The Tea Party-Social Conservative Split
Tension between libertarian-leaning tea partiers and the GOP’s social conservative base was probably inevitable, but the most interesting part of the Politico’s story on a split within the movement is a disagreement over the protesters’ tone: read more... (3)

Stick to lending books
Birmingham’s new library is billing itself as “a palazzo of human thought.” Adding injury to insult, the proposed design is just dreadfully ugly. (2)

Good Eugene Robinson column on "Jihad Jane" and security profiling
Read the whole thing here. (9)

TV Quote of the Day
“I’d rather dip my jewels in honey and go on a bear watch.” –Shawn Spencer, Psych Season 4 Episode 15  in response to Gus asking him whether he would like to watch his dad hit on a scientist. (1)

John Yoo: Not criminal, just incompetent
David Cole assembles some devastating criticism from Yoo’s former colleagues: read more... (2)

The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society should top this list
Wired has assembled the best concept albums of all time. (5)

The League Diaspora
Ordinary Gentleman Matthew Schmitz discusses Eric Rohmer and French New Wave Cinema for First Things. (4)

Processolatry
We destroyed these people’s lives, and we propose to buy off their suffering with congressional campaigns? Jesus wept. (17)

Give us press passes!
An intrepid Baltimore blogger pushes for press access at Maryland’s State House  (via Splice). (0)

Lack of Self-Awareness Watch
Sean Penn:

Because every day, this elected leader [Chavez] is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.

Emphasis added.  Via Popehat.  I’m no fan of Chavez, but I’m not sure he qualifies as a dictator yet (I think “wannabe dictator” is more like it).  Still, if you’re trying to say that someone is not a dictator, I’m pretty sure demanding that those who disagree be thrown in jail is probably the wrong way to do it.  But that’s just me. (18)

Because Laws Are for the Little People
“The Saint Patrick’s Day event hosted by the Friendly Sons is a 640-person dinner at the Capital Hilton that has included Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and President Obama’s national security adviser James L. Jones. Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett has attended and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has served as keynote speaker. The dinner, now in its 82nd year, includes a report from the Irish Embassy, Irish jokes, a “Danny Boy” solo from former congressman Jim Symington — and cigars.” (4)

Alvar Aalto
I’ve heard Alvar Aalto described as a highbrow precursor to IKEA (which is emphatically not a Finnish company, by the way), but I’ve always appreciated how warm and welcoming his designs seem when compared to the imposing angles of other modernist architecture. The NYRBlog has a nice appreciation, as well as a qualified defense of his political sympathies during World War 2. (1)

Detroit, again
Outsiders moaning about Detroit’s woes can be a little unseemly (see this photo gallery, for example), but it’s hard not to feel for the residents of this embattled neighborhood. Read the whole thing, as they say. (13)

I never get tired of these.
The conservative-attack-on-Ayn-Rand essay isn’t anything new, and I don’t know if anyone will ever top Whittaker Chambers’s classic review of Atlas Shrugged, but The New Criterion’s Anthony Daniels has made another entry in the genre. read more... (27)

Jeopardy recruits heavily from our blogroll
First James Poulos of Postmodern Conservative, now frequent commenter Kyle Matthews of Vogue Republic. We expect (nay, demand!) an incredibly dorky blog shout-out when Trebek interrogates you after the first commercial break, Kyle. (3)

The Unholy Alliance
Will Wilkinson discusses markets, governments, and corporations, and what happens when the latter two team up to defeat the former. I generally agree, but my own intuition suggests we don’t really know how much better our rules for governance could become. If we knew, we’d presumably act on that insight. (9)

Mapping Herodotus
Via Rogue Classicism comes a truly awesome project at Leeds: The Herodotus Encoded Space-Text Image Archive (HESTIA). Using digital technologies like Google Earth, they’ve mapped out all the spatial information in Herodotus. You’ve got to see the settlement map on page 30. What a great resource! (0)

Shadow Banking Must Read
This is a very informative piece on how the shadow banking system works (i.e. the “repo” markets – as in sale and repurchase).   Enjoy (1)

"Majoring in Idiocy"
Something’s in the air: over at the Front Porch Republic, Jason Peters rails mightily against universities as “diploma retailers” turning young people into “idiots”. It’s well worth reading. (13)

Hayworth FAIL
Br. Erik (as the League’s Arizonan) is probably in a better position to assess this, but why is J.D. Hayworth running an ad with John McCain painted in Avatar-war paint?  1. McCain is remembered as a war hero and 2. The Nav’i f@#!’in won at the end of the movie. (7)

Lust, caution
The Believer looks at the golden age of teen sex comedies: read more... (0)

The Most Entertaining Piece of Legislation You Will Read This Year
Some enterprising New Mexican legislator is trying to push Bill Richardson out of the governor’s office and into the presidency of the Motion Picture Association. The resolution urging Richardson to take the MPA gig is pretty giggle-worthy. (0)

Deploy the War Wagon!
This video on one Louisiana town’s plan to defend itself from “homegrown terrorists” really has to be seen to be believed: read more... (1)

The Lobbiest.
OG Scott has just started a new blog over at True/Slant that, in his words, “looks at the politics of lobbying and the impacts of lobbyists on politics,” called The Lobbiest (oh, Scott and his titles). Check out his opening salvo. (1)

Death of a Blogger
I didn’t know Jon Swift/Al Weisel well enough to appropriately eulogize him, but his death hits close to home nonetheless.   Beyond being a gifted writer capable of earning the respect of one of his most frequent targets, though, he was a hero of the small blogosphere.  I had just been thinking about how his creation Blogroll Amnesty Day had not cropped up this year on Tuesday evening, and how that creation epitomized the blogosphere at its best.  The precious few interactions I had with him by e-mail – and it seems almost everyone in the blogosphere had at least a few such exchanges with him – were always demonstrative of a kind and light-hearted spirit.  He will be greatly missed, and my deepest condolences go out to his family. (0)