Liberal Talk Radio

(cross-posted at Orphan Road)
…maybe they’ll just find another route:
OAKLAND, Calif., April 30 — A day after a fiery tanker crash melted and collapsed a critical highway interchange near the Bay Bridge, rush hour commuters in the Bay Area enjoyed a relatively painless morning, as drivers avoided the roads and the expected nightmare largely failed to [...]

It’s distressingly clear that I’m a product of the 90s after reading through this list of 90s slang, much of which is fairly well integrated into my everyday vernacular.

George Will has a column in yesterday’s Post that’s engagingly written, but I can’t really figure out what the point of it is. Ostensibly it’s about how overfarming caused the Dust bowl, and it contains some vivid imagery:
The late 1920s had been wet years, and people assumed that the climate had changed permanently for [...]

In a city starved for indigenous culture (well, indigenous culture that doesn’t involve crazy mayors and crack jokes, that is), today’s fire at the historic Eastern Market is a real tragedy:
Fire ravaged the Eastern Market early Monday, gutting part of the 134- year-old Capitol Hill landmark. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin said the blaze destroyed [...]

It’s anecdotes likethis that make me wonder if I care about Bill Richardson winning more than he does:
Bill Richardson was noticeably uncomfortable throughout the debate, shifting, sweating, and, at times, starring off stage. In the spin room, Richardson looked equally haggard. ‘I want to leave now,’ he barked to his advisor, Mike Stratton. At [...]

Seattle-based writer Jonathan Raban has a beautiful piece in today’s Times, where he sums up, in one beautiful paragraph, the schizophrenic experience of living in Washington State:
Less than an hour east of Seattle lies Snoqualmie Pass, and as the road descends, beside the Yakima River, the dry West begins as it means to continue: Douglas [...]

Yesterday I noted the failure of some big reconstruction projects in Iraq, as reported by an article in the New York Times. I woke up this morning to find my Sunday copy of the physical paper, in which that article shares A1-above-the-fold billing with this one:
Violence has fallen swiftly throughout Ramadi and its sprawling [...]

You know the rebuilding effort in Iraq is stalling when we can’t even point to the freshly-painted schools:
Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.
A case in point [...]

Is this the moment where the Republican Party officially becomes a parody of itself? A top State Department official in charge of promoting abstinence abroad has a bit of an affinity for “escorts.”