My best idea EVER.

from the Lincoln Journal Star

Girls Aloud won the 2009 Brit Award for Best British Single last night with “The Promise.”

I put it at #2 in my Top 50 of 2008. I could’ve easily made it #1. I don’t see myself ever getting tired of that song. It’s amazing.

from the Lincoln Journal Star

from the Omaha Reader

See also Dave-ja Vu and SCHIP and Dip.

George Will had a funny way of arguing against global warming in his Sunday column. I agree with Nate Silver at 538 that Will is usually “fairly intellectually honest,” and he’s probably my favorite conservative columnist, but when you go around spouting stuff that’s verifiably not true in a flimsy self-serving logical construction, you’re going to run into problems.

Silver tackled that right away in George F. Will Takes on Science, Loses Credibility, pointing out the factual problems with Will’s claims. Turns out, it’s worse than that — Will flat out misquoted an article from Science magazine that essentially argued the exact opposite of which Will claimed it did.

Talking Points Memo added “…it took us about ten minutes — longer, it appears, than the Post’s editors spent — to figure out that Will … was essentially making stuff up. Both of Will’s major “data points” fall apart after a moment’s scrutiny.” They are awaiting return calls from Will and the Post.

The Cato institute’s decision to hop on the anti-reality Will bandwagon prompted Matthew Yglesias to elaborate on the difference between classical liberalism with modern libertarianism: (more…)

from the Lincoln Journal Star

In a post titled As the World Turns, with obviously no awareness of the extra level of irony that carries here in Nebraska, a Dish reader in Kansas City pointed out the local paper’s inclusion of a same-sex couple:

I glanced at the newspaper laying on our office conference table, and it was open to the traditional Valentine section highlighting local couples and their stories. This particular paper was the Sun Tribune, which is a local weekly based in North Kansas City, a typical inner-ring, old suburb of Kansas City, Missouri.

It’s not the “hip” section of town, or a trendy place. This is where people live when they want to save money and don’t really want to be in the middle of the city. This paper is not the “alternative” paper in metro Kansas City, it’s normally read for its coverage of local high school sports.

One of the couples highlighted was a gay couple, but there was no focus on the fact they were gay. Their status simply said “married”, just like some of the other couples, and they discussed their wedding in Vancouver as part of their story. Apparently, a section of Missouri that voted narrowly for John McCain thinks gay marriage is no big deal. The fight may be over sooner than you think.

But to the World-Herald, acknowledging the existence of these couples is offensive.

from the Daily Dish:

This much is now clear. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.

It’s worth remembering where Ben Nelson and Mike Johanns fell in the battle between legitimate debates and political opportunism.

In response to news that Ben Nelson won’t vote for a stimulus package that differs much from the “compromise” he brokered:

The House bill, in addition to being more stimulative, is also cheaper. So if Pelosi wins in conference, and Arlen Specter drops out, the question is whether Snowe and Collins and, I suppose, Nelson, will accept a slightly higher spending to tax cut ratio (about two-thirds vs the current 55-or-so percent) in exchange for a stimulus bill that’s even leaner than their peculiarly stitched together plan.

If not, that pretty much obviates their main pretense for their “compromise”–that the Senate bill had become too expensive–and demonstrates, for all intents and purposes, that they were only ever concerned with a). showboating, and b). making the legislation more regressive. This is what I’ve suspected all along, of course, and I also suspect that the media will continue to fawn over them, even if their once-veiled opportunism becomes totally naked.