Via DougJ, the return of Bell Curve Sully:

Charles Murray was onto something, wasn’t he?

Speaking for me only

Let's make this an Open Thread.

Via Lambert, George Packer writes:

Having already . . . restored the rule of law to America’s treatment of detainees in its custody . . . President Obama, in his tenth week in office, effectively put the government in charge of a large part of the automobile industry. . . . What underlies so many of Obama’s decisions is an attachment to the institutions that hold up American society . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) There is a lot to take issue with in Packer's piece, but the portion I excerpt is simply laughable. "Restored the rule of law to America's treatment of detainees in its custody[?]" What world is Packer living in? "Attachment to our institutions[?]" Not the courts apparently. I can only shake my head.

Speaking for me only

With all the talk about the death of newspapers, this bit of data, buried in this Howie Kurtz piece on how awful Politico is, surprised me:

Politico's online readership nearly doubled during the campaign, from 2.4 million unique visitors in January 2008 to 4.6 million in October. Last month, according to Nielsen Net Ratings, it dipped to just over 3 million. By comparison, nytimes.com has bounced back almost to its October level of more than 20 million, while washingtonpost.com declined during that period from 12.4 million to 9.4 million.

(Emphasis supplied.) nytimes.com is doing October 2008 numbers? That's pretty impressive. I wonder what is behind it. The prominence of business stories? Wouldn't that drive traffic to the WSJ? Or has Murdoch's ownership really damaged the WSJ brand? I can't judge by my reading habits because I scour the Times every day, several times a day every day.

Bruce Springsteen brought his latest tour to Denver tonight. According to the tweets, he was a huge success. He closed with Glory Days.

Here's a 1993 version:

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

This bit from Paul Kane of the Washington Post has drawn a lot attention:

Paul Kane: . . . We reported what Olympia Snowe said. That’s what she said. That’s what Republicans are saying. I really don’t know what you want of us. We are not opinion writers whose job is to play some sorta gotcha game with lawmakers.

It's an interesting defense. Given the troubled financial straits newspapers are in, it opens up the question - does "reporting" really require reporters? Couldn't the Washington Post just let Kane go, pocket the money and just let newsmakers know that the WaPo will be uncritically publishing their quotes? They can even set up some type of electronic form that will allow the quote to be submitted directly to the paper, formatted automatically and voila! we have tomorrow's newspaper! There's a lot of savings to be had by newspapers with such an approach. If the newspapers don't want to do it, maybe Google can do it and avoid the recent controversies.

Speaking for me only

The FDA backed down today, after pleas from hospice workers, and canceled a block on an unapproved liquid morphine that helps the terminally ill.

Bowing to the pleas of hospice experts, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has backed off its intent to remove from the market an unapproved liquid morphine painkiller given to dying patients.

Dr. Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, told the Associated Press Thursday that the morphine liquid will remain on the market until replaced by an approved version or some other equivalent therapy.

A big thanks to the FDA for being so responsive.

[Throckmorton] told AP, reaction from hospice experts and others "helped us understand" that some patients need the unapproved version.

Dying is bad enough, to die in physical pain is something we can prevent, and should.

Commenting on Greg Sargent's piece on discontent in some Left blogs about the lack of financial support from ostensible allies (Full Disclosure - I have no idea about the finances of this blog other than it costs money to have it. I know that attracting advertisers has never been a thought in what I write. The fact is none of us are professional bloggers in any sense.), Eugene Volokh writes:

[I]f an ostensibly independent blogger has a general pattern of demanding advertising — even indirectly, rather than in some personal communication — from institutions in exchange for publicizing the institutions' work, that sort of relationship strike me as harder to disclose in any transparent way. And my sense is that historically this sort of deal has been seen as not entirely kosher in the newspaper business, or for that matter in the opinion magazine business. Naturally, readers expect that an opinion magazine would have editorial biases. But I don't think they expect that the opinion magazine would be making advertising dollars from positive coverage (or "free publicity") that it provides to various organizations.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

Jonathan Taplin today:

The fifth column of progressive blogs is libertarians pretending they are liberals. . . . Barack is a man of good will who is as smart a President as we have had the privilege to be served by in the last half century.

(Emphasis supplied.) Andrew Sullivan in 2001:

The middle part of the country—the great red zone that voted for Bush—is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead—and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column.

(Emphasis supplied.) In 8 years, some of us have now been called "traitor" by adulators of a Republican President and now a Democratic President. Jersey colored issue "analysis" from both spectrums.

Speaking for me only

The excellent digby links to a Glenn Beck idiocy and asks:

If you haven't seen this yet, take a look. And then tell me this guy isn't somebody we should keep a close eye on.

Well, Digby and everyone can keep a close eye on whomever they want but, Beck is not even a trivial character with regard to what the policy of our government will be. Hell, Beck is not even Dobbs influential, much less Limbaugh. And to be clear, I think neither of those "comedians" matters either.

I'll concentrate on what's happening in Washington - the problems are too big to think about anything else right now imo.

Speaking for me only

It's Dancing With the Stars and "24" for me tonight.

For alternative viewing, HBO's "In Treatment" is beginning its new season. There's back to back episodes on tonight. It's a little depressing but Gabriel Byrne as the shrink is really good.

Another new series on HBO that is worth watching is the No. One Ladies Detective Agency. The second episode aired last night and you can catch them on "On Demand."

What are you watching tonight? This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The Associated Press has always come down hard on internet sites that inappropriately (in its view) reproduce its content. Now, it's going to go even further:

[AP Chairman]Singleton said AP would work with Internet portals and other partners who properly license content and would pursue legal and legislative actions against those who don't.

"We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories," he said at AP's annual meeting in San Diego.

So make sure when you reply in comments (or write a diary) you stay within their parameters -- no reprinting of more than a short paragraph with a link to the source article. Hopefully, that's still okay. [More....]

Dizz Knee Land

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and family are at Disneyland. Here's Dada, I always loved this song:

I just ran away from home
Now I'm going to dizz knee land
I just crashed my car again
Now I'm going to dizz knee land
I just robbed a grocery store
I'm going to dizz knee land
And I just flicked off President George
I'm going to dizz knee land
I'm going to dizz knee land!

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.