How odd:  •  “My own problem with the blogosphere is not that it's selling out to the mainstream, but that most of it is spectacularly boring. The dominant quality is tedium: writers without editors, fact-checkers or paying subscribers to keep them in check. As Butterworth succinctly puts it: "If …

The Right Way:  •  The Wrong Way:

Pre-season baseball writing is a funny thing. It is about what was as a means to gauge what will be. And there is essentially six weeks of the stuff. Stuff like this from the Boston Herald:  •  “After going 9-1 with a 3.33 ERA during the first three months, Clement went a dismal 4-5 with a 6.05 …

...but, boy oh boy, do people love finding fault with the new guys:  •  “By contrast, Mr. Harper struck the correct image in the campaign. It appeared he had gained a genuine sense of the country and its people. But with one foul stroke -- his cabinet choices -- he abandoned that good sense. Power …

Here is a bit of good news following the Tory win:  •  “Support for sovereignty dropped in Quebec in the immediate aftermath of the Conservative election victory that included a breakthrough in the province, according to a new poll. The poll by the Montreal-based CROP firm for Montreal La Presse …

That great voice of contemplative thought, the NYT op-ed, published a really interesting essay yesterday by Joseph J. Ellis, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College. Entitled "Finding a Place for 9/11 in American History", it posed that interesting question from a historical perpective …

It appears that our new rural overlords need a hand from mainstream Canada and that the NDP may be willing to help out. This was in the Globe:  •  “Even though the NDP's 29 members are not quite enough to give the Tories the votes for a majority in the Commons, they still could be crucial in …

Who knew a great faceless national bureaucracy could know so well what's really going on?  •  “ Dana Doiron, who speaks for Elections Canada, said the rule, designed to protect privacy, has been in existence for a long time. However, it was only enforced in the Maritimes for the first time on …

...and someone has mistaken me for the publisher of a men's magazine. This email came to the beer blog's email:  •  “Hello,  •  I have written an amusing story (approx 3400 words) that I believe is well suited for your magazine. The topic is an annual all-night poker game played by married men …