(NOTE: Jurassic Park is one of the best franchises on film, particularly if you like dinosaurs. Over the next eight or nine weeks I’ll be running a strikingly unbalanced review of the four films, because I’m a big fan of parts 1 & 3, while distinctly unenthusiastic over parts 2 & 4.) In 1952 Steven…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Tea-leaf reading from a distance! Anyone can do it!
Well, anyone can, including me, so why not? Why not, indeed? The major topic of Inside the Beltway Baseball these days is whether Rep. Paul Ryan will accept the job of Speaker of the House of Representatives. Ryan is under enormous pressure from the Establishment wing of the Republican Party to do so, but one…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here “Thirty seconds from now, they won’t be looking so gorgeous.” “Diablement intelligent, ces Américains!” “Hey, where are they from, the Isle of friggin’ Lesbos?” “Take it from me, nudity is a good starter, but a bad finisher.” “If it isn’t a cloud formation, we’re fucked.” “I’m trying to be blasé. How can…
Adam James Cook & Joey Panucci: “Evidence”
Adam on piano and Joey on guitar. Posted by Adam, who tells us Monk based the tune on “Just You, Just Me”.
Reply to Rauch, Part III
I seem to be making a (small) cottage industry replying here and here to Jonathan Rauch’s arguments in his freebie book Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy, which casts a longing backwards look at the good old days on Capitol Hill, when House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s words…
Chaos in the House? Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along
How can you tell when conservatives (or anyone else, really) are really frightened? Whey they pretend that something that is a very big deal is not a very big deal. Ramesh Ponnuru illustrates this point beautifully when he “explains” that there are two things to keep in mind now that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy…
I predicted this!
Well, I did. A year ago I wrote a tongue in cheek piece on blimps, noting that, every ten years or so, we’re told that “they’re coming back.” And then, a year or so later, we’re told “not yet.” The latest “not yet” misadventure has cost the U.S. tax payer $2.7 billion, as anti-missile blimps…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here “That is so gay.” “Hey, big boy! Where’s your suit?” “Definitely a Taurus.” “On the other hand, his French is impeccable.” “They say his wife is a real cow.” “Apparently, his family owns half of Herefordshire.” “All hat and no cattle, as we say back home.” “Well, the fertilizer business isn’t exactly…
Extreme poverty to hit a new low; Bernie Sanders doesn’t give a shit
Have you heard? The percentage of the global population living on less than $1.90 per day will fall to 9.6 percent this year, the lowest it’s ever been, according to the World Bank. But Bernie “I don’t give a shit” Sanders doesn’t give a shit. Bernie’s too worried about this crazy Trans-Pacific Partnership that the…
Alan Vanneman and George F. Will, Soul Brothers
How many postings have I devoted to ridiculing George F. Will? Well, count ‘em for yourself. But today George and I are one, as he delivers a heart-felt paean to the Hubble telescope’s replacement, the “James Webb,” which, according to George—and who would doubt him!—will be as big as a tennis court. In his column,…