Mad Men’s Dimwitted Pete Campbell is Still Smarter than Gov. Kasich

Even before he took office, John Kasich declared that Ohio didn’t need none of that high-speed rail funding from the feds, no sirree. Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has been just as short-sighted on rail, so Kasich is in great company. Both of them made Keith Balmer’s list (at Alternet) of the 8 Worst Governors – [...]

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The “Heartbeat Bill” Should Be DOA in the Courts

Oh, Ohio. The batshittery just never ends. As you may have heard, we’ve got pending legislation (House Bill 125, aka the Heartbeat Bill) that would make abortion illegal as soon as a heartbeat can be detected. That would be at six or seven weeks, when a woman might well not know she’s pregnant. (Keep in [...]

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The Kitty Lives (and She’s Been Delightfully Lazy, Like Any Good Cat)

Long time no meow. Earlier today, longtime reader Euchalon Grandy commented on this blog’s unfortunate radio silence: Oh No!  I’ve killed Kittywampus with my angry rant!  Please, Sungold, Oh Please come back!  I’ll never post after midnight again!  Nothing but kittens and pink, puffy unicorns from now on… First: Euchalon, if you bring puffy unicorns [...]

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Technological Hubris, Grand and Small

I continue to be transfixed by the situation in Japan, where technology has shown its best and worst face in the past few days. “Best,” I say, because the terrible human losses would have been greater yet, had builders not prepared for violent earthquakes. There were certainly gaps in planning for the tsunami, in particular, [...]

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Martial Law: Coming Soon to Michigan

We thought we had it bad in Ohio, where S.B. 5 is about to gut collective bargaining for public employees. But events in Michigan are making Ohio and Wisconsin look like paragons of moderation. Here’s the short version, via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing: Republican Michigan governor Rick Snyder, along with the state’s Republican house [...]

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Melting Down

Yesterday Rachel Maddow gave a fine explanation of the dangers posed by the out-of-control nuclear power plants damaged by Japan’s earthquake. She had to pause for a moment and remind her viewers that she was talking about a literal meltdown, not a metaphorical one. It’s one of the dangers of metaphor: that we become inured [...]

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Classical Caturday

The “Duetto buffo di due gatti,” falsely attributed to Rossini, evidently composed by early LOLcats. (Click here if you can’t see the clip.) This was performed by Les petits chanteurs a la croix de bois in Seoul, 1996. They are just adorable – and perfectly convincing as cats!

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Unhinged Charlie Sheen Caturday

Charlie Sheen is a serial abuser of women, as Anna Holmes argued persuasively in the New York Times earlier this week. As Holmes wrote, his current two live-in partners are “disposable,” not least because they are presumed golddiggers who tarnished their virtue in sex work. I don’t care if they’re only with Sheen for the [...]

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