Inside the New York Times

Wow. Today’s was fantastic. Added bonus: usually spend about 2.25 hours reading it, this was north of three. FTW.

Is there anyone who doubts Qadaffi is donezo? ETA: Rebels are now in Tripoli, claim they have Qadaffi’s son.

Wut? Rick Perry is rewarding donors with political perks? Well I never!

This is just heartbreaking. An Angolan family in Britain was to be deported. The father hung himself because British law won’t deport children if no one will accept them back home. However, that law expired and now the son must be deported. And his family that was in Angola secured Portuguese citizenship so he’ll be all alone in a country that is no longer his.  If there was a simple answer to the world’s immigration problems, that would be great.

Read about what will likely be your new nuclear technology. And it is probably a good thing.

Being a classy maitre d’ seems like a cool gig. 

Meanwhile, as Egypt liberalizes, peace in the Middle East will become even more precarious. Unintended consequences and all that…

We are so screwed in Iraq.

The disappearance of nuns or rapid decline in religious vocations is a story re-visited every few weeks (last week there was a story about a monastery in the Dakotas that raises cattle) so it is hardly news in any sense. However, Sister Mary Jean is correct, we can’t be maudlin about anything temporal that goes away. We already know that anything on Earth always will be fleeting and the only permanency is in God’s realm. But yeah, we do need a huge boost to vocations, stat.

You know what is awesome? Asking horror film makers what creeps them out. “The Exorcist” and “The Shining” seems to be the most common answer, what a surprise.

So I read some of the “Sunday Review” section. It…was actually really good.

Of course we idolize our troops in a way that is certainly unhealthy. We do so in a way that turns them from human beings, with all the faults and weaknesses that entails, into superhumans which, interestingly enough, runs counter to the ethos of the military in many respects. Go read the whole essay.

The least-appreciated anniversary of the event that lead to the Soviet Union’s downfall is upon us. It is a story full of lulz.

So, the Ethicist remains as bad as ever.

W.W.H.H.D.? What would Hill-dog have done? People like revisionist history because they always make it fit however they want it to.

You know why The Times‘ baseball coverage is awesome? Because no other paper would dedicate 14 inches to sabermetrics every weekend. Which is inherently awesome. One of the things that bugs the **** out of me though with sabermetricians is they remind of dudes with really shitty musical tastes and a bizarre sense of elitism who will argue that 3 Doors Down is better than Archers of Loaf, for example, something prima face absurd. I’ve heard multiple arguments that these “experts” would not take a 20 win pitcher over, say Ricky Nolasco because Nolasco has a better XFIP. Seriously just give it up sometimes.

That’s all you need to know. Go buy the paper.