May, 2009 — Part 5 in a 12-part blog series.

1. The death of a camera produces a special effect. 2. "What a wild walk that was. The murder, the music, the ecstasy..." 3. ...

April, 2009 — Part 4 in a 12-part blog series.

1. The NYT Althouse + Meade story with all the links it needed. 2. Meade reads the paper. 3. "Stalkers and predators are everywhere, on...

March, 2009 — Part 3 in a 12-part blog series.

1. Hillary's reset button. 2. Justice Souter — soon to retire — calls the Supreme Court term an "annual intellectual lobotomy....

February, 2009 — Part 2 in a 12-part blog series.

1. I scan 2 photos of me in the 1970s. 2. "WiFi on airplanes. What's the downside? Terrorists coordinating things? The fact that th...

January, 2009 — Part 1 in a 12-part blog series.

1. 6 reasons why we didn't talk about the way Caroline Kennedy looks. 2. Going out without a hat does not make you as cold as going out ...

"I'm interested in your resolve to live a larger, more expressive, more fully dimensional life."

I'm interested to look back on my first post of 2009: Have you broken your resolutions yet? Do you have the classic cliché resolution to...

You've got one more night to wear those "00" glasses.

I thought that 2009 was the last New Year's when you could wear those glasses with "00" over the eyes, but I was corrected . Y...

The last day of the year and the decade is here at last.

It's been a rough decade at the national and international level, but at a personal level, I've really enjoyed it, especially this c...

At the Stray Words Café...

In a bowl by the cash register, there are words to contemplate: There's advertising on the floor: And a fully painted mural where for ye...

"I hope he dies."

I'm impressed that it took 12 comments before anyone at Politico said that (or anything like that) after a report that Rush Limbaugh has...

"Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world. It's hard to get by just upon a smile..."

Cat Stevens sang that: And we were talking about smiling. Do you use that tremendously effective device, the smile? It's hard to get by ...

"The road to radicalization ran less through Yemen... than through the Islamic hothouse of London."

John Burns on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. [O]fficials in Washington and London have said they are focusing on the possibility that his London...

"W.'s favorite word was 'resolute'..."

No, Maureen . Bush was resolute. I don't know what his favorite word was. Probably not something more than 2-syllables. ← That's a...

At the Electric Café...

... you can take a good look at yourself.

"Our new 'post-modern' race problem" — Shelby Steele on Barack Obama.

In today's WSJ: America's primary race problem today is our new "sophistication" around racial matters. Political correctn...

I must correct Barack Obama's grammar.

He said: "A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable. There was a mix of human and systemic failure that ...

But I brought you all those Christmas presents?

Why don't you love me?

The New Year's Eve blue moon.

Tomorrow night. What will it look like? Like any other full moon. It's just the second full moon in a month. But all full moons are ter...

And the answer to the question When will Althouse defend Obama? is:

When liberals attack him.

Michelle Cottle is really getting on Barack Obama's case about playing golf.

She writes: Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington--to alter the very nature of politics--sell his soul to a leisure activity that...

Christmas miracle.

Not really, of course. (Or do you think otherwise?) But it's damned cool: A mother (seemingly) dies in labor, and the baby is (seemingly...

Best reality shows of the decade.

From Throwing Things.

"Ted, do cartoon animals have rights?

"They’re the ones that should have rights. Bambi and Thumper are just adorable and you can’t eat celluloid. I am pro-cartoon animal rig...

Obama admits to "a systemic failure."

"When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, a s...

Is Obama getting tired?

He's been traveling a lot — including going on a vacation — which is grueling. And he doesn't give priority to sleeping: Unlike form...

The end of those "macro-headed, somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures."

David Levine has died. This beautifully constructed online gallery of his work has over 2,500 items. Here are all the ones of U.S. Preside...

"hate audio books where women speak man's part."

This is a Google search that brought a couple readers to my blog — to a post that wasn't about being annoyed when female audiobook read...

"The tax on health benefits is being sold to the public dishonestly as something that will affect only the rich..."

"... and it makes a mockery of President Obama’s repeated pledge that if you like the health coverage you have now, you can keep it....

Released Guantanamo detainees did not respond to art therapy the way we were hoping.

They, apparently, went on to plan the Christmas Day bombing. 1. What does this say about art? Is art ineffectual or — think about it! — qui...

"I do not feel protected against Sarah Palin in a closed proceeding."

"I hope that if it is open she will stay out of it. ... I think a public case might go a long way in reducing Sarah Palin's instinc...

