In Other News

After four straight Israel posts here, and several more (not including pointers) at The Moderate Voice, I feel its time to mix things up. I'd like to say it's because I feel an obligation to inform you about other happenings, but honestly, it's primarily because I need the break. So, without further ado, here are the major (blog and otherwise) events that have occurred over the last few days.

The Voting Rights Act was renewed. Though a majority of Republicans voted for "poison-pill" amendments that would have killed the bill before it reached the floor (a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats defeated those amendments), once the bill itself was up for renewal, only 33 GOP Representatives had the courage to, in the words of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), defy "political correctness" and vote to repeal the right to vote. It's so rare to see folks stand up for Jim Crow these days.

Minnesota Law Professor Jim Chen has started his own blog. I know of Professor Chen only due to his (in)famous "Unloving" article. This is very unfair to Professor Chen, both because I came at his article from the side he was critiquing, and because Chen specifically wrote in the article that this piece was outside his area of focus and scholarly expertise. So it's not really fair to judge him from that. The blog itself looks pretty neat--though I'm wondering how long it takes Chen to stop writing as if his posts were 1000 word law review articles.

House Majority Leader John Boehner is raising K street contributions at a record pace. Whose stunned to hear that the GOP commitment to cleaning up lobbying was just a flash in the pan?

Political analyst Charlie Cook has 14 Republican House seats listed as "toss-ups", with zero Democratic seats so labeled. Democrats need 15 seats to take back the House.

The UN unanimously votes to condemn North Korea for its missile launch. That makes 50% of the country's they tried to condemn this weekend one's that are actually, you know, doing something wrong.

Feministe riffs off the new, err, "modest" swimwear lines that were previously profiled in the Washington Post. The best way I can describe them is that they'd be very revealing for a burqa.

Kevin Drum tries to explain why so many liberal blogs don't like to blog on Israel.

A sex workers convention shares its meeting space with a quilting convention. Apparently they won some converts to the cause.