Nightly Ramble:History Isn’t What We Thought It Was; Oil, More

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the ‘sphere, BitsBlog’s Nightly Ramble.

I ended up having to go into work today and tomorrow, and so we will see a Nightly Ramble for both those days. We’ll

By way of  Glenn Reynolds I note an interesting article in the DC Examiner, today:

It appears that among the many celebrity victims of Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff is former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer resigned earlier

There is a scene in Fred Zinnemann’s great film, “High Noon” (1952), in which Will Kane (Gary Cooper) loses his head in a bar room. Desperate for help against the bad guys, he slugs some dink who is standing around

Last night, we had a database server outage.

Early this morning, we had not one, but two web server failures. I’m unclear on how much downtime each of these failures caused, frankly.

On both occasions, the IX folks were responsive.

BO’s (Barack Obama) plan to reward his union buddies and give the shaft to the American tax payer has a price tag.   David Axelrod has pegged the cost of the Raw Deal,  Sharon Otterman, New York Times:

Regarding the

As regards global warming, my view is essentially the same as yours: Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a scam, with no basis in science.

Frank Tipler, distinguished mathematical physicist at Tulane University, via William Katz: Urgent Agenda

Hat tip and

The LA Times:

Delaney Bramlett, 69, a singer, songwriter and producer who penned classic rock songs such as “Let It Rain” and worked with musicians George Harrison and Eric Clapton, died Saturday at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center in

The Politico’s Carol Lee:

HONOLULU – The media glare, the constant security appendage and the sheer production that has become a morning jog or a hankering for an ice cream cone – it’s been closing in on Barack Obama for

A fool and his money are soon parted.      One Steve McDougal and  San Francisco, both the city and the airport, have concocted a plan for the gullible travers to give away his money, Michael Cabanatuan, San Francisoc Chronicle:

It goes without saying that if your mother had considered you a choice and not a person, you would not be posting to blogs.   Maha, Mahablog, writes:

I’m beginning to think that movement conservatism is, at base, a kind

[S]he has no experience, no consistent voting record, and no views of her own. I suspect Governor Paterson is wondering how he’s going to wriggle out of selecting someone so embarrassingly unsuited for office. It doesn’t really sound so great

Granted that RCA is a brand that doesn’t mean what it once did. These days, the name is owned by Thompson, who sells consumer goods under the name. Good they’re keeping it alive, and they’re to be commended for that.

GAZA CITY —(New York Times) The Israeli Air Force on Saturday launched a massive attack on Hamas targets throughout Gaza in retaliation for the recent heavy rocket fire from the area, hitting mostly security headquarters, training compounds and weapons storage

(CNN) — President-elect Barack Obama visited military personnel and their families enjoying Christmas dinner at a Marine Corps base in Hawaii Thursday during his holiday vacation.

Obama went to Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneohe Bay on Oahu where he mingled

I doubt it was Mrs. Schlossberg’s intent, but Caroline Kennedy has admited her lack of qualifications to be senator,  Larry Neumeister, Associated Press

Caroline Kennedy told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that she knows she will have to