Blind item.

What is lamer than fearfulness from people with tenure?

Low fat foods and vitamin supplements.

Bad for you! A new study suggests. I suspected as much. Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to cont...

I'm free!

Did you notice? I didn't say one word about it .

Look, over here!

Righties into the vortex! Ann Althouse, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, writes in a New York Times opinion piece Exhibit ...

What's that movie?

I idly turned on the television in my bedroom as I was getting ready for work this morning. It was some black and white melodrama with a wom...

Another lefty into the vortex.

Richards1052 just doesn't understand. He writes because he has "a burning passion to say something to the world" -- a specifi...

Eric Alterman contemplates whether he has "the typical liberal tendency toward fascism."

I inspired his reverie , not because I accused him of having a tendency toward fascism. I just quoted something he happened to say while r...

Who are you calling unserious?!

I laughed so hard I nearly had a nervous breakdown, watching this new Bloggingheads with Jonathan Chait and Jonah Goldberg, where, unbeknow...

"Primal Code for Brand Romney."

The Boston Globe snags 77 PowerPoint slides of inside analysis of Mitt Romney's strategy: Dated Dec. 11, the blueprint is wide-ranging ...

Did you know about my vortex?

Jason Joyce writes in [the] Isthmus: Sucked into the Althouse vortex Boy, left-wing bloggers really hate Ann Althouse. I arrived at work Tue...

"In Left Blogistan, where Ann is often derided and mocked as a conservative partisan, there will surely be howls today."

Howls Eric Muller. ADDED: This is another post about today's NYT column, which is up now -- free -- on the International Herald Tribune ...

I respond to letters about two NYT columns (on abortion and law school).

The NYT today has three letters on my Feb. 24 column, "Rudy & Mitt Hem & Haw on Abortion." And, check it out, the first ...

About that "scalping"... and other blogospheric collective activities.

After this post of mine questioning Lindsay Beyerstein's assertion that there is a right-wing term "scalping" -- meaning ...

Was Washington Irving gay?

Richard Brookhiser examines a new biography of the writer: [H]e was a restless man. He traveled constantly, never married and did not buy a...

200 years for possessing 20 photographs.

A prison sentence that the Supreme Court declined to review. The case, Berger v. Arizona, No. 06-349, has drawn considerable attention in c...

"A License to Blog?"

It's my Tuesday column, over at the NYT, on TimesSelect . This one has some personal anecdote, and there are some good words about you b...

Is he 107 because he stopped having sex when he was 30?

Chan Chi's wife died in the Japanese invasion. Imagine going 77 years without sex. Few would do it on the hope it would make life last ...

"It held me like two angels' hands."

Said Helen Mirren to Oprah Winfrey on Oprah's post-Oscar show today as she was displaying and explaining the inner structure of the Lacr...

Speaking of morality...

Let's have some standards! As you indulge your taste for ice cream and lottery tickets, we're not asking for much: Could you please ...

I'm glad someone was taking notes.

Simon blogs the hell out o f the Federalist Society's Law and Morality conference.

How the Edwards campaign blundered into hiring those bloggers.

Based on this Salon essay by Lindsay Beyerstein -- who declined their invitation to blog for them -- I'd say they were fooled by their ...

Uncracked: wisecrack that was begging to be cracked.

I was TiVo-blogging the Oscars last night after my long trip home, and there was all this material about Al Gore's movie about global w...

Simulblogging the Oscars!

I've got to get home first. The flight to Madison is boarding, so let me get going. Start without me! ADDED #1: Hey, I made it home. No ...

But what about all that snow?

Flight alert just received via airport WiFi: NW 247 February 25 ON TIME departs DTW at 7:26 pm arrives MSN 7:41 pm Gate 4 Okay. I'm taki...

"A potent debating strategy: he compares the status quo to the age of al jahiliya, the Arabic term for the barbaric state of pre-Islamic Arabia."

Mohammad Akram Nadwi teaches about the history of women and Islam: Barring Muslim women from education and religious authority, Akram argue...

"The anger was palpable. The objectification was extreme. The clothes were mean. And it was always the men who were responsible."

Robin Givhan writes about the latest Milan fashions. This is a beautifully written article, and yet the central point is one I've seen ...

"In the end, voters will decide what's off-limits, but I can't imagine that the public will reward the politics of personal destruction."

Laying the groundwork for the argument that anyone who brings up the Clinton impeachment now is not playing fair. Paradoxically, it was the...

"The immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live?"

"Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice -- how can they die? God is th...

Thermal image: Althouse at Stella's.

ADDED: A description of Stella's (which I'm reading the next day): The coffee house ... was opened in the early 1990s. It had an ol...

Will sensitivity about racism turn racism into a taboo subject?

I don't know what really happened here , but it's been on my mind. Now, I read this . What is going on? I should think that people w...

