It’s been a very busy week at work (thank God). I feel especially lucky in this economy to have the option to diet. I found out this week that my resting heart rate is 42 beats per minute. Turns out that’s a pretty good indicator of your physical fitness. 42 falls in the “excellent” category [...]

Continuing the cooking theme … The above picture is not meat – it’s seitan and it’s probably pretty delicious. Jenn (my wife) was vegetarian for 12 years (since age 18). She’d never in her life had Buffalo wings. About 4 years ago she got pregnant and decided to try them. We ate wings 2 times [...]

Molasses, in fact, isn’t very slow. At least not compared to my preconceived ideas about it, having heard the idiom “slow as molasses” all my life. I first had occasion to cook with molasses about a year ago. I was making my first from-scratch BBQ sauce, a delicious Memphis-sweet concoction with liquid smoke, brown sugar [...]

What seemed likely last fall is now a virtual certainty – the Republicans will retake the Senate majority in 2012. The only way to retain our happily divided government and avoid a rerun of One Party Republican Rule in 2013, will be to re-elect Barack Obama.

We’re not too far removed from the last open thread and certainly we’ve exhausted all our beer talk (although a pint of Mirror Pond on cask at the Horsebrass would be nice), but a weekly open thread was promised so here’s a topic: Death is among us – Judgement is near (see 1:19 in the [...]

This thread on Paul Ryan’s SOTU response took a detour when Loviatar described Kranky Kritter as a “sensible conservative”. Kranky refuted the statement and, after some back and forth, Loviatar asserted that Donklephant is a center-right blog and that Kranky is clearly conservative. There was some more back and forth, I jumped in to give [...]

I’m not a big proponent of revisions or substitution of literary classics but as a professor I also understand controversy can cloud the class room experience so I am really torn about this issue. When I was in primary school we never did study or read Mark Twain, it wasn’t until I was out of [...]

Brand new Speaker of the House John Boehner is the most high-profile guy to cry during a speech since Phillies slugger Mike Schmidt burst a tear duct during his retirement press conference. Boehner broke out the tissues when he was talking about his pursuit of the American dream and how he once had to push [...]

As these have become a cultural phenomena, I think we need a new word for stories that get the Taiwan animation treatment. How about “twam” – as in “Jon Stewart gets twammed.” Other suggestions welcomed.

What better day and time to update our “10 in 10? election prognostications? Last we checked in – Nate Silver (our polling analyst of choice) showed that 9 of the 10 seats most likely to change parties were all held by Democrats and he was forecasting a net 6-7 seat Republican gain in the Senate. One month later, with less than a month to go – 10 of the top 10 seats most likely to change parties are all held by Democrats and Nate is forecasting an 8-9 seat gain by the GOP. So – despite the nomination of a GOP clown candidate in Delaware (virtually guaranteeing a Democratic victory in that state) the odds of a GOP Senate takeover continue to improve.

Most active political bloggers get between 20 – 30 emails a day from PR companies and other news sources trying to get you to write about their news. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of releases from National Journal about new journos they’re adding to their team. I noticed a few higher profile names, but [...]

In America, in matters of religious tolerance, there should be no close calls, no qualification of primary principles, and the first amendment should not be location dependent. I hold no quarter with the distinction of “rights” vs. right which strikes me as a Clintonian parsing for those looking to rationalize making the Cordoba Project move the mosque/cultural center.

We’re very sad here in the Jacob household (New Jersey). We took the dog out for a walk and she burst into flame. I have no idea what to tell the kids. What’s on your mind?

PEOPLE NOT PARTIES Leading independent attorney and counsel to IndependentVoting.org Harry Kresky penned a great HuffPo piece today called Let’s Have an Honest Debate About the Role of Parties: “Proposition 14 abolished party primaries and replaced them with a system known as “top two.” All candidates will appear on a single ballot in a primary [...]

Speak up, speak out, have your say! What’s on your mind today?

The victory in California for independent voters with Proposition 14 has strengthened the movement for open primaries around the country: Arizonans should watch closely (The Arizona Republic) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s outgoing Republican governor, readily acknowledged in a news conference that the goal is to reduce the power of political parties: “We wanted to have [...]

Californians voted in favor of Prop 14 last night by a healthy margin. The open primary referendum empowers 3.4 million “decline-to-state” registered independents in the state, and is good news for independents and nonpartisan voters throughout the country. Partian control of elections has become a major obstacle to policy that truly represents the sentiments of [...]