In this case, we give you this WaPo discussion of cheating in school… not just any school, but at (my alma mater) Columbia University’s School of Journalism. And not just any course, but the course on journalistic ethics! (Irony alert, as there is a reference to a similar event, and to Columbia’s J-School, though not to cheating at Columbia or to this event, in my recent interview with Michael Berube.) Some students have very wisely pointed out that they have learned more about journalistic ethics from this event, its aftermath, and its publicity, than from the course itself. That seems...

That would be for one of the giants of 20th century intelligentsia, Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman who died in mid-November at age 94, whose lengthy Grey Lady obituary is here. His is the (5’3″ tall) “yan” to the (6’8″ tall) “yin” of his friend and frequent debating partner, the late John Kenneth Galbraith, whose death I commented on here. Friedman acknowledged his own extremism, pointing out that someone in each generation must go “all the way”, and that was him. Some of his suggestions, the negative income tax (now incorporated in our tax code as the earned income...

We’ll start with this WaPo piece on a decision by Judge Richard Leon of the federal district court in Washington D.C. finding the Bush Administration’s arbitrary cut-offs of rent aid to tens of thousands of refugees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita to be… arbitrary to the point of unconstitutional. (Judge Leon is a commie pinko appointed by… George W. Bush.) Elsewhere in Homeland Security World, Secretary Michael Chertoff apologized for fucking up , blaming administrative “bean-counting” for screwing New York, the nation’s primary terrorist target, from receiving tens of millions of dollars in homeland security grants which were instead ear-marked...

That’s about all I can say to accounts of a groom being shot and killed in a hail of police bullets on his wedding day, right after his bachelor party somewhere in Queens. Evidently, the police were staking out a night club with a history of drugs, prostitution, etc., which, with one more slip-up of that kind, faced being closed down. Out of that night club came 23 year old Sean Bell, scheduled to be married later that day to the mother of his two small daughters, with (at least) two friends, who had just been at Bell’s bachelor party....

You’ll notice some minor changes to the side-bar; I’ve separated out the blog interviews, for example, into their own heading. You’ll also notice a few less blog links overall, and some of the links that remain have actually been updated to reflect their current URLs! Given the hundreds of links involved, it is really not possible to timely keep up with URL changes, or for that matter, the abandonment of many blogs. So periodically… I do this kind of culling and updating. If your URL has changed, but I haven’t kept up, or if I have deleted your blog because...

The hackneyed way of dealing with this holiday, declared to be the fourth Thursday in November in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, is for everyone concerned (especially school children) to recite what they are thankful for. In my case, it is even more hopelessly hackneyed, as, despite the (macro) political ruminations you see played out here, I have no cognizable (micro) real complaints: I am certainly thankful for my wonderful family, my lovely home, and my most pleasant overall circumstances (including certainly good physical and mental (!) health, as rewarding and fulfilling employment as I have ever had, freedom from...

Weighing in on matters “war on terror detention and purported adjudication policy” is none other than former Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno, who joined a number of former Justice Department officials in filing an amicus curae (or friend of the court) brief before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond opposing the government’s asserted authority to detain and try (as enemy combatants outside the regular court system) resident aliens, such as the subject at hand, Saleh Al-Marri of Qatar. Regular readers are, of course, quite familiar with him, having been first introduced to him in our interview with...

Or vice versa… Race issues are a huge part of the current thread of the Grey Lady’s new blog, The Lede, mostly from the rarefied (or whatever the opposite of that is) world of popular entertainment. In particular, we offer you this discussion of Michael “Kramer” Richards non-apology apology for his recent paleo-racist tirade on a stage in Los Angeles, and this discussion of Rupert Murdoch’s abrupt decision to yank the O.J. “hypothetical” murder reenactment (both the book and the t.v. show) given the (all-bad) controversy it has generated. Richards’ tirade, while hurtful, was, in the end, a tirade that...

Mahablog’s Barbara sends us this discussion of legislation about to be introduced by Connecticut’s Democratic Senator (Chris Dodd… the Democrat who isn’t being cagey about his party affiliation)… to amend the Military Commissions Act to make it more in conformance with the legal and moral traditions of this nation… and civilization in general. Good luck to Senator Dodd, as certainly, regular readers know what an abomination I personally consider our detention and purported adjudication policies. I would like this to be one of the four or five pillar pieces of legislation that the new Democratic led Congress immediately introduce, the...

Let’s all wish a happy birthday to Mrs. TD.