[ Posted Thursday, December 31st, 2015 – 18:36 UTC ]
So it's the end of the year, meaning it is time once again to check into the news from Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, in order to see the venerable Lake Superior State University's annual "banished words list." For those new to the concept, this is a list of words and phrases which have become so downright annoying that they deserve banishment from casual conversation (whoops, I've now used two of them in this opening paragraph).
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015 – 21:03 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
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[ Posted Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015 – 20:00 UTC ]
[Program Note: Due to the foreshortening caused by the calendar, I wasn't able to write a new column today. Instead, I've been working all day to get tomorrow's column ready, which will be the "Part 2" of our year-end awards columns. That will be it for this week, I might add, so here's wishing everyone a happy holiday weekend. In any case, check back tomorrow for the final 2015 awards, and for now, here's a fun Christmas column I wrote in my second year of blogging.]
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[ Posted Monday, December 21st, 2015 – 18:50 UTC ]
Today's article has two separate and unrelated parts, I should begin by saying. The first looks at the Republican presidential nomination race, and the second concerns Hillary Clinton and foreign policy. It's impossible to provide any smooth linkage or segue between the two (as the strange headline to this article pretty much proves), so I thought I'd point this out before I begin.
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[ Posted Friday, December 18th, 2015 – 19:24 UTC ]
Welcome to our year-end awards columns!
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[ Posted Thursday, December 17th, 2015 – 18:24 UTC ]
I'm busily putting together the first installment of our year-end "best/worst" lists, and so am unable to write an original column today. Tune in tomorrow to see the result. For now, please enjoy the following, where I uncover a worldwide conspiracy that each and every one of you has participated in at one point or another in your lives. Yes, you! You're a co-conspirator just like all the others....
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 16th, 2015 – 17:56 UTC ]
It's that time of year when Congress actually gets things done, so they don't have to work through the holidays. This is always a powerful incentive, and this year is no different. Paul Ryan actually bargained with Democrats instead of following the hotheads in his party into another government shutdown, which bodes well for the future of the House of Representatives (and America at large). But, as with all big omnibus budget bills, this means all kinds of unrelated issues -- from health care for 9/11 first responders to whether we export oil or not -- are tossed into the giant, must-pass bill. And along with the wave of other single-issue items came some good news for marijuana legal reformers.
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[ Posted Friday, December 11th, 2015 – 17:33 UTC ]
Hillary Clinton is right. Last night, on Seth Meyers's late-night show, Clinton had this to say about Donald Trump's candidacy: "I no longer think he is funny." Earlier in the week, the Huffington Post announced that it was un-banishing Trump from the "Entertainment" section and would now properly cover him under "Politics." Arianna and Hillary are correct -- what started out as a hilarious joke is no longer even the slightest bit funny anymore.
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[ Posted Friday, December 4th, 2015 – 17:26 UTC ]
We took last week off for the holidays, so we've got a lot of ground to cover today. Sadly, this included two terrorist attacks in America, one in Colorado and one in Southern California. The truly sad part is that these mass shootings are becoming so common nowadays that within a few months most people will have forgotten them, as we all focus on fresher, more recent tragedies. Welcome to a very grim "new normal," in other words. Sorry to start off on such a heavy note, but such news is impossible to ignore.
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[ Posted Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 – 18:15 UTC ]
President Barack Obama's job approval rating took a dip downwards in November, to hit a new low point for the entire calendar year. Most of this was due to the panicky reaction the political world had to the Paris terrorist attack. President Obama's reaction to the attacks was fairly muted, spread out over an overseas trip which was followed up by a terse statement (rather than, say, a prime-time Oval Office speech) to America on his strategy for fighting terrorism and the Islamic State.
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