"The first job of a rock 'n' roll band is not to be dull."

Bono pretends to worry that U2 will kick him out of the band.

Is it really this easy to become famous these days?

I'll bet if his name wasn't Farris he couldn't have ridden one plane ticket this far .

Trump as governor of NY?

Oh, the horror! Ridiculous, really. You can't be that weird and run for office. (Can you?)

Investigating the leak... and reporting about it in the NYT.

The Justice Department has started to investigate the leak of classified information about the NSA surveillance program: "The leaking...

Counting the laughs...

... in Supreme Court oral arguments. Is a sense of humor a mark of a good judicial mind? It's Scalia and then Breyer with the most laugh...

My New Year's prediction for the Supreme Court.

Yesterday, I blogged about William Safire's predictions about what the Supreme Court would do in a handful of cases. This led to some m...

Article III Groupie goes to Washington.

Article III Groupie -- AKA David Lat -- of Underneath Their Robes, is leaving his job at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark. He sent...

A year in the life of the blog.

January: I just wrecked my car. February: Is podcasting good? March: Is it possible to explain the Schiavo statute on television? April: ...

The romantic entrepreneur...

Burns out: The psychological gap between working in a cafe because it's fun and romantic and doing the exact same thing because you have...

Robscalithom predictions.

William Safire returns to the NYT op-ed page to do his usual "office pool" on predictions for the year 2006. Question 4 is about ...

"My kids aren't going to relate to Jesus Christ the same way we do..."

"And that's to be expected because Jesus Christ is your own personal lord and savior," says one mother who's accepting of ...

After writing that last post, on the WaPo's quotes of the year, I got the idea of going through the past year of my writing on this blog...

"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

Is that the quote of the year? WaPo's Mark Leibovich says so. The runners-up are pretty amusing, especially the horrifying "This i...

The sole voice of reason?

Arye Dworken of The Jerusalem Post attacks "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as anti-Semitic: Some might argue [Larry] David's misrepres...

Question about shirt collars.

How should a man decide whether or not the collar of his shirt belongs inside or outside the lapels of his jacket? Obviously, if he's we...

The problems with boys and school.

Melana Zyla Vickers writes in the Weekly Standard about the gender gap in higher education: What is going on? Schools are not paying enough...

"I had stressed if they have to denounce me then please denounce me -- no problem."

The Dalai Lama. The Panchen Lama: "I've been to many places in the past decade and witnessed the ample freedom enjoyed by individua...

If you like the Audible Althouse theme music.

If you like the theme music on my podcasts , you might want to stream these two songs by Lucas Cates. Brit Rice, who worked on the podcast ...

Happy New Year... Virtuous New Year!

The NYT has two op-eds today on happiness, which will be pushed in our faces perhaps a bit too much this weekend. Psychprof Timothy Wilson s...

"We must recover the religious texts and free them from an exclusively male interpretation..."

Muslim women in Europe turn to education, specifically in Islamic studies, where they are learning to make effective arguments against the ...

That amazingly transgressive American idea: Fun!

Chinese kids get a look at Nickelodeon TV: There was ... sliming, a highlight of the American version of the show, which involves dumping, s...

Family disputes.

From CNN: Bibi recounted how she was awakened by a shriek as Ahmed put his hand to the mouth of his stepdaughter, Muqadas, and cut her throa...

"It's still all nude pumps and suntan pantyhose."

Why do figure skaters dress the way they do? It's not cool and it has no correlation to fashion in general. Why don't they require ...

The shift in Bush's Iraq rhetoric.

According to the WaPo: President Bush shifted his rhetoric on Iraq in recent weeks after an intense debate among advisers about how to pull ...

Audible Althouse #28.

The Blue Christmas Podcast. 36 minutes. (You can stream it right through your computer here .) UPDATE: If you tried before and found the fi...

Sometimes the music in the café is so bad...

... that you suspect the barista is playing a CD made by her friend who has a band. Thanks to John for this theory.

