Yglesias defends Malcolm Gladwell, who has been getting dumped on a lot lately with the release of Outliers. Nothing he writes is up to the standard of a peer reviewed scientific journal, and everything he writes is about a million times more readable than anything you’d find in a journal. Yes, some of the stuff Read More
The Big Picture has photos from inside Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay. Below, the cover of one of the Harry Potter books from the prison library, which are apparently really popular with detainees.
My first response upon hearing about the launch of Blackbird, the new Internet browser for black folks, was, well… WTF? Oh, and then I laughed and cracked jokes. (‘Hit us up at hotep://www.postbourgie.com.’) And then I shifted in my seat and seriously considered this. (Note to self: learn to go with your first response.) Blackbird Read More
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.759482&w=425&h=350&fv=autoPlay%3Dfalse] There was no shortage of criticism when Fryer first proposed this idea. And as Fryer himself admits with Stephen, it’s not clear yet whether or not it will work. But he’s right in recognizing that incentivizing high performance in inner city schools is a completely different animal. What’s more interesting to me, though, was Read More
There’s apparently one person on this Earth who can actually say no to an interview with our favorite reporter. That person, I’m chagrined to have to tell you, is President-elect Barack Obama. Damon Weaver, 10, said on NPR’s “All Things Considered” he has been trying to get an interview with Obama for his school’s television Read More
[clearspring_widget title=”Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – First Video Blog (12/8/08)” wid=”4727a250e66f9723″ pid=”493ed99a42f0d57e” width=”384″ height=”283″ domain=”widgets.nbc.com”] I’ve been trying to ignore this for awhile, but there’s no getting around it now. On one hand, I empathize. Those cats do hundreds of dates a year, and they’re not getting any younger. But a house band for a “comedian” Read More
Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, was arrested on corruption charges, including an allegation that he was trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat. Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat, called his sole authority to name Mr. Obama’s successor “golden,” and he sought to parlay it into a job as an ambassador or secretary of Health and Human Read More
I’m going to get pilloried for this, but there aren’t many actors who annoy me more than Angela Bassett. Her default setting is Righteous Indignation, and she rarely, if ever, deviates from it. Her performances are always so self-serious and joyless. Just watching this trailer — what are the chances that this movie is good, Read More
Each year, the N.F.L. administers an IQ test called the Wonderlic, which is supposed to gauge how smart a football prospect is and project how good he’ll be as a pro. It’s given special weight in evaluating college quarterbacks, a job that is so complicated and dangerous on the professional level that it’s amazing that Read More
The Pac-Man Christmas Tree in Barcelona. An ‘Unimpeachable Choice’. Obama picks Eric Shinseki to head up Veteran Affairs, and as seems to be the narrative with many of his choices so far, it’s received simultaneous praise for its pragmatism and its symbolism. Shinseki is a wounded combat veteran and the first Asian-American to become a Read More
