Nuggets

An interesting sidelight to Obama leading the Dem surrender on the FISA bill last week was his announcement that he will be forgoing the guaranteed public campaign money (not that these two things could be in any way related). While it is high comedy that right-wingers would unironically find fault in this, and true that McCain is more than bending the rules himself, the excuses being made for Obama seem half-hearted and smell of the shoe being on the other foot.

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It's things like this that make me glad I didn't have a television for most of the 1980's.

In other baseball news, what is that monstrosity on Jason LaRue's face?

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Last week's New Yorker has very readable profiles of Keith Olberman and Hugo Chavez.

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Pandagon interviews Daniel Radosh, author of Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. Radosh wrote a list of 10 actually great Christian rock songs, and has the playlist on his website. His band selection is nearly unassailable, though I would've picked different songs in many cases. I realize this means I'll have to take a pass at such a list myself someday.