Let Congress amend the surveillance laws to support data-mining.

David Ignatius has this WaPo op-ed : As we learn more about what was going on under the Bush administration's secret surveillance progra...

Addiction.

By chance, two of my favorite bloggers are talking about addiction today. Hog on Ice is fed up with his sister's I'm-an-addict anti...

"Bloggers are the bloodthirsty masses slavering for a public flogging."

"Incivility is their weapon and humanity their victim."

The sturdy popularity of Hillary Clinton.

"Frustration Over Iraq Vote Unlikely to Trouble Clinton" is the headline of a piece that, in the paper NYT, is headed "Clint...

"The case against a lot of these guys just came out of nowhere because they were really nobodies..."

Will criminal defense lawyers find a way to challenge the administration's domestic surveillance program? [A] number of defense lawyers...

Car wreck blogging.

Please, all the rest of you Althouse commenters who blog: Do not repeat this technique for getting me to link .

The Rapture.

Writing that last post made me think about about the song "I Pray We'll Be Ready," by the Chicago Mass Choir , which made me s...

Limbo.

The NYT has a front-page article on the debate over limbo. "Limbo has never been a definitive truth of the faith," Cardinal Josep...

"I know this sounds crazy. I was crazy to have listened to him in the beginning."

David Letterman's lawyers have succeeded in quashing a restraining order that was granted to a woman who made patently psycho allegatio...

New laptop!

This is my first post on my new laptop, I'd like you to know, in case you've been worrying about me and my destroyed iBook and my la...

"The thief 'went right for the bun.'"

You remember the cinnamon bun that looks like Mother Teresa : Stolen! The Bongo Java coffee shop sold T-shirts, prayer cards and mugs with...

"Stop talking about putting the city back into its 19th-century state to make mass transit work."

"Instead, let's see what people want to do, then see how the city can be built around them." A quote from "Sprawl: A Comp...

Pay members of Congress $1 million a year.

Says Thomas Sowell. He notes that the persons we should most want in Congress are the ones who will have to make the biggest financial sacr...

"In the 1960's and 1970's, ... psychotherapy felt like a social movement, and you just wanted to be a part of it."

But now, says psychologist Jeffrey Zeig, it's just not the same . The "cool logic of science" threatens to unseat the "sp...

"But, somehow, life is warmer and closer, the hearth burns more redly..."

"... the lights of home shine softer on the rainy street, the very names endeared in verse and music cling nearer round our hearts....

Mama mia, Galileo, magnifico.

The story of "Bohemian Rhapsody." Perhaps the song's most distinct feature is the fatalistic lyrics: "Mama, just killed a...

Imperial succession.

Here 's an article about the debate over imperial succession in Japan. The princess's problems with depression and anxiety after giv...

Do the holidays cause depression?

That's what they say. But it's not true , though Jeremy seems to be acting this folk belief out . I think that's just his way o...

Speed listening.

You often hear about people who can speed talk or speed read, John observes, but what about speed listening? That's an impressive skill....

Have you noticed who's been amazingly silent lately?

Hillary Clinton. Has she said anything about the current domestic surveillance controversy? I think she had the good sense to see how this ...

"Several non-liberal blogs that I read daily or almost daily."

Thanks to Kevin Drum for putting me on this list : I periodically get email asking me for a list of good conservative blogs. In fact, I got ...

Condi in '08?

WaPo's Anne Gearan reads the political landscape and sees that Condoleezza Rice is awfully popular: Kurt Campbell, director of the Inte...

Never Listen to a TV Pundit.

I think that's the secret title to this article called "You, Too, Can Be a TV Pundit!" The toughest part of the job is develop...

What board game did you play today?

We played this: Photo by Chris. UPDATE: The game is a special 90s version of Trivial Pursuit. Question that came up yesterday: "What ou...

Christmas, 1958.

