January 2004
Wonkette
Washington, DC has always been a mystery to me. So much power, and so little sex appeal. Hollywood for ugly people, as they say. But there’s gossip, there just has to be. What DC lacks in sexiness, it makes up for in pomposity and hypocrisy. So, Wonkette, the latest blog in the Gawker stable. Wonkette is written by Ana Marie Cox, who used to edit the notorious Suck column, and now lives in...
Border checks
If the US is to clamp down on foreign visitors, at least it should do so with a modicum of efficiency. I flew back to New York, yesterday, from London. Fingerprint and face scans? Fine. The camera looks as unthreatening as a webcam. But, putting aside any question of civil liberties, the logic of the new system is hard to discern. Short-stay visitors from Europe aren’t subject to the scans;...
Welfare Republicans
There’s a charitable explanation for the explosion of federal spending under Bush: many expenditures rise automatically in a recession, and increased funding for the military and domestic security was inevitable after September 11th. But one has to wonder whether the Republicans’ free-spending ways also reflect the party’s changing voting base. The GOP is no longer the party of...