Wrapping up Banned Books Week...

Brave New World was removed from classroom in Miller, MO (1980), because it made promiscuous sex "look like fun."

Open thread below...

The Psychedelic Furs debut album came out in 1980 and was a smash in Europe but it wasn't until their third album, Forever Now (1982) that they made a breakthrough in the U.S. "Love My Way" was the single but I always played "President Gas" on my radio show. When Richard Butler write it, he couldn't possibly have known about what was going to happen... could he?

Bob Herbert of the NY Times jumps into the Reagan argument between Krugman and Brooks:

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context.

That won’t wash. Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nix .

Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.

He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you...read on

Boy, is this sure to ruffle some Christian feathers. Paging Mr. Donohue... Mr. Donohue...

WaPo :

Filmmakers and researchers on Monday unveiled two ancient stone boxes they said may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but several scholars derided the claims made in a new documentary as unfounded and contradictory to basic Christian beliefs.

"The Lost Tomb of Jesus," produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and scheduled to air March 4 on the Discovery Channel, argues that 10 small caskets, called ossuaries, discovered in 1980 in a Jerusalem suburb may have held the bones of Jesus and his family.

One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son, according to the film. The claim that Jesus even had an ossuary contradicts the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. Read more...

David Edwards of RawStory compares CNN and FOX's coverage of the story. For more about the show, visit the website at Discovery.com.

Just Plain Bother: The lamest Joementum apologist yet.

The Existentialist Cowboy: Terrorism has been worse under GOP regimes since 1980

Beggars Can Be Choosers: Which is a better source of news...MSM or the blogosphere?

First Draft: As the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, here is the first in a series on how one NOLA couple survived and what's happened since.

skippy the bush kangaroo: A CNN anchor calls Lamont "the al Qaeda candidate." Fight back!

Demarcated Landscapes: 2006 was hottest Jan-July period in recorded history

Billmon: The Show Must Go on
State of the Day: Who would Jesus slur?

Agitprop: Richard Viguerie, the key architect of Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory, is out flogging his book and is furiously trying to wash his hands of the mess he helped create

The Osterley Times: When Mr. Blair went to Washington

Get In Their Face! Star Wars in Iraq--High energy weapons

Jon Swift: Don't act, don't trill...Thespians in the Military

The Sunday Funnies
(sorry, I used yesterday's round up by mistake)