Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Senior Pastor at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ (of which Barack Obama is a member) launches a massively eloquent criticism against the Times via an open letter that includes this wonderful couplet:

There is no repentance on the part of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times

Times writer Jodi Kantor had reported on tensions between Obama and Wright after Obama decided to pull the pastor’s planned introduction from his campaign announcement.

I know Pastor Wright’s beef is over a specific matter with a specific newspaper, but these sentiments can easily be expanded to refer to political reporting as whole.

Some interesting insight into the potential dangers of insta-reporting via Politico blogger Ben Smith.

But the scale of this story was simply too big to report that way, to share information with high but imperfect confidence – and without making that level of confidence crystal clear. I should have waited for a second source, or hedged the item much more fully. Or simply waited for the news conference like everybody else.

Smith had reported earlier this morning that Edwards was dropping out of the campaign as his wife continued to recover from cancer.

Appreciate the apology, Ben, but it doesn’t do much to get me back those Edwards intrade contracts I sold off this morning for super cheap. : (

Ohio is a palindrome of noise.

UPDATE: Wait…no it’s not.

From CNN:

The Justice Department has admitted that at least one attorney was removed to make way for a former aide to Rove.

If they’re willing to admit to this I can only imagine the amount of fucked up stuff they actually did.

This is special:

I kind of liked that movie.

Some good points on scrapping the pesky Second Amendment via Brookings guest scholar Benjamin Wittes.

On a more esoteric level, the Second Amendment’s protection for militias reflected the importance the Founders attached to an armed citizenry as a protection against tyrannical government. This made sense at the time. The Founders had a lot of experience with oppressive rulers and little idea whether the constitutional order they were setting up would remain free; maybe they would need to overthrow it sometime. After more than two centuries of constitutional government, however, it’s safe to assume that neither an armed citizenry nor a well-regulated militia really is “necessary to the security of a free State.”

All spot-on but I think there’s something Wittes almost gets at but misses.

Although, as Wittes notes, the civilian weaponry available today is “a far cry from muskets,” the state’s weaponry has leaped out of the weaponry stratosphere. All the assault rifles and hollow-point bullets in the world won’t protect US citizens from a tyrannical US Military. When the junta led by General Pace strolls down Flatbush avenue weeding out the immoral Brooklyn gays, my concealed pocket handgun won’t be capable of much revolutionizing.

Weaponry was simply more democratic back in the day; it was muskets all around––at worst, the occasional cannon, or a wooden submarine. Nowadays, in the face of the largest military industrial complex ever assembled, civilian force isn’t likely to topple any government oppressors.

I guess it’s all down to Ghandi and MLK. And I’d much rather have a right to nonviolent revolution and passive resistance written into our foundational document than one protecting the rights of drug dealers and violent criminals.

To put the matter simply, the Founders were wrong about the importance of guns to a free society.

I love me some Founders, but it’s a fair point.

This about sums it up.

This incredible:

I’ve had a beat off of Dilla’s album “Donuts” set as my cell phone ring tone since sometime late last November. Every time my cell phone has rung over the course of the past five months, I have heard this song, usually in short, inconvenient snippets. This beat enters my life on a hyper-daily routine, interrupting me while I take a shower, while I’m scrambling to make dinner, while I’m trying to relax with my water colors.

And yet…

I still love this fucking song.

I’ve never had a cell phone ring work this way. The default Cingular ascending scale makes my spine crawl. Europe’s “Final Countdown” no longer reminds me of Gob Bluth’s prancing magic routines; it’s like prying off my fingernails with broken shards of chalkboard.

Yet not Dilla’s “Worikonit.” I pop in “Donuts,” perhaps the greatest collection of hip hop beats ever, and it gets my head bobbing in that special way hip hop heads bob heads; it can’t be helped, it’s too beautiful.

Here’s to you, Dilla.

Growing GOP opposition to No Child Left Behind causes a fire in the loins:

“President Bush and I just see education fundamentally differently” said Hoekstra, a longtime opponent of the law. “The president believes in empowering bureaucrats in Washington, and I believe in local and parental control.”

Complete local control of education policy?!

“Come to me, young friend” he says to me. “Ignore my many misguided theocratical impulses; let us bask in the glory of local control and policy innovation. We shall dance the freeing dance of liberty, and, at night, cuddle within the subtle grasp of Abraham Lincoln’s perfect thighs.”

The name “Marilyn” is a funny word to spell; I don’t think many people would ever spell it wrong, but it’s almost impossible to type very quickly. Marilyn. I can’t type it without thinking about its spelling, which usually isn’t the case with words I know how to spell.

Marilyn.

An easily spelled word that must be spelled laboriously.