I have a fun party story about a road trip that went through Texas, way too fast, wound up in a kind of high speed pursuit and ended with a very reasonable ticket.  The punch-line is that the story would have been tragic had the trooper searched my car.  What also makes the story kind of funny is that while I was driving way too fast I was in total control of my vehicle, on an empty straight-away in the Texas panhandle.  My crime was victim free, as speeding cases go.  That the punishment was light was, in the end, appropriate.

Ross Douthat frets that Ferguson is now too ambiguous a story for people who are against the militarization of American police forces to use to make their case.  Me, I tend to think that supporters of military-surplus policing always seem to find ambiguity.  They have not been phased by actions taken by police forces since at least the WTO protests of the 1990s.  Some people just love authority.

I'm having a hard time believing Darren Wilson's story, particularly where he says that Michael Brown, while struggling for the cop's weapon in a confrontation that lasted less than a minute, said, "you're too much of a pussy to shoot me."  This brings to mind the words that George Zimmerman put into the mouth of Trayvon Martin -- all bluster and villainy, the street thug equivalent of Dr. Doom telling Mr. Fantastic that "You'll crumble before the power of my atomic nullifier!" rather than just using the damned thing.

I reimagined The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as a PowerPoint presentation.

On Saturday morning, a Tweet from Brookings caught my eye.  It suggested “Longevity Annuities” would be a great solution to the post-pension problem of longevity risk.  This is such an unbelievably bad idea that my first thought was that some insurance company had corrupted Brookings.  I see no evidence of that, however.  It’s probably just a case of two Hamilton Project thinkers who are overly in love with private industry solutions to truly public problems.

Have you all noticed that over the last two days, whoever is picking op-eds for The New York Times has decided that we shouldn't even have midterm elections?

Well, we do have them.  And you can discuss them and how they are all Obama's fault (or not) right here!

Quantitative Easing, we hardly knew ye, and now ye are gone without a lot of people even knowing what ye did or how ye did it. Well, here were some of your effects.

Last night, we went to see The Death of Klinghoffer at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  We’re new to opera.  We went to our first show, La Boheme last month.  This exploration of a new, for me, art form is quite invigorating and so far the Met’s productions are top notch and the opera house at Lincoln Center is just a beautiful place to spend an evening.  As a matter of pure art, I am totally convinced by composer John Adams and I’d definitely jump at the chance to see Nixon in China or

Our mayor just tried to calm the populace:

"There is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed," de Blasio said at a news conference. "Being on the same subway car or living near someone with Ebola does not in itself put someone at risk."

When I was a kid, my dad had mentioned a book called The Mouse That Roared and for some reason, his description of the premise – a tiny nation captures a nuclear bomb that makes it the most powerful country on Earth – stuck with me.  He must have mentioned this thirty years ago, but a few weeks ago I found myself Googling for it and finding it long out of print.  I looked on Amazon and people wanted $130 for it.  Sometimes, though, it pays to go local.  I found it at The Strand for $9.  Well, definitely had to have it

Thanks to The Lost and Found Show, I had the opportunity to read at Word Bookstore as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival this year.  Believe me, I was hilarious.  No, really.  I was funny.  But, beyond that, I met the author David Burr Gerrard and his debut novel Short Century. I just finished reading it and it was a bl

When U.S. trade policies wreck entire industries and cause unemployment, our answer is "train the workers."

When U.S. foreign policies wreck entire regions, sending them into a tailspin of ethnic, religious and economic violence and chaos our answer is "train the local armies to deal with it."

I think we need to combine these two things to turn the unemployed into the world's most effective killing machine.  I mean, it's just synergy, right?

**End of Week Open Thread!**

As I somewhat expected, the military hawks have won over American public opinion regarding Syria/Iraq/ISIS, though what they get for that is tempered by Obama's pru

This Foreign Affairs article by Kenneth M. Pollack is a sight to behold. In it, the Brookings Senior Fellow and oft-quoted historian of military history in the Middle East, suggests that the United States should recruit, train, fund and equip a new Syrian army capable of defeating ISIS and deposing Bashar al-Assad at the same time.

In my mailbox this morning was a little cartoon from Brookings promising "The Federal Debt: All You Need To Know In Three Minutes."

I can beat that.  All you need to know is that the Congressional Budget Office just reduced its economic growth projection for 2014 and increased slightly its estimate of what the annual budget deficit will be as well as the total amount it believes will be added to the debt over the next 10 years.

Or, the short version: Less growth leads to higher deficits, more growth leads to lower deficits.

I am no a foreign policy expert.

I am definitely not an expert in military history or tactics.  I have little familiarity with the science, such as it is, of national and international security.

I am particularly not adept at issues involving the Middle East, a region of the world that I have never visited and that is populated by diverse cultures that I know little about and people who speak languages that I don't speak.  I can't even call their languages "beautiful" as is the tradition, because I am not cunning linguist enough to know.

When I read really great fiction or watch a really good play or movie, whether it’s new or years old, I find that the work speaks to whatever is going on in the world.  That’s When The Knives Come Down, the debut collection of short stories by Dolan Morgan, certainly fits the bill.  Though the dozen story collection is diverse in narratives and tone, the common theme in all the stories is the relationship of people to place.  The w

Sorry for the separate post on this but when the Ferguson Police Department released the name of the police officer who shot Michael Brown to death they also released a long police report detailing Brown as a suspect in a petty theft incident -- very clearly implying that Brown was killed while resisting arrest for a legitimate, though minor, crime.

They had already blocked mainstream media from the town.  Now, Jezebel reports that all live feeds have been shut down. That means that police have successfully intimidated or forced citizen journalists to give up, for a time.  By the time you read this, I'm sure some will be back up, But this is amazingly chilling.

Let's make this an open thread, I know you all have a lot to say.

I'm finding the current foreign policy narrative, as pushed by those who identify as liberal hawks, very disturbing.  The Obama administration is certainly not rushing to use U.S. ground forces but this is where drone strikes and aerial bombardment inevitably leads.  Our military interventions start with the low risk choices and then, as things progress, we start to hear about the "limits of air power," and "the limits of technology."  Before you know it, you're back to fighting an old fashioned war, the one human activity with, apparently, no limits.