Obviously, Mommy was taking the picture. Dell was resisting the onslaught of the popping flashbulb. I was trying to prove that I belonged on...

Merry Christmas.

Again. Just wanted to have that at the top of the blog today. It's finally getting light here. I'm looking at just about the same im...

What we have here is failure of telecommuting.

You'd think the transit strike in NYC would have caused office workers to work from home, but it didn't . Telecommuting was supposed...

Cut and run, Scalito, Intelligent Design, truthiness...

Here is a collection of pieces about the words/phrases of the year. Truthiness comes from "The Colbert Report": "Truthines...

Catchwords.

This is actually a pretty nothing article on a subject I'm interested in: catchwords. It links to two sort of useful websites: blogpuls...

Merry Christmas!

Blogging on Christmas? Oh, please. I'm up at 4:30 and reading the NYT. How can I not?

Blue Christmas.

The view from my window, tonight at nightfall: It seems that every year, there's something that gets us started singing "Blue Chris...

Bush at 50% approval.

The Rasmussen poll has Bush at a 50% approval rating, up 6 points since last Sunday. (Via Instapundit .) Well, I guess Americans approve of...

Christmas Eve morning.

[ADDED: Welcome crossword Googlers. The answer is Theodore Roosevelt . [MORE: or Bob Saget .] Please hang out and read more of the Althouse ...

Computer troubles, Martha's "Apprentice" gossip.

Sorry I haven't posted more today. My laptop has been acting up. I've turned the thing off and on about 50 times today trying to get...

"Everybody says I'm an asshole, and they're right, I am."

Says Kos -- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga -- in a big feature story in Washington Monthly. Talking with Moulitsas, like reading his blog, is a si...

"One of those Hollywood fictions that seem to befuddle those who miss the nuance in the words 'inspired by real events.'"

There's a phrase. It's from the NYT review of the film "Munich." Yes, you dare to carp at a prestige film that distorts ...

"You were a warrior in the war on terrier."

Said by Andrea Mitchell, hosting "Hardball" last night, to her other guest just after tangling with Judge Richard Posner, who was ...

Audible Althouse, #27.

Here it is, my first podcast recorded in the daytime, and, more importantly, my first podcast recorded with the new Blue Snowball Microphon...

"Cold northern reaches," indeed.

I'm just now seeing this . (Via Sundries .) Look more closely . And don't you think this is all the more reason why I need to be yo...

Conservative Blogress Diva.

GayPatriot is looking to choose the "Conservative Blogress Diva," and I'm one of the nominees. How would a diva say go over t...

Congratulations!

Yay! You know who you are!

Miss America, nostalgia-style.

Good idea. [Country Music Television], in partnership with the Miss America Organization, has jettisoned a casual-wear competition that was ...

What does it take to get a restraining order?

Do the judges apply any judgment at all? Lawyers for David Letterman have gone to court in New Mexico to quash a restraining order obtained ...

Gotta dance.

Guys.

"When this old world starts getting me down..."

"And people are just too much for me to face..." The Drifters sang some pretty words , written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, ba...

The Village People cowboy has his say about "Brokeback Mountain."

Well, of course, "Brokeback Mountain" means it's time for Randy Jones, the cowboy from The Village People to resurface and do...

"The whole business becomes more vile and insufferable — and in new and worse ways — every 12 months."

Christopher Hitchens takes on Christmas: It was at Thanksgiving this year that, making my way through an airport, I was confronted by the le...

Photos of the Year.

40 from Reuters. (Via Metafilter .) Somehow, both Madonna and Courtney Love found a place among the many sad pictures of war and flooding....

Martha's "Apprentice" -- the finale.

Did you watch that? Martha was terrible! Was she just pissed off that her show got cancelled? She didn't even try! She deserves to be fi...

"The only way it would work would be if I played Doc."

I'd like to see this work out: Michael J. Fox is heading Back To The Future for a fourth time-traveling movie. The actor, who suffers fr...