"He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer - he drank a bottle of beer like any man."

The bear that fought in World War II.

"I remember the first time my girlfriends and I admitted that we all felt the same about married sex as parents...."

"... we couldn't be bothered with it and felt guilty for not wanting to sleep with our husbands. It was a revelation. I remember th...

Last night's debate.

I didn't post last night about the Republican debate because I was on an airplane, but since it was a JetBlue airplane I had TV receptio...

I'm assailed in the local paper for failing to take the 9/11 truthers seriously.

Oh, the pain! The pain that UW-Oshkosh emeritus biology professor Bill Willers imagines he's inflicting! On Jan. 21, University of Wisc...

Our "script"... our "reality is pretty brutal and pretty hard-edged like a rough action film," so we need a President "who's been in that."

Sylvester Stallone makes the pitch for John McCain. So Huckabee's got Chuck Norris. And now, McCain has Stallone. Somebody needs a Schw...

Churchyard signs.

( Enlarge #1 . Enlarge #2 .) IN THE COMMENTS: Inwood says: STRANGER if you, passing, meet me and desire to speak to me, fuhgedaboudit; get o...

The churchyard pumpkin.

"The desire to become 'tragic heroes' on the internet."

"Suicide had become a cool thing in our area."

"I would rather be a cartoon than a genius!"

Says Dolly Parton , reacting to getting named #94 on a list of 100 Greatest Living Geniuses and asserting that "A cartoon character is ...

It's January Christmas Eve!

Are you celebrating January Christmas? I am!

"Shame on you," says Bill Clinton, if you're worried the Hillary campaign is exploiting race.

So it's all in your head if you think the Clintons are doing anything to use race to beat Barack Obama. Here 's Dick Morris taking t...

"She's the one that's been to those little fancy lunches that women of power have, if not of color, and she even bid on Hillary's book..."

"She didn’t get it, but she’s disposed towards Hillary Clinton and probably would vote for her. Except she ain’t." New York-type h...

"Blinding you with his razor-sharp acumen...."

1. Keep the razor blades away from my eyes. 2. This is not acumen , John Gibson. This is pure stupidity and ugliness. 3. Even as he mocks th...

Fred's exit...

... catapults Romney into the lead in Florida. (Or so says this one poll .) BUT: Check out this NYT headline : "Romney Leads in Ill Wil...

Barack Obama vs. Rudy Giuliani... with Brit Hume moderating.

"I'm jealous. I can't do it either. I can't cross my legs sitting in a chair like that."

Here's Rush Limbaugh talking about the way Hillary Clinton was sitting in her chair at the debate. ( Subscriber link .) (Yes, I subscrib...

The end of momentum.

Somehow, the laws of political physics have changed. Mickey Kaus's theories: 1. "[L]ate-focusing voters tune in to what the press i...

"Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character."

"It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn." Dead at 28. Heath Ledger. IN THE COMMENTS:...

A bomb-making factory is discovered in a Columbia professor's house — 3 blocks from where I live.

From The Daily News (via Michelle Malki n): Cops evacuated the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood around the Remsen St. home of Michael Clatts, ...

Fred Thompson: "Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States."

Good-bye, Fred: "I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be gratefu...

"Bill Clinton "is rather a master of what one might call 'strategic emotion,' the use of tears or anger to comfort voters or intimidate the press."

Blogs Matthew Continetti at the NYT: During his presidency Clinton lashed out at, among others, then-ABC White House correspondent Brit Hume...

"Hillary can be relentless and like a sledgehammer delivering tendentious but probably effective attacks."

"But whatever you think of those attacks, Obama isn't very good at defending himself." Josh Marshall on last night's debat...

Oscar nominations — in a few moments.

Are you excited? Vaguely interested? Actively hostile? UPDATE: The whole list should be here soon. I'll just say that I loved Julie Ch...

"Despite Blog Support, Flake Bid a Long-shot."

A headline amuses me.

Another debate? Democrats... CNN...

Wolf Blitzer is still blabbing... 8 minutes into it! He's stumbling oddly. What the hell? 8:23 ET: Clinton sounds stressed and intense. ...

CNN: "For these women, a unique, and most unexpected dilemma, presents itself: Should they vote their race, or should they vote their gender?"

Pissed-off black woman: "Duh, I'm a black woman and here I am at the voting booth. Duh, since I'm illiterate I'll pull dow...

Nuances of dog talk.

A dog listens to a recording of himself and a dog-friend barking. About midway through, you can see he's deeply absorbed in the nuances...

Bill!

TPM snips together a great clip show... and saves the best for last. My, but Peggy kicks little Doris! ADDED: Josh Marshall on Bill Clinton:...

If you reject a teaching job applicant because he believes a crazy conspiracy theory...

... have you discriminated against him because of his political viewpoint? I'm not saying that's what happened in this case . I don...

"By the time Hillary is through with Obama, voters will think his middle name is 'Hussein'!"

Kaus quips.

Dear al Qaeda: Why haven't you attacked the United States again?

Ayman al-Zawahri is taking questions on line. Some of those posting questions sound worried: Does al-Qaida have a long-term strategy?... Man...

How to call Bill Clinton a liar Barack Obama style.

"I understand him wanting to promote his wife's candidacy. She's got a record that she can run on. But I think it's importa...

"Bush," the new Oliver Stone movie.

It will be "a fair, true portrait" — and don't be so dubious. His Nixon movie is pretty good. Stone plans to focus on Bush...

When laws meant to help really hurt — and what would it take for the NYT to quote Ronald Reagan on the subject?

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt give some vivid illustrations of the way well-intended laws can backfire: The Americans With Disabil...

Gen. Butt Naked, a terrifying nom de guerre.

