Tuesday Morning Variety Pack

Jesse Walker | December 23, 2008

* Matt Labash visits Detroit.

* Patrick Cockburn demystifies Deep Throat.

* Daniel McCarthy reviews the career of a quasi-libertarian senator.

* Yasheng Huang reconsiders the sources of China's economic growth.

* The perils of Godwin's Law.

Comments

jimmydageek|12.23.08 @ 8:40AM|#

cockburn - deepthroat

someone has his mind in the gutters this morning!

|12.23.08 @ 9:34AM|#

That Labash piece took me completely by surprise. Not the sort of thing I ever would have expected to see in the Weekly Standard.

Jesse Walker|12.23.08 @ 10:23AM|#

Not the sort of thing I ever would have expected to see in the Weekly Standard.

Labash specializes in those.

robc|12.23.08 @ 10:28AM|#

Jesse,

The (common) misapplication of Godwin's Law makes that xkcd less funny. This is my favorite.

Jesse Walker|12.23.08 @ 11:11AM|#

He could do a sequel where Mike Godwin pops out and explains that his law is descriptive, not prescriptive, thus allowing the Allies to win WW2.

|12.23.08 @ 11:36AM|#

Here's a thought.

The firemen in Detroit should concentrate on preventing the uncontrolled spread of fires, while allowing abandoned eyesores to burn to the ground.

|12.23.08 @ 1:27PM|#

Incidentally, folks can check out Charlie LeDuff's website for several of the articles Labash mentions. It was actually after someone sent me a link to the "Flight of the Dead" story that I began to realize just how much of LeDuff's work I'd read and enjoyed.

Anon

|12.23.08 @ 1:39PM|#

Also, from the McCarthy review:

"He won acquittal for a woman who had shot her husband dead, in full view of witnesses, at a card table."

There is no further context given for this statement. In the context of the article it is clearly meant to be laudatory. But since I read Balko, I immediately thought it was one of those weird logic puzzles, where the answer is he was holding a dog.

Anon