...
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SCOTUS Update: La Loi, C'est Moi
I am not enough of a Supreme Court buff to have any confident idea of what the majority will rule on the Obama health care plan.But confidence in the very idea that the Roberts majority will approach...
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5 Signs the United States Is Undergoing a Coup
This is distilled from a longer item earlier today, at the suggestion of my colleagues. It's a simple game you can try at home. Pick a country and describe a sequence in which:First, a presidential...
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SCOTUS Follow-Up: The Perils of Too Many 5-4 Rulings
Background: First, a long post on the dangers of a federal judiciary whose rulings (and expressed rationales) are harder and harder to distinguish from simple Republican/Democratic party positions....
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'The Two Great Classes—Tramps and Millionaires'
In response to recent items on current partisan politics as a slow-motion coup, here are messages from two readers with extensive first-hand experience in politics. First we have Mike Lofgren, for many...
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Book News: Peking Duck and Beijing Flight Delays
For years I have been a fan of the web site known as The Peking Duck. Therefore I am very gratified by a review that appeared there today, which 100% grasped the point of my recent book.And from an...
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Good for John Roberts
During his confirmation hearings seven years ago, John Roberts presented himself as a man who by both temperament and philosophy fully embraced the virtues of restraint. He would deliver rulings when...
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The Most Important Film I've Seen in Years: 'Last Train Home'
Like many other members of the Atlantic staff, I have for the past few days been doing nonstop interviewer / moderator / emcee duty at the Aspen Ideas Festival. This evening I had the honor of...
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Tune In Tonight: 'No Fracking Way'
This is my contribution to today's Aspen Update, in between emcee stints and day-job duties finishing an article.1) Wherever you happen to be physically at 9pm EDT / 7pm CDT tonight, please consider...
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American Infrastructure Report: DC Storm Edition
My wife and I were (and still are) 1800 miles away from our house in Washington when the latest catastrophe-storm roared through 48 hours ago. We hear from neighbors that we were lucky that none of the...
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Look for This From Aspen: Minxin Pei vs. Eric Li
This happened just a few hours ago, so the video has not yet gone up on the Aspen Ideas Festival's video archive page. But please look for it tomorrow, and I will put up a link when I get one. It was a...
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Let's Talk Infrastructure (and Extreme Weather, and Pepco)
My wife and I are still not back to DC, where in our part of town the power's been off since Friday afternoon and is expected to be out for four more days. To be clear: I personally have nothing to...
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What We Learn When the Lights Go Out, #1
Lots of thoughts rolling in about the ongoing blackout in Washington DC and what it shows us -- about climate change and weather trends, about resiliency on the individual and social levels, about...
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Independence Day Special: Latest Flying Car News
As you count off the reasons to celebrate, you might as well add this one. The Terrafugia flying car, or drivable airplane, which I first saw at an Oshkosh air show years ago, has just finished its...
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What We Learn With the Lights Out, #2
Still on the Independence Day theme, and with an extra helping of cross-cultural comparison as we reflect on our nation's birthday, here is more reader response on the latest big American black-out....
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The Best Day Ever to Be a Headline Writer
I do admire the panache and definiteness of this headline in the NYT today: Congrats to the headline writers -- and, by the way, to the scientists. That is all.
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Another Way of Looking at the Blackouts
I've mentioned several times the ESRI company of Redlands, California, which was founded and is still run by a family friend, Jack Dangermond, and which specializes in "geographic information systems."...
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Book News: AVweb, New Yorker, Asia Times, GPS, El Mercurio
Just for the record:- A nice review / podcast / interview by Paul Bertorelli of AVweb.- A nice item in the New Yorker, albeit behind a paywall.- A nice review by Benjamin Shobert in Asia Times.- A nice...
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