"Who appointed Diane Keaton to the position of National Commissioner for Aging Female Sexuality?"

Oscar asks. One of the commenters theorizes: "Maybe her appeal is that she's as sexy now as she was in 1970s, even if she's ne...

The literature professor with the nerve to lecture about books he's only skimmed...

... is selling a lot of copies of "How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read." “I am surprised because I hadn’t imagined how guilt...

I admit it.

I'm in Ithaca. I'm here to see the law school show tonight. Unlike NYU (where I went to law school) and Wisconsin, they don't ta...

"Giant rats roam free!"

A PR nightmare for Taco Bell. I love the person-on-the-street interviews: "I won't eat here again." Good call!

Babies watch television!

Oh, noooooo! Be sure to watch the video at the link, it's a masterpiece of editing. They savaged this poor mother, purely with her own ...

Kos "is waging a war for ideological purity."

The New Republic, doing badly, cuts back to bi-weekly publication, and the editor Franklin Foer whines about Kos .

"I was so enthralled with the line, I didn't see the ball mark."

"I knew if I hit it left-center, the match would be over. It's my fault for not paying attention to detail." Yes, but I do lov...

"Rudy & Mitt Hem & Haw on Abortion."

My Saturday NYT column is up! ( TimesSelect link .)

Subversive thought cascade unleashed by David Geffen.

Bill Kristol says: Hillary Clinton was cruising along, raising big money, triangulating on Iraq, rounding up supporters who felt they had li...

Is Randy Barnett giving me the finger?

And, since I can't see it, why am I giving him the stinkeye? The image survives -- courtesy of David Lat -- but the context is lost in ...

"We have to be very careful. We want professors to speak with what they see as their truths."

Says UW Professor Donald Downs , who is a strong voice for free speech here on campus. "We're here to push the envelope. … Academic...

Do you care who got cut from "American Idol" last night?

Ack! Never wear a target on your shirt, maybe is the lesson here. And please don't pose like that! Don't aim that thing at us when ...

"I think there is an ethical line crossed when someone is actually being paid to sound like they're not being paid."

From an article about political campaigns infiltrating the comments sections of blogs. It shows the high standards of blogging, doesn't...

"I find myself, even while strongly disagreeing with them, stimulated by the ideas of David Brooks, Andrew Sullivan, Ann Althouse, George Will..."

Hey, that grouping -- in an essay by Alan Wolfe in The New Republic -- surprised me!

"You will soon be more aware of your growing awareness."

That's a Chinese cookie fortune I got yesterday... that by its own force immediately came true. Ever get one like that?

"Every Case Gets the Judge That It Deserves."

David Lat says that about the Anna Nicole Smith case. Wouldn't it be weird if that were a general principle. ADDED: Judge Larry Seidlin...

Lieberman has his way with the Democrats.

How delicious and apt: Lieberman says leaving the Democratic Party is a "very remote possibility." But even that slight ambiguity ...

The crying, melodramatic judge in the Anna Nicole case.

I find him quite bizarre. Too much self-expression!

Is "Bullies" an offensive team name?

"Anti-bullying advocates" are up in arms about the Syracuse Bullies, a new ABA team. People who run anti-bullying programs are cr...

"The Nazi hunter's ultimate prize."

It's art. Not saying it's good. Just pointing at it.

Covering "American Idol" the lazy way again.

Here 's Jacob of TWOP mini-recapping last night's show, which featured the "girls" and was much better the Tuesday's ...

"Everybody in politics lies, but [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

That's just one of the mean things David Geffen said, as quoted by Maureen Dowd ( TimesSelect ) and being talked about everywhere . More...

"That's what we do in WI; beer, cheese, Harleys, serial killers, and crazy."

You might want to keep the volume turned down when you're watching porn in Oconomowoc, lest your neighbor burst through the door with hi...

"President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant."

So the Daily News wrot e back in January: Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail. ...

It's me and Jim Pinkerton on Bloggingheads.TV!

Enough with the Eric Alterman on Bloggingheads. My diavlog is up now. I'm gabbing with the estimable Jim Pinkerton. Topics (with times)...

"Ann Althouse Defends Scott Turow's Honor."

Writes David Lat , who wishes I'd been more catty in that NYT column -- and attracts a first comment from a pseudonymous former student...

Why aren't we paying much attention to the most qualified Democratic candidate in the race?

Matt Yglesias wonders (via Memeorandum ): [Bill Richardson is] the popular, second-term governor of a swing state -- you know, the sort of ...

"American Idol" -- the guys.

I didn't blog about "American Idol" last night. You may have noticed. I did watch it though. It was just too boring and bland ...

Eric Alterman thinks there should be a "blogging council" to condemn bloggers who go wrong.

Alterman is talking with Mark Schmitt on the new Bloggingheads. They've just discussed the problem the Edwards campaign had with the bl...