Best line of the day, so far (though it is a dreary day)

“The best moment [in the Republican debate Saturday night] came when the subject of health care arose and it became very clear that not only do none of these guys — with the possible exception of the Huck — have any plans to cope with the problem, they don’t see much of a problem there to begin with. They are cultish in their devotion to some sort of strange absolutist concept of ‘individual choice’ unfamiliar to anyone who’s dealt with an insurance company at any time in the past 50 years.”

Charles Pierce

Top Post 2007

NewMexiKen’s most visited single post in 2007 was brother Lee’s Top Ten Psychic Predictions for 2007.

The Largest College Stadiums and Ron Howard pages were the most popular NewMexiKen items overall — other than the home page, of course.

Fun stuff

Gates appears after 30 seconds but the real fun is the video he introduces. (8:28 total)

‘Apple-scrapple. That’s a keeper.’

A truly substantive interview with The Wire’s David Simon by Nick Hornby.

An excerpt:

[Simon:] But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millennium, so to speak.

If you’re into The Wire, you’ll want to read this one. If you wonder what’s with all the fuss about The Wire, you’ll want to read it too.

Link via mental_floss Blog.

Fascinating car prototype

It runs on compressed air — up to 125 mile range, speeds up to 70 mph, on $3 worth of air. Seems ideal for urban/suburban life.

The role of political reporters

Glenn Greenwald takes another look at what’s wrong with the boys and girls on the bus:

But I’m not focusing on the accuracy of horse-race predictions here, but instead, the on the fact that the traveling press corps endlessly imposes its own narrative on the election, thereby completely excluding from all coverage plainly credible candidates they dislike (such as Edwards) while breathlessly touting the prospects of the candidates with whom they are enamored. Their predictions (i.e., preferences and love affairs) so plainly drive their press coverage — the candidates they love are lauded as likely winners while the ones they hate are ignored or depicted as collapsing — which in turn influences the election in the direction they want it, making their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.

It’s just all a completely inappropriate role for political reporters to play, yet it composes virtually the entirety of their election coverage.

Best line of the day, so far

“Still, my faith in the Internet’s information democracy wilted with I once suggested to a friend facing eviction that we Google ‘renter’s rights’ to learn his options, and watched him type in ‘rinters kicked out.’”

Joe Bageant in Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War.

NewMexiKen is three-quarters through Bageant’s book, which I first mentioned here last week. It’s readable, revealing and important, a good compliment to Barbara Ehrenreich’s classic Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

Bageant returned to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, after being away for 30 years. There he learned that his family and friends — the people he grew up with, went to school with, hunted with — are fast becoming a permanent American underclass. He writes of these people with honesty and disdain, but mostly with respect, humor and love — and a lot of important insight.

If Your Hard Drive Could Testify

From an article in The New York Times:

The search was not unusual: the government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer’s hard drive, the government says, is no different than looking through a suitcase.

One federal appeals court has agreed, and a second seems ready to follow suit.