At the Pioneer Café...

... it's all rugged individualism around here.

Michael Moore thinks people should start to practice the words 'President Romney.'"

Interesting, not really intended so much a prediction as a cynical remark about campaign finance. But that's not why somebody emailed me...

"Firestone wanted to eliminate the following things: sex roles, procreative sex, gender, childhood, monogamy, mothering, the family unit..."

"... capitalism, the government, and especially the physiological phenomena of pregnancy and childbirth. She wanted to mechanize reprod...

The shape of the glass affects the speed of beer-drinking.

It's a study! People drink more quickly out of a curved glass. But not for a soft drink. We're talking about beer: While it took aro...

"You cannot measure a man’s character based on the words he utters before adoring crowds during times that are happy."

"The true measure of a man is revealed in his actions during times of trouble — the quiet hospital room of a dying boy, with no cameras...

The happiest students are at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

It's a HuffPo top 10 list, and we're #1. Details here . Our highest-rated factor is sports culture , beating out political activity ...

"MSNBC pundits said Clint Eastwood’s GOP convention speech Thursday night was a 'bizarre' and 'embarrassing' 'disaster'..."

Key word: MSNBC. “Clint Eastwood was a disaster,” Lawrence O’Donnell said. “I thought Clint Eastwood was bizarre,” Ed Schultz said. “It was ...

Goodbye to Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

The comically irritating rich kid on my all-time favorite sitcom "Dobie Gillis" was played by an actor named Steve Franken, who ha...

Competitive empathy.

"President Barack Obama was today forced to announce he will fly to storm-hit Louisiana on Monday – hours after Mitt Romney beat him to...

Eric Holder announces the end of "the Obama administration’s limited effort to scrutinize the counterterrorism programs carried out under President George W. Bush."

The NYT reports: The Justice Department did not say publicly which cases had been under investigation. But officials had previously confirme...

624 comments on the live-blogging thread last night.

Did the spam-bots find out I'd turned off word verification for commenting? I'll check it out . There's our liberal commenter Li...

"30 Best Quotes" from the GOP convention.

As seen by John Hawkins , with #1, #5, and #14 coming from Mike Huckabee. Was Huckabee that good? Here's the #1 quote: “The Democrats sa...

Live-blogging Day 3 of the GOP Convention.

6:04: Settle in. It's going to be a long night. Are you looking forward to anything other than Rubio and Romney? 6:30: A Mormon invocati...

Democrat sends out a mailer saying crime has gone up "over 50% in our negrohood so far this year."

Supposedly a typo , but how does a typo like that happen? Imagine if a Republican had done that. People would be saying the mask has slipped...

If Jason Biggs were an important actor...

... it might matter that he tweeted this. But presumably, his career means something to him, so it's interesting to see that Hollywood ...

"I'll be damned, we're Republicans."

NM Gov. Susana Martinez, who'd been a Democrat for many years, like her parents, talked — in her convention speech last night — about a ...

Chuck Todd said "the stupidest thing" Josh Marshall has ever heard.

It's just painful for poor Josh to watch . Todd somehow actually says: "Democrats wish they had the diversity of speakers and deep...

"Important fact: This letter was to his first wife."

Key comment in a comments thread about a contract Kurt Vonnegut made with his pregnant wife in January 1947. The contract comes from this ...

"I didn’t want to talk my son into not wearing dresses and skirts."

"He didn’t make friends in doing that in Berlin already and after a lot of contemplation I had only one option left: To broaden my shou...

"A federal court on Thursday rejected a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to vote..."

"... in November's election, unanimously ruling that it imposes 'strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor,' who are often ra...

Email from John Kerry: "I have one message burned into my memory..."

What?! I can't believe Kerry would evoke his old "memory which is seared — seared — in me" line. If you don't have that se...

"I replied to ads people had posted to the casual encounters section of craigslist."

"I asked if I could photograph them in visual representations of their ads. Some said yes."  The link isn't NSFW, but what it ...

"And when Ryan riffed on the handful of jobs he briefly held, his Ayn Randian roots were clear."

Writes Joan Walsh at Salon. Here's what Paul Ryan said that Walsh thinks is "straight out of Rand, and ’50s anti-Communist paranoi...

No, I won't apologize for voting for Obama, but Meade regrets voting for McCain.

