Oh, you states, don't you know we judge you by your rest stops?

Oklahoma, I'm looking at you! (If you can't read the text on that first picture, click here .)

Greetings!

From Austin, Texas. Photos, video... coming soon. Not of Austin yet... but from the road.

"All of us are routing 'American Idol.' It’s so great. The No. 1 show in television and it's getting ruined."

Says Howard Stern , promoting the "vote for the worst" idea, which this year is supporting a sweet 17-year-old guy, Sanjaya Malaka...

The Wichita Eagle.

Don't you love when your hotel delivers a newspaper, and it's not USA Today, it's the local paper? For me, today, that means The...

"I know I need a small vacation but it don't look like rain..."

Oh, but it do look like rain here in Wichita, where I'm finally on line. It's almost 700 miles from Madison to Wichita, the obvious ...

Prophetic!

This was.

When the rest stop has WiFi...

I can say hi from the parking lot. Somewhere in Iowa. Trying to get to Wichita. Just a stopover for the night.

"Three women in white dresses and hiking boots want to carry a pack on their back into a wilderness area. How harmful can that be?"

Can you scatter cremated remains on public lands? Does it make a difference if you want to make a business out of it. The "Ladies in W...

Frenchness.

And the French presidential election. [The conservative candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy,] has criticized immigrants and their offspring who resis...

Those prissy, puritanical lefty bloggers.

There's been a lot of talk about me lately in the left-o-sphere. And, sorry, but I'm not going to link to it. You know how to find t...

Take your spouse to work day... for the next four years.

So Rudy Giuliani says to Barbara Walters: Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani told ABC News's Barbara Walters that he would welcom...

If I did sock puppets...

... as part of this little blogging-as-performance art project of mine, do you know which commenter here is most like the character I'd ...

Ohio.

O-H-I-O.

Sad...

Kermit. (Via Throwing Things .)

"Malakar is the rare male performer who relies so utterly on styling."

Robin Givhan on Sanjaya Malakar. (She's the WaPo fashion writer. He's the "American Idol" guy with the smile and the hair...

"Blogging well depends on being able to slice a cross-section down through your own consciousness at an artful slant..."

"... that encompasses a bit of the outside world, an intermediate zone of opinion and observation where you meet and mix with the world...

Do you need to call in a consultant to make your home "relationship ready"?

Some people do! The place is also dimly lighted, which, once you examine the kitchen nook in daylight, is probably not such a bad thing. The...

"Try healthier, more constructive ways of using anger--like confronting others directly (like on Blogging Heads TV)."

Says Dr. Helen , who points to a study that shows that women are angrier than men and thinks the problem may be that female anger tends to g...

The Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Initiative: is it illegal because it's only for men?

The National Organization for Women thinks so. [They say the initiative] violates Title IX, the law that prevents sex discrimination in fede...

"He has a conservative bearing and a conservative presence..."

"... but he's independent in his thinking and his voting record. He has a commanding television presence that makes every other pol...

"And when the captured British sailor admits she 'trespassed' into Iranian waters, there is fear in her eyes."

Why have so many journalists been saying that Faye (Topsy) Turney "admitted" the British sailors trespassed into Iranian waters? ...

"American Idol" results -- vlogged!

Lighten up. It's just fashion.

The gossip says this happened at the NYT: Fashion editor Anita LeClerc was the aggressor and her superior, deputy editor Mary Ann Giordano, ...

"And people are going to have to take better care of themselves. We cannot afford all the illness that folks are bringing on themselves."

So said Hillary Clinton the other day. I just heard it on C-Span this morning, and it really struck me. My reaction on seeing her say it on...

Political ads.

Someone asked me to explain why I've got an ad for Rudy Giuliani over there. Same reason I have an ad for Widener Law School a little fu...

How I'm like Bill Clinton.

I'm really not trying to drag out the Bloggingheads to-do , but one of the commenters, Cyrus Pinkerton, asked this great question: I rer...

Things I'm not talking about.

As you may have noticed, that Bloggingheads episode I did with Garance Franke-Ruta -- did you know I came up with the title "This Time...

Insulting upwards.

Worked before . Works again .

"Asphyxiation games... "

“... have been with us for generations, but what makes the current generation’s execution of this game different is that more kids are willi...

New U.S. News Rankings.

This purports to be the leaking of the new 2008 rank. Wisconsin +1.

"American Idol" -- Gwen Stefani phones in.

That was an amazingly weak "American Idol." Gwen Stefani was the lamest celebrity mentor they've ever had on the show. For a w...

Hot Bloggingheads segments.

Since I'm getting so much attention today for a hot encounter on Bloggingheads, let me remind you of this old Bloggingheads encounter w...

Moderation. I don't like it... but....

I've got to do it. Moderating the comments again here... for a number of reasons. Please keep commenting. Be patient. It shouldn't t...

Noticing some things.

I didn't know Roger von Oech had a blog . He's the author of "A Whack on the Side of the Head" and "Creative Whack Pa...

"The dread idea of arts administration has come to YouTube."

"... YouTube’s not really supposed to have any aesthetic or ideological principles, is it?"

"I am self-involved, mercurial and comfortable eating dinners of frozen waffles in my underpants."

I understand. And why do you like to live alone? Or -- in case you don't live alone -- what exactly would you like about it if you did...

Bloggingheads!

It's me and Garance Franke-Ruta. Topics and times: Do women like looking at women? (07:41) 'Momoirs' and third-wave feminists (1...

Spring!

Pix! Lots of bare feet and mud. Plus: clean laundry, turtle, etc.

"In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress..."

".. not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment." Says Robert Novak. [N]ot many Republican lawmakers would sp...

Overbreadth and vagueness in the federal anti-child-porn law?

