We’ll start with a rare running-related disappointment (my standards are low!)… an unprecedented involuntary DNF (“did not finish”) in yesterday’s JFK-50 miler… I failed to meet an intermediate time cut-off, and my day was over at mile 27.3; I might have met the 12 hour cut-off for the 50 miles, but just could not do that after 13 miles of extremely unpleasant Appalachian Trail terrain. Such is life. Genuine introspection to follow. And in a less surprising disappointment, see my prior post, ___ at last. For various reasons, that’s all I’ll say on the subject. This has been… “disappointments.”

This post over at Scotusblog explains why the post that was here (and should still be here) isn’t here anymore. That’s pretty much all I can say on the subject. We should at least have the presence of mind to recognize our worst fears: after a seemingly interminable, dark eight years of the Bush Administration, we finally elected a Democratic President, believing that he would even remotely keep to the spirit, if not to the letter of his core promises re restoration of the rule of law. He did no such thing. The only thing he has proven effective at...

To Mrs. TD.

On this Friday the 13th (that we wish Andy a happy return to the Mother Country; we were delighted to host him at Stately Dog Manor as he brought his wonderful film “Outside the Law” to its North American debuts), we’ll start with news of Andy’s appearance on Democracy Now! which fortuitously coincided with the day’s big news, that Ron Jeremy Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and four others allegedly implicated in master-minding the 9-11 attacks will be tried in federal court in New York City. Unfortunately, the announcement coincides with plans to try five others in the rightly much maligned kangaroo...

A plethora of non-bloggy obligations has slowed posting down to… none-existent, come to think of it! Well then… The Grey Lady gives us this op-ed comparing the judicial reactions to two “extraordinary renditions,” one from an Italian court that convicted nearly two dozen defendants for the (unbelievably brazen broad daylight) kidnapping of Abu Omar off of the streets of Milan (to a dungeon in Egypt), and the other in my fair city, where the Second Circuit of Appeals dismissed the civil suit brought by Canadian kidnap victim Maher Arar (to a torture chamber in Syria). Let’s just say that the...

No real surprises yesterday in the big ones (NJ, VA, NYC), where Republicans swept. Most interesting was my fair city’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who won by a much narrower margin than anticipated, despite outspending challenger Bill Thompson by something like $100 million to $8 million. NJ and VA, being uniquely states with gubernatorial races the year after Presidential races, frequently vote against the party in the White House, and this year was no exception. And in NYC, Mike Bloomberg is actually a Democrat who cynically ran as a Republican to cut through the professional pols on the Dem side, and...

Although today’s ING NYC Marathon marked my 25th marathon distance race (and 9th consecutive New York City Marathon), it was the first time I ran a distance longer than the 26.2 miles, having elected to add a 3.5 mile or so jog to the Staten Island Ferry, and then a 3.5 mile or so jog from the ferry to the start at Fort Wadsworth. It’s hard to believe that a 5 or 5 1/2 hour marathon distance race is a “comfort zone,” but after dozens of such in the last few years… it ends up working out that way. And...

I don’t want to talk about health care, Palin, grocery baggers teabaggers, Bloomberg, Corzine, Deeds, Karzai, Abdullah, Iraq, Guantanamo, torture, the current jobless job-loss recovery… or, quite frankly, much else. Heck, I don’t even want to talk about tomorrow’s ING NYC Marathon (your talking dog’s ninth in a row), where, to prepare for the upcoming JFK-50, I’ll probably add a jog (plus ferry ride) to the start. No, no, no… like our kittens, I’m going to try to live “in the moment.” One of the highlights of our civilization is the creation of a really good holiday for children. (Say...

Regular readers know that on this blog… it’s always about me. And hence, you get to hear about Mrs. TD taking me out to dinner for my birthday (joining other 10-26’ers as Hillary Clinton, Pat Sajak, Jaclyn Smith, and on some calendars… Leon Trotsky)… at not merely the same restaurant, but we are told at least, the very same table as my more famous and more powerful college classmate and his wife on their “date night.”. And speaking of him… the Grey Lady has issues with the seeming embrace of teh national security state… and as always, Glenn Greenwald has...

An occasional theme here is the sheer wondrousness of the military-industrial-Congressional-entertainment complex, the vast organic conspiracy between big money and our Government to make sure that Government operates to make sure that it operates in the interests of big money (and not in the interests of, well… anyone else). A case in point is what ls likely to happen to “the Franken Amendment,” a popular (it passed the Senate 68-30, with lots of support in the House as well) measure offered by Minnesota’s new junior senator Al Franken that would limit the ability of federal military contractors to shield themselves...