Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Recommended Further Reading

And here's Fred Kaplan's take on the whole McChrystal magilla.

• Posted at 7:02 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Here's a link to the Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings that's causing so much talk. It's about General Stanley McChrystal — as of this moment, the commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. As a result of this piece, that could change any minute.

• Posted at 6:07 PM · LINK

Train of Thought

Here's another article about the idea of putting a high-speed train between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The DesertXpress one sounds like about the dumbest, certain-to-fail idea I could imagine. It would carry passengers to and from Vegas but would go no farther west than Victorville, which is about 80 miles east of Los Angeles. What they don't seem to get is that that's the difficult 80 mile part of the trip from L.A. to Vegas. The appeal of a rail system to Vegas would be to be able to avoid the bumper-2-bumper trudge to get out of Los Angeles...and you'd have to go through that to get to Victorville and pick up the train there. You'd also be leaving your car in a very strange place. The main competing proposal wouldn't go from L.A. to Vegas, either. Angelenos would have to drive to Anaheim to pick it up...and wouldn't.

I'm thinking an L.A./Vegas high-speed train would be great. But I'm not going to see a useful one in my lifetime.

• Posted at 3:20 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

As Matt Zoller Seitz notes, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show have been giving it to Obama pretty good lately, proving their rapier is, to coin a term, Fair and Balanced. This is one of those things the right-wing will never admit but there it is.

• Posted at 2:33 PM · LINK

Correction

As everyone this side of Mel Cooley has pointed out to me, I screwed up in the previous item. The complete DVD set of The Dick Van Dyke Show is 25 DVDs covering five seasons. It is not a 5-DVD set. I was confused because everyone around me lately is eating walnuts...and I keep hearing this weird music...and Ohmigod, my thumbs have disappeared!

• Posted at 1:34 PM · LINK

DVD on DVD Day

They say it's only a one-day sale but one day is enough if you're reading this today. Amazon is selling the complete DVD set of The Dick Van Dyke Show for $74 and it qualifies for free shipping. That's the 5 DVD set which ordinarily retails for $250. This is really a splendid set of a splendid series so you might want to take advantage of this link before the price reverts to whatever it'll be tomorrow. Yesterday, it was $182.

And in case you don't know how this works: If you buy it by going through that link, this site receives a tiny cut of not only the $74 but on any additional items you might purchase from Amazon during the same visit. So while you're there, shop around. Friendly hint: You could use a new Rolex because that old one's beginning to look a little shabby.

• Posted at 8:49 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

I thought I knew all or most of the Kellogg's cereal mascots but I didn't recall Tusk, an elephant who once shilled for Cocoa Krispies. Here's what must have been one of the few commercials to feature the character, whose voice was done by the greatest of all ventriloquists, Dr. Paul Winchell. The spot is a little bit out of sync but so was Paul.

• Posted at 1:47 AM · LINK