Bobby Jindal to Deliver Riposte for GOP on Tuesday

Will this be a decisive step on Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal's path to 2012 contender-dom? In an almost deathwish-y way, I had hoped McCain would choose Jindal (young, gifted, and brown--sound familiar?) as his running mate; but John Heilemann reports that the Louisiana Governor had pulled his own name out of 'fear of being tangled up in a plainly doomstruck campaign'.

Well, in any event, Sarah Palin seemed to have made it out none the worse for (ahem) wear.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

USA Swimming publicly reprimanded Phelps, who won eight medals at the Beijing Games, temporarily withdrawing its financial support to him and barring him from competition through early May. Phelps receives a monthly stipend of $1,750 from the organization. The national and world championships will be held in the summer.

“We decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and hero,” the organization said in a statement.-- the New York Times, 6 February 2009.

Well, I for one am glad that USA Swimming has taken this stance. Without that reprimand, hundreds of thousands of kids might one day grow up and ... smoke pot? Well, that would surely be the end of the world.

Death of a Salesman

Somehow this makes me sad, all the way down in North Carolina. I think I may have only seen him once or twice, but to me he was New York's great instance of that glorious figure: the English Eccentric. Thankfully, a Times blogger got hold of some video of Joe Ades in action. R.I.P.