Battleground fatigue: A letter from Columbus

By James Oliphant
Tribune correspondent
October 28, 2008
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Here’s one random sampling from a battleground state, with some margin for error.
“I just want it to end,” my father says. “Make it stop.”
The phone has just rung, and he knows the number. Knows not to answer. “It’s just them,” he mutters.
“Them,” by the way, is a [...]

If McCain went Hollywood

John Woo, Kevin Smith and Wes Anderson weigh in. Well, not really.

Rehnquist papers headed to Stanford

Here is the official release from the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, Calif:

The papers of the late William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2005, have been donated to the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University. Rehnquist, an alumnus of Stanford, received [...]

Is the credit crunch real?

Here’s a post from the always provocative Marginal Revolution blog, asking whether there is indeed the kind of squeeze on credit for nonfinancial (read: commercial) businesses that the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the administration (with the help of Congress) has been hollering about.
Alex Tabarrok, an economist at George Mason University, writes:
Three economists at [...]

Biden: No brain scans for aneurysms

The Chicago Tribune reports that among recent medical records released by Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, there are no scans that might indicate the potential for another dehabilitating aneurysm such as the ones he suffered 20 years ago. Biden, 65, had multiple brain surgeries following the attacks.
Here’s the report:
Newly released medical records [...]

‘The Soldier’ gets suspended

The Plain Dealer’s Bill Livingston has an insightful column about my favorite dysfunctional football team.
The suspension probably means the beginning of the end for Winslow here. The Browns probably would have only fined him, and not meted out a suspension, had they not played their only good game of the season against the Super Bowl [...]

Thoughts on ‘Californication’

I have a post up on my other blog, Bad Pacino, about the first season of the Showtime series.

RNC spent $150,000 to glam Palin

Politico has a scoop:
The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and [...]

Dedicated to Phillies (and Soul Train) fans everywhere

Paulson speaks of need for strong China

As the credit crunch has struck markets worldwide, one lingering question has been how the turmoil will affect China’s burgeoning economy. Tuesday evening in New York, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson spoke about China’s economic health and addressed its relationship with the United States in a speech to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
It’s clear that [...]