Your cynic Greg Wasserstrom glocks hard on Gun Day 2008.

As you may have heard, today is the greatest day ever for our precious freedoms. The Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to strike down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns, because nothing’s safer than a city where everybody’s packing heat. Will our fair city recapture its title of America’s Murder Capital? Will the Washington of tomorrow be a dark, distopian warzone? Probably! So to usher in this new era, my friend Lauren and I brushed up on our marksmanship at a Houston, Tex. shooting range. Pictures and more, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

A meeting of the New York Times editorial board ends in the framing of a new Constitution.

Some cynics would suggest that the United States of America isn’t run from the ground-up, as elementary school history books would suggest, but rather from the top down, as a group of elite - business owners, politicians, etc - use the media to help generate a public consensus for their policy decisions. Power Elite theory is a good one, because it helps explain why our leaders are always despicable, rich people tend to stay that way, why I have to go the emergency room every time I get the flu, and why the tax code is fucking impossible to understand. But the New York Times, America’s “paper of record” which is in no way connected to any such power elite, wants you to know: it’s not true. Read the rest of this entry »