Joshua Milton Blahyi, who killed 20,000 people , has returned to his homeland Liberia where — clothed — he will face its truth and reconcili...

Well, then, may Suzanne Pleshette wake up next to God.

The last words of her NYT obituary are an Onion headline: Arguably Ms. Pleshette’s most memorable television moment was not in “The Bob Newh...

Restaurant with warm colors.

Restaurant with cool colors.

When divas shop. (A dialogue.)

This is pretty. I hate the color. It's royal blue. Not royal enough for me .

Smokography.

Some cool smoke photography.

Obama wins Nevada!

If you look at it the right way. AND: It's getting ugly.

"If you’re a southern conservative and you can’t make it in South Carolina, it’s over."

Said Bill Bennett on CNN , bullying Fred Thompson, who might say that lumbering to a slow start is the right way for an adult to handle a ca...

John McCain!

A big win in South Carolina. Huckabee's down. But what about Mitt? Are we supposed to see McCain as big favorite now? Actually, it'...

Intermission.

Intermission at the Metropolitan Opera: The ladies check their cell phones. From "Die Walküre" on Monday to "Jersey Boys...

New York night.

We stop for a coffee/tea before walking the rest of the way to the theater. Two days of Broadway shows...

Is Jack Balkin more subversive than Eugene Volokh? Am I?

Yale lawprof Jack Balkin is in China , checking out which lawprof blogs are blocked: I was able to reach Volokh Conspiracy, SCOTUSBlog, How ...

A Saturday coffeehouse.

It's up to you to make this post interesting. Carry on. UPDATE: Your humble blogger has returned from my daylong sojourns in the materia...

Bow down, Chris Matthews!

You cannot be disrespectful to Hillary Clinton, the woman . AND: Here's the pithy statement that he was blabbering about: IN THE COMMENT...

"Were you embarrassed? I would be embarrassed."

Tyra Banks asks Hillary Clinton about Monica Lewinsky. ADDED: Video disembedded.

Should a 10-year-old be permitted to go hunting?

There's a proposal to lower the hunting age from 12 to 10 in Wisconsin, something we talked about on "The Week in Review" on ...

"Because I'm an ordinary person, I thought..."

I'm not declaring favorites in the presidential campaign, but I've got to say that stuff like this makes me love Obama, at least on...

In the Monica Lewinsky scandal — 10 years old now — "Everybody lost, with one exception, or possibly two."

Writes Timothy Noah in Slate. I had to stop and think who that one person was and decided it must be Matt Drudge. But he's not even one...

"If somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole; that’s what we’d do."

Mike Huckabee, working the South Carolina flag issue.

"People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with."

Christopher Hitchens rails about "identity politics": Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show...

"I was a little disturbed by my anger..."

"Because of the way Daddy behaved when he was angry and drunk, I associated anger with being out of control and I was determined not to...

Why Barack Obama is "authentically black."

"He is being black by choice. That is more authentic."

Radio alert.

I'll be on the "Week in Review" show on Wisconsin Public Radio at 8 AM Central Time this morning. That's 9 AM in the East...

"What the Hell is Mitt Romney Talking About?"

Video. ADDED: Video disembedded.

Are you one of the 40 million Americans who live in a sexless marriage?

According to experts, your marriage is "sexless" if you have sex 10 times a year or less. So please, people, make the effort. Tha...

"It was on a blog, so I don't know if it's actually true..."

Said Rush Limbaugh, quoting something that some blogger said came from David Brooks of the New York Times. (Subscriber link to the radio s...

Midlife crisis or narcissistic jerk?

Here 's a piece by psychiatry professor Richard A. Friedman that's ranking well on the NYT most-emailed list. There are different re...

"The Prada Unman was gotten up in humiliating tutu belts, severe high-collar shirts that buttoned up the back..."

"... and odd cummerbunds that disappeared in a chevron down the front of trousers conspicuously lacking a fly.... [W]hen designers stop...

"We know how to talk about eatin' fried squirrel."

"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America."

"He tapped into what people were already feeling, which is that we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dy...

"Every time you post, recite the following to yourself as though it were a mantra: 'I am cutting rope with which to hang myself....'"

Advice to doctor bloggers , from Robert Lindeman, the pediatrician who blogged his own malpractice trial and then had his blog — which he...

The candidates and their TV shows.

I'll put it in quiz form. 1. Which candidate likes "The Office"? 2. Which candidate likes "The Daily Show" and ...

I think I'm going to have to stop watching "American Idol."

Monday marked the first day of my 5th year of blogging, and during each of those past 4 years, I blogged every episode — did I miss even 1? ...

If the economy is going to be the central issue, who is the best candidate?

The exit polling in the Michigan primary shows a strong preference for Mitt Romney among voters who thought the economy was the most impor...

Hillary as Tracy Flick — the video.

Romney wins... and on to the debate.

NBC is showing 37% for Romney over 31% for McCain and 16% for Huckabee. And now for the debate... the Democrats. I guess Dennis lost his cas...

It's back! "American Idol."

You know you have to watch. It's not a question of whether we love the show. And certainly we can't enjoy the music. It's just p...

Tonight on television.

I haven't watched much TV lately, and not because of the writers' strike. I hadn't been watching any scripted shows anyway. I...

I love Apple.

This is the thing that I most wanted from them, and it's far more beautiful than I could have pictured. Here , watch the ad. Even the a...

"WILD COURIC RAW: ANCHOR CAUGHT OFF-CAMERA, AGAIN..."

Screams Drudge. I follow the link and see this video of Couric in her off-air moments on the night of the New Hampshire primary and find he...

"What do you have to forget or overlook in order to desire that this dysfunctional clan once more occupies the White House..."

"... and is again in a position to rent the Lincoln Bedroom to campaign donors and to employ the Oval Office as a massage parlor?"...