• My friends Andy and Joanie moved from Seattle to Hanoi earlier this month—with two young kids—and Andy's blogging about the adventure. And the life. Check it out. 
• Great, simple and sarcastic piece by Nate Sliver over at FiveThirtyEight.com on the difference betwen the Canadian (single-payer) and the British (nationalized) health-care systems. Even I understood it. The funny thing, of course (or not-so-funny thing), is that Obama isn't proposing either. He's proposing a government option that would compete with private insurance. And even that simple plan has the wackos up in arms. Or carrying them. Maybe it's time to move to Hanoi.
• Meanwhile more revelations on the people who got us into this mess—the Bush administration—which most of these nutjobs supported, and would probably continue to support. So, yes, it turns out Karl Rove, and the White House, were involved in the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys. I mean how bad were these guys? It's not even funny anymore. I just get sick to my stomach.
• Andrew Sullivan's taking a break. He's right. Godspeed.
• Mark Seal's article in Vanity Fair about the making of "The Godfather" is a couple of months old but I only got around to reading it last night. Great hilarious stories and revelations. About who had mob connections and who didn't. About which lines were ad-libbed. (Would you believe: "Take the canoli"?) About the difference between frying and browning garlic. About the long list of actors considered for the role of Michael: Robert Redford, Martin Sheen, Ryan O'Neal, David Carradine, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty. You read and realize all over again what a series of accidents any movie is. To this day Al Pacino doesn't know why the movie connected with audiences, but he adds, with great matter-of-factness, something that's close to the truth: "I would guess that it was a very good story, about a family, told unusually well by Mario Puzo and Francis Coppola." Mikey.

All previous entries