Else what's a heaven for?

My flist is such an interesting place sometimes: on the one hand, I have folks bemoaning the treatment of pigs and getting all bothered about our food supply, and on the other I have people complaining about the FDA providing too much oversight on food labelling. (Which I guess isn't that weird - both my liberal friends and libertarianish friends think the government focuses on the wrong things, like hunting down porn.) I have 4 leo's on the list and friends who write long missives about getting harrassed by the police. (And I'm amused that the latter are good friends with some of the former.)

So I'm the world's biggest Lileks fangirl and all, but the more I think about the reorg at the Strib, the more I think the powers that be made the right decision, from their perspective. While we all like his stuff, an online following does nothing to sell papers (or advertising). He'd be a terrible choice to run an online part of the paper, bc he's not very good at monetizing online stuff and quite frankly, his online stuff isn't news, it's nostalgia. I am amused though that Dave Barry is a fan and I thought Bill Whittle's tribute was da Bomb. Click 'em both, they're short.

If you haven't seen it already, check out the story about a musical mystery at the church from The DaVinci Code. Someone posted a link to a YouTube or mp3 of it, but I forgot to write it down. (hattip: egofood and others)

Hitchens is pitching a new book and had an interesting interview in NY Mag. (via ernunnos) ( awesome quotes about the Texas angle on Bush's religion and Judaism )

Of all the statements I've ever read about Gulf War 2, this is the one that best represents my views. In case you were wondering. And this post from Bryan about global warming is also pretty awesome.

Democracy plus punching is the best government of all.

And this was by far, the best thread of (last) week (not political at all).