The Supreme Court has taken U.S. v. Williams , a case about the constitutionality of a child pornography law: The [11th Circuit] court panel...

"He wanted to play hard... he nailed me with a really good one."

When Bob Dylan boxed Quentin Tarantino.

Lengthening the school day for kids.

Is lengthening the school day the solution for failing schools? I think not. In fact, I think it is a morally wrong solution. It's bad ...

"Deep seated anxiety" about Mormonism.

Bruce Feiler opines on the way people "out there" feel about Mitt Romney's religion. So much for the faceless masses, but doe...

Couric asks Edwards a tough question about cancer.

And then another and another and another. Oh, why not fill the entire space you have to fill with the only question you've got? Surely, ...

Later that same day....

Audible Althouse! It's back! It's #80.

Oh, my friends, I rediscovered the true meaning of podcasting tonight. If you're not with me on this one , you're not with me. Go aw...

"I've learned over time that my voices can't be rejected."

"No matter what I do, they won’t go away. I have to find a way to live with them." Should there be a new acceptance of auditory ha...

"Tall latte's up."

"The biggest question is how far can Democrats go in opposing this president?"

Adam Nagourney assesses the Democrats in Congress: “Democrats have an advantage because you are looking at a 33 percent president,” said Ric...

Multitasking.

Despite its amazingness, the brain cannot concentrate on more than one thing at a time. Does this mean you shouldn't multitask ? Does i...

A note on comments.

I have started deleting all the comments of one of our most conspicuous commenters for reasons I am not going to discuss. I ask all of my co...

When Matt Yglesias met Joe Wilson.

"He struck me as a bit off." CORRECTION MADE: I had transcribed that last word as "odd," which was misheard. Oddly, the ...

"I haven't got any troubles I can't tell standing up."

I've gotten over 100 visitors to this blog in the last couple hours from people trying to find out who said that. And before you look at...

Repulsive.

Exulting.

"The de facto national primary."

Kos likes it. There's some level of nostalgia over the notion of a long, drawn out primary process in which Iowa and New Hampshire kick ...

On classroom advocacy, diversity, and neutrality.

Lawprof Stanley Fish is doing guest columns this month in the NYT, and today -- TimesSelect link -- he's denouncing teachers who approp...

"It's about these lovers and they took poison."

"It was like 'Drink this, and it'll make you seem like you're dead or whatever....'"

Justice Breyer strikes out.

He was on the NPR show "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me": On why he even agreed to answer questions outside his area of experti...

Separated at birth?

Bill Richardson: Ronald Reagan: Cowboy hat tip: John Althouse Cohen.

Marketing doll snobbery.

Andrew Sullivan links to "I Can't Believe I'm Defending the American Girl Doll Racket" and says "But he is, Blanche...

"Crisis = opportunity + danger."

= canard.

Loading Guantanamo onto the U.S. Attorneys story, increasing pressure on Gonzales.

Secretary of Defense Gates wanted to move the Guantanamo detainees to the United States, and Condoleezza Rice agreed with him, according to ...

"If you protest, your husband will hit you, and if you call the police, he’s going to divorce you, and the whole community will scorn you."

Polygamy in New York City. Don’t-ask-don’t-know policies prevail in many agencies that deal with immigrant families in New York, perhaps bec...

I'm going to watch "An Inconvenient Truth."

I see it's on Showtime HD in about 15 minutes. I've never seen it, so... here goes. I'll drop some simulbloggish notes here as i...

"The IRS may hate me/But in the end they're going to have compensate me."

Lawprof Adam Steinman enters the TurboTax tax rap contest . TurboTax is getting an awful lot of promotion for the price of a $25,000 prize,...

The Edwards announcement.

Here 's the live feed. We're waiting to hear news about Elizabeth Edwards -- who has battled breast cancer -- and the effect that ma...

Is Terry "still man enough to marry a woman"?

If the state prohibits same sex marriage, does a person who's undergone sex-reassignment surgery get to chose which sex he or she wants...

About that U.S. Attorneys matter.

I think David Brooks -- TimesSelect link -- has about the right take on it: When you look at the prosecutors who were fired by the Bush adm...

Suing the school over your Tigger kneesocks.

Free speech for students is a big topic this week, what with the "Bong hits 4 Jesus" case. Here 's a new one: Strict dress cod...

The "no impact" lifestyle... and book.

A writer's got to live: Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfict...

Old post with a new, sad comment.

Maybe you can go back there and help Rose.

Teaching about sensitive subjects.

If you're wondering why I'm not writing anymore about the Kaplan story, it's that my approach to it has always been to comment o...

"What puzzles me is why so many people are scared of so many ridiculous things."

Cathy Seipp said last summer: Did you have to develop a thick skin or does it come naturally? I guess it just came to me naturally, although...

"American Idol" results: the final 10.

And so Stephanie is out. One thing that surprises me is that after all the talk about the "girls" being better than the "boys...

"Gaycism."

A word to replace "homophobia." The arguments for: 1. "Homophobia" seems inaptly restricted to fearing gay persons, 2. ...

"You liberals are such elitists!"

"Actually, it's élitist."

"A heartbreak loser turned Oscar boasting Nobel hopeful globe trotting multimillionaire pop culture eminence."

Roll him on in! That's a picture of Al Gore -- or a statue of Al Gore -- waiting for his car -- it better be a hybrid or we'll hear ...

The other Thompson.

Enough about Fred Thompson. What about Tommy Thompson? Tommy G. Thompson took a major step toward a presidential bid when he said Tuesday th...

"Troposphere, whatever."

I've just been reading the oral argument in Massachusetts v. EPA, which was argued back in November. ( PDF .) The state of Massachusetts...