Outside the Beltway

Harvard’s Jack Hamilton extols “Robert Plant’s Second Act” for the Atlantic. In so doing, he gives us an interesting look at the more important First Act.

Too many copyright owners are stupidly invoking their rights to keep short clips off of YouTube and other services, losing potential customers in the process.

The Onion spoofs life at a think tank with Boy, I Really Thought Like Shit Today.”

Did President Obama degrade his office by appearing on “The Daily Show”? Or is that notion a relic of a bygone era?

Amazon is making the complete “I Love Lucy” television series — a whopping 5394 minutes of entertainment on 34 discs — available for one day only at $84.99.

Video of President Obama on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart.

An ad for Republican Senate candidate Roy Blunt complains that his opponent voted to cut Medicare in order to support “government-run health care.”

The folks who gave us “So You Want to be a Lawyer?” follows up with “So You Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities?”

Randy Barnett will be giving a lecture at Boise State on the 28th. If he were a real lawyer, he’d lecture instead at a school in the SEC, Big 12, PAC 10, or ACC. I mean, where’s the challenge in lecturing in the WAC?

Washington City Paper editor Michael Schaffer has put out a satiric memo mocking the policies NPR and others have issued to reporters regarding this weekend’s Jon Stewart – Stephen Colbert rallies

Paul, World Cup ‘psychic’ octopus, dies in Germany.

Automated constructive blog comments cartoon fro xkcd.

If you’re like me, you think of William Shakespeare’s plays as being rendered in an archaic but decidedly upper crust British English. It turns out that this is an artifact of modern theater.

Merle Haggard is not gay. But he’s been retroactively gay married — twice! — for want of a comma.

Michigan Iraq War veteran gets NOT FUN vanity plate.

Andy Borowitz suggests “Three Things to Do When Clarence Thomas’s Wife Calls You.”

Actor Tom Bosley, best known for his role as Howard Cunningham on TV’s “Happy Days,” had died at 83.

The blogosphere spends more time dissecting the lyrics of a classic Beatles song than John Lennon did in writing them.

The retired superstar linebacker drove off a 30 foot cliff at 70 mph and walked away with barely a scratch.

Barbara Billingley of “Leave it to Beaver” and “Airplane” fame has died at the ripe old age of 94.

Insane Clown Posse are Christians, yo. And they say Fuck a lot.

Changing economic realities led to a role reversal: television is where you turn for smart entertainment, whereas the movies have become lowbrow.

New Cleveland Cavaliers coach Byron Scott wore a swastika tie to media day. Given that there are good reasons to doubt Scott has Nazi sympathies or is a covert member of the Aryan Brotherhood, we’ll chalk this up to an honest mistake.

There’s apparently a whole series of these spoof ads for the non-existent car.

Dwayne Jarrett’s career with the Carolina Panthers: 1 touchdown, 2 DUIs.

Boston University and Northeastern have found that there is life after football. Shouldn’t most schools follow their lead?

Stephen J. Cannel, the man behind “The Rockford Files” and “The A-Team,” had died at 69.

It’s worth reminding ourselves, in a country where so many are trying to figure out the best way to keep excess fat off our bodies, how recently abject poverty was widespread here

Western athletes who’ve complained about the conditions at the Commonwealth Games are coming in for a firestorm of criticism.

They might not be able to fix the economy or the healthcare system or agree on an efficient tax policy but Congress has managed to reach accord on one of the most serious problems facing America: loud television commercials.

Business is booming for box sets of 1960s acts remastered into the original mono.

An amusing parody of the typical press report on a new scientific finding.

Just because somebody pay you money don’t mean they’ll make you do whatever they want or whatever.

A Vanity Fair piece imagines what John Lennon’s life would have been like had he survived an assassin’s bullet.