My refusal to apologize hinges on my 3 reasons for voting for Obama: 1. I wanted Democrats to have to take responsibility terrorism and secu...

"Support Prince Harry with a naked salute."

"Harry’s nude fans range from young women to male soldiers... all posed saluting the prince." (No full nudity at the link. Lots of...

"I hope people remember George, and I think they will, for having the determination and the toughness and the persistence..."

"... to be able to see... our country through such a very difficult time after the terrorist attack," said Laura . "There was...

Live-blogging Day 2 of the GOP Convention.

6:03: Ayla Brown — the erstwhile "American Idol" contestant and daughter of Senator Scott Brown — sings the National Anthem. 6:07...

The Amish hair- and beard-cutting trial: Is it a hate crime...

... if they felt compassion and wanted to bring strayed Amish "back into the fold"?

"The Suffragette Summer School, a two-day feminist training camp... promises to help 'budding Pussy Rioters' hone headline-grabbing techniques."

"Feminism can be quite isolating because it is so stigmatized... It can be quite hard to tell people you don’t know that you’re a femin...

"I was Episcopalian, he was a Mormon," said Ann Romney, and Ross Douthat says that was "straining to make an affinity sound like an impediment."

Douthat lumps Episcopalians and Mormons together. He's got a big theory about it. Mormons are the WASPs of the West or something. Douth...

After only 1 day of the convention, Romney gets a 5 point bump.

From The Hill: Romney had a 43-percent favorable and 44-percent unfavorable rating in nine battleground states heading into the convention, ...

If a man dares to horse around with children he doesn't know... he could get into trouble.

Look what happened to Madison's Brett Hulsey , who just pled "no contest" to a disorderly conduct charge for —as the police pu...

That semi-starvation diet that was supposed to make you live longer — based on monkey experiments?

After 25 years, the results are in: The starved monkeys didn't live any longer than the unstarved monkeys. Cancer, heart disease — agai...

"It was only when the store opened I learnt Hitler had killed six million people."

Says the owner of a clothing store — in India — called "Hitler" (which has a swastika as the dot on the "i"). "I wi...

Morning-after thoughts about the first night of the GOP convention.

Why didn't I live-blog the GOP convention last night? I'd thought I would, and I think I live-blogged every day of both parties'...

GOP convention.

We're watching. Are you? ADDED: "Utah’s Mia Love Gets Enthusiastic Reception in Tampa."

"I never thought I'd say this, but we're going to be the New Jersey of the West."

"Oregon is going to be the next red state on the left coast." Just now, as the roll call proceeds at the GOP convention. UPDATE: ...

Photos from the Go Topless Protest at the White House.

Warning, lots of large photos of breasts at the link , which I recommend not for the usual gawking at breasts, but for the careful contempla...

"Reclaim Women’s Equality" rally at the Wisconsin Capitol draws only 100 people.

"Wendi Kent... had hoped enough would attend to encircle the Capitol...." She said she invited Republican and Democratic state law...

Could it be... Sarah?

The mystery speaker at the GOP convention. I'm betting on Hologram Reagan.

"She chose to put herself in danger... She could have easily distanced herself from the danger like any reasonable person would."

Rachel Corrie, according to an Israeli judge.

Fish politics, insect politics.

You may know I'm a longtime fan of the 1986 movie "The Fly," especially the part where the main character, the scientist-turne...

Who's playing the playing-the-race-card card?

It's hard to tell who, if anybody, is playing the race card. (That's done subtly, if it's done by anybody worth taking down for ...

Does Rush Limbaugh accuse the government of faking the hurricane reports to screw up the GOP convention?

The storm was headed right for Tampa, then suddenly re-aimed at New Orleans. Rush talks about the evidence without making a direct accusatio...

"Why would a guy want to marry a guy?"

A question asked in 1959.

South Dakota.

The video....

"Ah ha ha ha ha ha..."

"The Wisconsin Capitol's new police chief said Monday that he plans to crack down on protesters who don't follow the building's rules..."

"... because he wants to restore a sense of normalcy and safety to the statehouse." Chief David Erwin [said] that he respects peop...

"[M]en don’t believe as strongly as women that fruit and vegetable consumption is an important part of maintaining health..."

