I’ve got a new "Think Again" column about the election called "The ‘Tea’ Swallows the Party" here.

My Nation column is called "Ain’t That America…" and it’s here.

Anybody else see this (thanks to Donald L)?

Stephen F. Hayward wrote in the April 26 Weekly Standard:

The two main reasons oil and other fossil fuels became environmentally incorrect in the 1970s—air pollution and risk of oil spills—are largely obsolete. Improvements in drilling technology have greatly reduced the risk of the kind of offshore spill that occurred off Santa Barbara in 1969. There hasn’t been a major drilling related spill since then, though shipping oil by tanker continues to be risky, as the Exxon Valdez taught us. To fear oil spills from offshore rigs today is analogous to fearing air travel now because of prop plane crashes. Hayward is identified as "the F. K. Weyerhaueser fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of the forthcoming Almanac of Environmental Trends," but I think he has a future as the Standard’s editor in chief and a future Fox News analyst.

Alter-reviews:

I did not understand when Criterion Collection released its 50 disc Art House Essentials Collection for only $850. I mean does the world really work this way, with people spending so much money to let other people pick out their entire film libraries? Are these all films that people want to see over and over? To own? I dunno, but I get the business logic of it now, that I see they’ve been releasing the films in sets of six and individually at the same time. Each has that special Criterion touch which I think matters most when you read the notes and get the intelligent, nuanced introduction that can be so hard to find surfing the net. The newest collection, Volume 5, is blessed with two movies that need to be in everyone’s library. Truffaut’s "Jules and Jim" and Fellini’s "8 ½," both of which I believe belong on any list of the top ten (Jules and Jim) or twenty (8 ½) movies of all time. Of the others, well, David Lean’s "Brief Encounter" is watchable, though I feel like I’ve seen twenty versions of it elsewhere, and Milos Foreman’s "Loves of a Blonde" gives just a hint of where he’s going but it’s a pleasant couple of hours. You can check out the rest of them here but you might find that you want to go through the earlier ones and pick out the individual films you want. In any case, take my advice vis-à-vis Truffaut and Fellini.

Mail:

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In the meantime, if you’re reading this in Afghanistan, give a look out for Major Bob, who, I hear, is coming to save the world…