On Viruses, Gangnam Style, Antibiotic-Resistant
The writer just omitted some crucial commas: "like a virus, that is, immune to antibiotics."
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On The Beatles, 'Magical Mystery Tour'
Thing is… it's totally strange (having rarely been shown) but at the same time totally familiar, like: of course this is what they would do. Strange for such a lengthy and intricate work of theirs to have been so under wraps.
"Your Mother Should Know" is easy to lump in with John's derisive category "granny songs," Paul's sometimes overbearing nostalgia (not exactly under wraps on Sgt. Pepper and elsewhere). But here you see how psychedelic it also is, with all four including John mischievously gliding to the music.
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On The Beatles, 'Magical Mystery Tour'
Wow. Now I feel like I missed a huge part of the 60s.
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On Up And Down With Andrew Sullivan
The reactions to Sullivan's piece have everything to do with attitudes toward Sullivan and Washington pundits as well as reflexive anti-alarmism, and nothing whatsoever to do with informed political analysis.
Without a doubt, Sullivan is correct for panicking. (A flood of new polls today confirms what Pew found yesterday.) It wasn't just "one lousy debate a whole week ago," it was the most sustained exposure to the candidates 67 million voters have gotten or may ever get. It can't be fixed with a sharper Obama stump speech, better ads or improved performance in the next debates (or by a boffo Biden performance on Thursday).
Obama may well have thrown away the election in last week's debate by a) allowing Romney's disingenuous reinvention to go unchallenged, leaving disengaged voters to believe Romney is the reasonable, upbeat moderate he claims - thereby ruining all the money spent on six months of attack ads on Bain and other subjects and b) raising serious questions about whether he even still wants the job.
Whatever you think of Sullivan's past - e.g., his over-the-top Obama worship, his backing the Iraq war - if you think his reaction is out of line, you should rebut it with something substantive instead of mocking him. The vitriolic reaction to what he said yesterday has a very "la-la-la-la-la-I-can't-HEAR-you" quality to it.
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On Gawker's "Fox Mole" Raided
It's all good fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
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On Bill Clinton Will Always Seem Younger Than 65
Our nostalgia for Clinton isn’t because he was a big liberal hero. He wasn’t. The nostalgia is because he cared about jobs and the people who need them, and did something about it. Nostalgia for Obama in 15 years will be approximately the same as for Jimmy Carter in 1991.
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On The Ten Worst Augusts of the Last Ten Years
I think in 2001 we were more focused on Lizzy Grubman than Chandra.
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On 11 Completely Scientific, Not At All Dubious Diets From Our Recent Past
Wack, not "whack"
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On The 'Rolling Stone' Michele Bachmann Profile Aftermath (and Where Matt Taibbi is Right)
Great piece but your comparison of Bachmann's and Ryan's vote totals is potentially off-base. Without checking (lazy!) it's likely Ryan has a much more Republican district than she has. It's also likely that Bachmann's district lines will change with the new census and could be made into a safer seat. Someone who gets 52% in a split district might be a stronger performer politically than someone who gets 68% in a safe district.
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On Chris Christie Really Enjoying This "Insulting the Republicans" Thing