Events

It seems text-message shorthand sorely vexes the French. Well, some of them, anyway: "Look at what text-messaging is doing to the French language," lamented President Nicolas Sarkozy in February. "If we let things go, in a few years we will have trouble understanding each other." Most secondary-school pupils have their own mobile telephones, and they use an abbreviated phonetic language to communicate. A2M1, for instance, means à demain, or "see you tomorrow." JTM is je t'aime (I love you). Or try: Ta...

Princeton economist Paul Krugman on how "old Europe" shows the U.S. how it can deal with high gas prices: If Europe’s example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don’t drive them too much. Notice that I said that cars should be fuel-efficient — not that people should do without cars altogether. In Germany, as in the United States, the vast majority of families own cars (although German households are less likely than their U.S. counterparts...

For the last few years, I've found so few things Chris Matthews says that I agree with. Knowing what "appeasement" means, however, we agree on. Via Talking Points Memo, a right-wing ninny gets smacked down.

I'm glad the guy I was going to vote for (he dropped out hours before I voted) has decided to endorse the guy I did: Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards will endorse Barack Obama tonight at a campaign event in Grand Rapids. The endorsement comes more than three months after Edwards dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination, asking the two remaining candidates to make poverty a central issue of the general election. And then, in about 250 days and 18 hours, Obama will become...