Was all that sex worth $12 billion?

That's the loss to the shareholders in the companies whose advertising relied on the image of the disgraced supergolfer Tiger Woods.

"The slightly charred and singed underpants..."

I'm sorry, this gives me way too much hope for the survival of his dick. ADDED: Here's the 6 inches of explosives he had in his pant...

"President Obama emerged from Hawaiian seclusion on Monday..."

"... to try to quell gathering criticism of his administration’s handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner...

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility and brags "We have prepared men who love to die."

CNN reports: In the statement, published on radical Islamist Web sites, the group hailed the "brother" who carried out the "h...

Napol(ogize)itano.

The Secretary of Homeland Security eats her words: Ms. Napolitano said Monday on NBC’S “Today” that her remark the day before — “the system ...

A subject only a movie reviewer can care about.

Worst movies of the decade. Come on, if a movie was that bad, any lay person would have avoided it. It's nothing we're longing to er...

Roman Polanski is heartened by your murmurs.

"I have been overwhelmed by the number of messages of support and sympathy I have received in Winterthur prison... I would like every o...

10 Reasons Why the Christmas Day Pants Bomber Will Be Blogged Endlessly.

1. It was a completely serious terrorist attack intended to and capable of taking down a large jet above a major American city, so 9/11 is v...

"Do I think, as a publicist, that I now have to have my eye on some kid who’s writing a blog in Oklahoma as much as I do on an editor from Vogue?"

"Absolutely. Because once they write something on the Internet, it’s never coming down. And it’s the first thing a designer is going to...

You've heard of global warming...

... but now there's cooling... of the Democrats' feet .

"Iraq was yesterday's war, Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war."

Said Joe Lieberman. ADDED: Spencer Ackerman said : Is it a mistake to respond to this with more than ridicule? Maybe, but if not: it’s a lud...

The reaction to the Christmas Day attack should be exactly what it would have been if Abdulmutallab's device had not malfunctioned.

Instapundit writes: HUFFINGTON POST: What’s wrong with this picture? UPDATE: Marc Ambinder explains that it’s all a cunning plan . Ambinder’...

"Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Sunday that there was so far no evidence of a wider terrorist plot..."

Hmmm . But the administration also didn't see the warnings — relayed the suspect's own father — that Abdulmutallab was a threat. It...

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.

Some facts about the Christmas Day bomber: 1. He was an engineering student who lived in a $4 million apartment in London. 2. His father, a ...

"My 'C,' 'D,' and 'F' students this semester are almost exclusively American..."

"... while my students from India, China, and Latin America have - despite language barriers - generally written solid papers, excelled...

The Shalala Bowl.

Miami and Wisconsin.

At the Old Snowman Café...

... melt with us. Is it baseball time yet?

"10 Reasons This Was TV's Decade."

10 reasons... Add an 11th: We got older and stopped going out so much (which is the same reason every decade is TV's.)

Let the President stay in the White House — or, at most, retreat to Camp David.

"President Barack Obama’s Christmas Day began with a briefing about a botched attack on an airliner in Detroit and ended with a visit t...

At the Christmas Inn...

... I hope you got everything you wanted.

A Christmas day terror attack.

"The 23-year-old suspect lighted a powdery substance as the aircraft was preparing for landing, around noon, a federal counterterrorism...

Memories, at the cellular level.

When something is in your memory it exists in the cellular structure of your brain . I'll never get over how weird that is. If you have ...

Fat or wrinkly...

You choose.

On the night of the crash, Elin Nordegren "roused Woods from an Ambien-enhanced sleep by whacking him with a golf club."

That's the report. If it's true, then Nordegren committed a very serious criminal attack. Attempted murder, perhaps. IN THE COMMENT...

Christmas breakfast.

I'm blogging Christmas breakfast. Here at Meadhouse, there's a choice of: 1. blueberry waffles, and 2. fried mush. What are you havi...

Lactose intolerance.

Remember when there was an epidemic of claims of lactose intolerance? It was such that there was a "Seinfeld" bit about it : Jerry...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's Christmas. I hope life is beautiful for you.

"My husband and I both wanted our children to have a traditional childhood, which didn't include being dragged from place to place on the road. So we decided to live a simpler life."

So said rock and roll icon Patti Smith.

"We felt like we were throwing joke Molotov cocktails, and then the room burst into flames."

Stephen Colbert reflects on his infamous performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner. (Blogged here at the time.) When the dinner...

