Patrick

unscripted

The long-lived but only briefly updated Wild Ferret is going to stop paying its rent in the next couple of days, and thus the domain “thewildferret.com” will cease working. However, if you need to retrieve old contributions (and perhaps re-post them on your own site like I’ll be doing shortly), you can visit the temporary link here until I finally take that down by the end of March. For everyone other than the half-dozen contributors, The Wild Ferret was an online zine that went through more design changes than it had articles. A fun project at the time, but not worth the cost of a domain name.

I’ve enjoyed the unique vocal stylings of Ms Spektor since downloading Begin to Hope last year, so it was a real pleasure to see her perform last night at the Norva. To a small but energetic crowd, Regina belted out tunes old and new without the aid of a backup band, energetic enough with her piano and idiosyncratic voice (though she switched to a turquoise guitar for two songs and banged a drumstick on a chair for another).

By the way, cellphones aren’t lighters. Waving one around during a ballad doesn’t increase the power of the moment. Sorry.

Lastly, while Regina looks stunning in her videos for “Us” and “Fidelity,” in person she appeared disheveled despite her pleasant demeanor.

A brilliant video of Christopher Hitchens debating a rabbi on various topics. 1½ hours but worth it.

The last several weeks have seen a significant drop in the number of serious presidential candidates, with John McCain all but nominated on the right and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied on the left. Any of these would be a fantastic improvement over the current administration, although some have correctly noted that not everything will change with a new president.

It is also important to note that I consider myself an independent. Although I lean libertarian, people like Ron Paul are pretty much insane and don’t have a chance of being elected, much less of enacting any of their policies.

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Wonkette: Mike Huckabee (ie, Christ the Redeemer) Statue Struck by Lightning.

If you’ve donated to a presidential candidate, you can’t escape the Huffington Post.