Lazy Linkage (Page 3)

Time to clear out some open stuff in my browser! ::  Jamelle Bouie on the apparently uncheckable Supreme Court: [O]ur Supreme Court does not exist in the constitutional order as much as it looms over it, a robed tribunal of self-styled philosopher-kings, accountable to no one but themselves. I’ve been noticing this increasingly of late. Of course, Republicans have no intention of checking the courts, as they determined years ago that the courts were their clearest route to a complete usurpation of power in America, but it still galls me to see this system of “checks and balances”, which weDown the rabbit hole….

That’s what I’m going to call it when I do one of these “Wow, look at all my open tabs!” posts. ::  Book ban attempts hit an all-time high in 2022. Few things in life sicken me more than book-banners. I detest that impulse with every fiber of my being. I hate how book-banning is so often cast as “protecting children”, and I hate that it’s now framed as a “parents’ rights” thing, because the immediate question that I ask is, “What makes those parents the ones whose rights have to be honored? Why do they get to choose what everyone reads?” It’s generally myDown the rabbit hole….

It’s that time again: ::  Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes and commitment to reclusiveness fame is returning to bookstores as the illustrator, along with caricaturist John Kascht, of a new book. Wow. ::  Harrison Ford gives a very insightful interview: I think it’s the place I feel most useful. It’s what I know the most about. I lost my chops as a carpenter. I haven’t ever played fiddle. But I feel comfortable wrestling with how to make behavior out of words on a page and tell a story, and I’m still excited about the prospect of telling a story. IDown the rabbit hole….

Good morning, y’all! It’s Black Friday! Yes, I’ll be going out later. Briefly. I do like getting out of the house a little on Black Friday, but generally the extent of my tolerance of the crowds is a quick jaunt to Barnes&Noble. Gotta start shopping sometime, right? I hope you all had the very best Thanksgiving possible. Most people I follow online seem to have done all right by their Thanksgiving holidays, though I did see a brief discussion about meal times. When do you all eat Thanksgiving dinner, anyway? In my family, it’s always been an evening meal, sometimesDown the rabbit hole….

Yup, it’s time for a “Wow, look at all the open tabs, let’s clear some of those out!” posts. ::  What Moneyball-for-Everything Has Done to American Culture. Interesting article about the proliferation of numerical analysis for just about everything these days: Smarties approached baseball like an equation, optimized for Y, solved for X, and proved in the process that a solved sport is a worse one. The sport that I fell in love with doesn’t really exist anymore. In the 1990s, there were typically 50 percent more hits than strikeouts in each game. Today, there are consistently more strikeouts than hits. Singles have swoonedDown the rabbit hole….

Yup, I’ve got a bunch of open tabs, so time to clear out some stuff! ::  Some good discussion (prompted by me, yay!) over on Roger’s site about (among other things) baseball, home runs, PEDs, “real” records, the degree to which people’s distaste for Barry Bonds is racism versus Bonds being a generally unpleasant guy, and more! ::  One of the original Buffalo Bloggers from way back when is still going strong at All Things Jennifer. ::  Caturday, via Cal, who loves cat-based humor. ::  Two from The Atlantic. First, Hollywood Learned All the Wrong Lessons From Avatar. I particularly like this observation: I’veDown the rabbit hole….

I was not prepared for mid-to-upper 80 degree temps this week, folks. I’ve found over the last several years that I handle heat a lot better than I used to–time was when 85 degrees would reduce me to sitting in a pool of my own sweat, wishing for the sweet release of the Reaper’s icy touch (or, less dramatically, the inevitable return of winter)–but the heat made something of a sneak attack yesterday. It’s still a warm weekend to come, but not quite so warm as yesterday, thank the Gods! On the good side of the ledger, though, is that we’ve finallyDown the rabbit hole….