"I won’t marry because I am too afraid of taking him for granted or him taking me for granted..."

"... maybe it will be a good excuse for a party when I am 80." Said Susan Sarandon a while back. Sarandon is nowhere near 80. She...

The Senate finally passes the health care bill — and the question is, for people who wanted the bill to pass: How good or bad are they supposed to feel?

Liberals mull nuancefully: "There is so much that is wrong with it -- and the way it was made -- and, at the same time, so much that is...

Sinornithosaurus, the bird-lizard with venomous fangs.

"You wouldn't have seen it coming... It would have swooped down behind you from a low-hanging tree branch and attacked from the bac...

"It went over well except for one person who thought it was blasphemous and tried to knock over our Festivus pole."

"He refused to come to the potluck, was forced to, came, ate all the food and left without saying thank you. Grievances were aired abou...

I say Obama never intended to close Guantanamo.

So the Guantanamo detainees won't be moved to Illinois after all? I am so not surprised. While Mr. Obama has acknowledged that he woul...

The webcam that can't see black people.

"I think my blackness is interfering with the computer's ability to follow me..." Wanda Zamen and Desi Cryer say they didn...

"Transvestites, Mao, Obama On Mt. Rushmore Adorn White House Christmas Tree."

View the pics. Your response? It's shocking. It's kind of cool and hip. The controversy is a pointless distraction. These secular im...

The D.C. mayor signed the same-sex marriage bill in a church.

In a church! Two weeks after giving the measure preliminary approval, the Washington, DC, City Council on December 15 adopted a marriage equ...

"I have so many things in me that you can't even guess them all." — Kim Peek.

Kim Peek, the real "Rain Man," dead now, at 58. ... Mr Peek was diagnosed as severely mentally retarded and his parents were advis...

Is Obama now deliberately avoiding the term "czar"?

"Today the White House announced the President’s new White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, Howard Schmidt." *** Last September on...

Popcorn, the breakfast cereal.

Really .

We made corn.

"In the 19th and 20th centuries we made stuff: corn and steel and trucks." Another David Brooks first line.

Icy sidewalks and hating to use salt.

I don't want any floor-damaging grit either. So, what's left? I found this: When I had a wooden deck I used to scatter cracked corn ...

Ezra Klein responds to Jane Hamsher's 10 reasons to kill the health care bill.

The liberals are fighting amongst themselves, forcing out some useful points.

"Like Wally Cox... and Don Knotts, Mr. Stang was a natural for roles requiring a milquetoast, a pest or a nerd."

The last of the milquetoast triumvirate is gone. Arnold Stang was 91. I wish I could come up with some good video on YouTube. I wanted the o...

"But before we cede the entire moral penthouse to 'committed vegetarians' and 'strong ethical vegans'..."

"... we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Chr...

"I can’t tell you the number of people who come up to me and hug and kiss me and touch me, and some of them in tears."

"I wish there was a way of keeping that without the commercialization of me. Because when I spoke my words I spoke them freely, and I n...

Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

Once again, I'm nominated for this title. Once again, I won't win. Tell me all the reasons why I shouldn't. I've heard it a...

"Can I have your hair in my next life?"

Brittany Murphy's last interview.

We've now endured the shortest day.

Enjoy the long night.

Must be Santa!

Orangutans need...

... corridors.

"Go! Oriental Angel."

A Chinese reality show shines a light on Chinese racism. "After the contest started, I often got more attention than the other girls. I...

"Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts..."

"... negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

"For those who might like a hint or two: 'Gary Oldman' is Albert Goldman..."

Blech. If you have to explain it, all the fun and surprise is gone. I am reminded of the entry of the lion in the play within a play in ...

"Every senator uses whatever leverage they have to help their states. That’s the way it has been. That’s the way it will always be."

David Axelrod expects us to deal with the nasty aspects of American federalism. Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming... Did...

Tom Coburn's prayer.

"What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight. That's what they ought to pray." Yik...

Supreme Court ideology and the career paths of Supreme Court clerks.

A new study shows: Clerks from conservative chambers are now less likely to teach. If they do, they are more likely to join the faculties of...

"May the best man win."

That's not what you want to say when you're competing against a woman, and women are judging the contest. But I would have voted f...

It's Obama's fault.

Says Feingold.

"I find it embarrassing. I hear people speaking against the very idea of having rental housing."

"In terms of doing its part to meet the need for affordable housing, the village is so far behind the rest of the county, it's ridi...