According to some new study , which supposedly suggests that men are less "receptive" to "messages" that we ought to eat...

"Gibbon has lived for fifty years just by staying super relaxed."

Noted.

"I'd rather see a movie that helps me be a nicer person, not a sharper arguer."

Writes Chip Ahoy (in the comments to the thread about the "Obama's America" movie). I thought this was a nice topic, this top...

"The good thing is that this is so insipidly solipsistic that I think she's going to have ruined the Vagina book like Cutthroat Island destroyed the pirate film."

"Might be 15 years before someone gambles with Vaginas of the Caribbean." Also at that link: " My Vagina is Large; It Contain...

Have the big papier maché puppets arrived?

Yes. And the Guy Fawkeses .

"The music starts faintly, as if in a vintage pleasure palace..."

"... with the band — the stalwarts who've played with Dylan for a while and join him on the Never-Ending Tour — playing rock and ro...

The American Academy of Pediatrics says the medical benefits of circumcision outweigh the small risks.

"The new policy could bring about a shift in affordability. The guidelines now make plain that the benefits of circumcision are great e...

"Sleepwalking Idaho woman wakes up in Snake River twice..."

She'll be asleep, dreaming of drowning and then wake up to find herself in the river.

The "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh seeks more religious freedom in prison.

He's serving a 20-year sentence in the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and the request is for more group prayer — his sect ...

“A lot of people ask ‘What’s in the water in Wisconsin?’”

“But a better question is, ‘What’s in the beer?’” Reince Priebus, at the GOP Convention.

"We are going to start treating mopeds the same as we do automobiles."

The moped free-for-all here on campus is over. University officials say the policy will make UW safer and less congested, but riders say it...

"Taliban insurgents beheaded 17 Afghans... two of them women..."

"[T]hey were attending a party that featured music and mixed-gender dancing...."

"We know what Gary’s brain looks like when he’s trying to lie..."

"And when he was answering questions about whether he killed McQueen, 'it doesn’t appear the same as when he’s lying.'"

"Most voters won’t be watching much of the upcoming national political conventions..."

"... and over one-third of independent voters plan to tune them out completely." Predictably, 90% of Republican and 81% of Democra...

"I mind my own business. And I don’t eat junk food."

In case you're assuming that the secret to longevity is whatever it is that is true of a person who happens to have lived to be very old...

"So why did Apple sue Samsung, the Galaxy hardware manufacturer, and not Google, maker of the phone's Android software?"

"Apple sees Google as its chief competitor—this is no secret." Steve Jobs so hated Google's Android that, even as he struggle...

"There are no conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth, religion, Social Security number, passport, or college transcript."

"Instead, there is a deep dive into Barack Obama’s known Communist associates, his late father’s avowed socialism, and his mother’s rad...

At the Lift-to-Smell Café...

... it's nothing to sniff at.

A WaPo writer "searching for the 'authentic America'" is delighted to travel to Madison, Wisconsin.

"We’d always heard about that mythically quirky place called Madison, a free-spirited land with far fewer chain stores and BlackBerry a...

A young man, angry at academia, becomes a ghostwriter for students....

... taking money to help them cheat. And then he quit: Eventually, the strain of 20-hour workdays, arguments with self-righteous clients, an...

The Romney campaign pays the rock band Journey $500,000 to play at a fundraiser.

And the band wants to make it really really clear that this is NOT a political statement, but "just another gig."

"Man convicted of molesting a dead deer and shooting horse to have sex with it 'assaulted female cop after shoplifting from Walmart.'"

Now, there's a headline ! And it happened in Wisconsin. In the aptly named city of Superior .

More amateur art restoration...

... in the inimitable style of Cecilia Jimenez. IN THE COMMENTS: John Lynch says: "The Scream," looks the same. LOL. And Mitch H. ...

"To my astonishment and dismay, while my orgasms were as strong and pleasurable as ever, something very different was happening after sex, to my mind."

Said feminist attention-seeker and erstwhile Al-Gore-adviser Naomi Wolf. "I realised one day, as I gazed out on the treetops outside t...

We saw the movie "2016 Obama's America" in Madison, Wisconsin.

Of all places. There were about 50 people in the audience for the 12:40 show. I talked to a couple women who thought they'd arrived at a...