I just watched CBS News' side-by-side pairing of Katie Couric's discussions of Roe v. Wade with Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

The former's comfort discussing the legalities of the decision is unsurprising; the guy's a lawyer and a thirty-year veteran of the Senate. The latter's touching on only the most general aspects of the case is not surprising in ( Read more... )

I just finished reading an ARC of Tony Horwitz's new book, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World.  In it, he covers the ground discovered, conquered, and/or colonized by all those European explorers we learned about back in fifth grade.  We get a few mentions of such South American conquerors as Cortez, Pizarro, and Balboa, but the ( Read more... )