Richard Epstein: “Today’s harsh skirmishing over Prop 8 starts from the common assumption that the state has the right to issue marriage licenses, so that the only question worth asking is whether it can discriminate between gay and straight couples. But to the libertarian, the antecedent inquiry is whether the state has any proper role [...]

I share a portion of David’s frustration with Powell’s endorsement of Obama, but there’s something else I’d like to add to it that has increasingly upset me. Powell couldn’t be more right to call out certain elements of the GOP for the vicious whisper campaign about Obama’s supposed Muslim faith. “So what if he is [...]

Alexander Waugh, grandson to the author, has a piece up talking about the sex scene in the various adaptations of Brideshead Revisited, including a few choice quotes about what his father, Auberon, thought about the classic BBC miniseries version of the scene:
He also claimed to have been distressed at having to watch Quick ‘being mauled [...]

From Sky News:
The Honey Monster, Tony The Tiger, and Snap, Crackle and Pop have been branded ‘cartoon villains’ by consumer watchdog Which? for failing to promote healthy eating in children.
Other well-loved characters under fire include Moo the Dairylea cow, Coco the Coco Pops monkey and Quicky the Nesquik Bunny.
So ha ha, that’s kind of funny. [...]

Ordinarily, you only see things like this on episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Perhaps Andrew Sullivan can loan me an adjective or two, because I really don’t know what else to say.

So apparently someone has been using an underwater pipeline to smuggle vodka out of Russia. Thing is, I would have thought the pipe-flow would have been in the opposite direction.

The Bad News Britons are taking their binge-and-vomit tour on the road, debasing themselves and threatening the public decency wherever they go. So says Sarah Lyall in the NYT:
They are the ones, the locals say, who are carousing, brawling and getting violently sick. They are the ones crowding into health clinics seeking morning-after pills and [...]

Camille Paglia, I am noticing slightly belatedly, turned in a pitch-perfect expression of the problem with the ‘let sleeping adulterers lie’ meme in post-Clintonian political commentary:
As a Democrat who was supporting him until Obama showed his mettle during the primary debates, I was shocked by how badly John Edwards has behaved during the lurid flap [...]

Julian wants to argue that The N Word is not always offensive. I agree: we can run offensive vulgarities that degrade everyone in their full printed glory but yikes when someone types out The N Word. The title of this post would be considered cheekily naughty if that last word’s blank letter were filled in [...]

Perhaps you have been called a snob for drinking — ugh — a Heineken. Possibly you have rebuked yourself personally for ordering one of those increasingly bizarre American microbrews, things with names like Cerberus Triple Dog Head Froth Bock, Inglourious McBasterd I.P.A., or Fanatical Aborigine Stout. Or maybe, somehow, you have finally simply tired of [...]

D.C. drivers [...] — the worst I’ve ever seen. Incapable of understanding such basic terms as “merge” and “yield.” — Robert Stacy McCain
I don’t know what it is about DC, but the city hosts a kind of driver that I have never encountered before: aggressive, yet hesitant. — Megan McArdle
My wife suffers from road rage. [...]

Andrew’s a little naive about it, methinks:
The drug czar would have you believe it’s 30 8 times the strength of the 1970s. No one doubts that pot is now a lot stronger than it once was - although it varies widely. That’s the genius of modern agriculture. But so what? Jacob Sullum makes a point [...]

Put together the latest round of knit-browed studies of Web 2.0’s psychological consequences, and that’s what you’ve got. We now know, for starters, that “Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online:”
The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when [...]

Inspired and revolted by Sonny’s review of one of the Amis’ less undrinkable-sounding notoriously funky beverages, I present forthwith your summering drink list. I mean your summer drinking list. I mean…
DOs
1. Rye. Rye is one dark liquor that’s better when it’s hotter and more humid than mind and body can take. This is true whether [...]

The New York Times has a nice medium-sized bit up on burlesque, or should we say ‘neo-burlesque.’ I find it all pretty endearing. Contrary to the expectations of some cultural libertarians, I am not a pent-up prude simply because I am unwilling to bet our public standards of moral decency over on the randiest instincts [...]

Not crushing on him:
Obama has apologized to the reporter:
“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.”
Indeed, it appears to be a habit. Over at Broadsheet, Rebecca Traister [...]

John Schwenkler draws my attention to this:
Capitalism the Creator
The Mises Circle goes to Seattle to address contemporary issues in liberty, and the role of capitalism as the main force for every form of progress in our age. We live amidst its fruits — technology, culture, philanthropy, human well being — and have yet to appreciate [...]

Shocking news from across the pond:
Study leader Professor Mark Bellis, director of the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moore’s University said: “Millions of young Europeans now take drugs and drink in ways which alter their sexual decisions and increase their chances of unsafe sex or sex that is later regretted.
“Yet [...]

Megan McArdle responds to critics who have chided her “rage” against “the illegality of something that a majority of my fellow citizens think should be illegal” — namely, prostitution. (I used the word “wrath,” not entirely unsympathetically.) There are two key parts of her argument that rage is appropriate because  illegal prostitution is outrageous:
(1) prostitution [...]

Contra Yglesias, Sonny reminds us — and I’m sure Matt knows it well — that beer, as such, is available in cheap, expensive, and ironically cheap varieties, plus a whole lot else besides. Since an opportunity like this doesn’t come every day (or is that shouldn’t?), I must take the opportunity to provide a quick [...]