On a [Kaiser] Roll

• Via Skippy, a collection of Beltway pundits' partisan "faith sentences" so that you won't have to read those journalists any more.  (Batocchio also does the annual Blogroll Amnesty Day and has other neat posts including this dissection of Paul Ryan.)

  Members of the chattering class tend to be well-educated, and it's not that they're stupid per se, but they mistake pedigree and status for merit. They're also lazy and really don't like to do policy analysis. The Beltway Conventional Wisdom is socially determined, not a matter of careful thought and analysis. As a class, pundits are shallow, careless people, and most of their opinions are issued after putting a finger in the wind and judging what will play well with the other club members. [...] Many Beltway pundits do not really think per se as much as they regurgitate unreflective class attitudes; their pronouncements are based on cosmetics, not substance. The Emperor's New Clothes isn't just a parable; it's the eternal ethos of the ruling class.

  ETA: And Mr. Somerby holds a new writer at the New York Times up to ... scrutiny. That's why, o Good People, they won't employ you.
  
• The best bagel in the Bay Area is Schmendrick's.  Also, the most expensive bagel in the Bay Area is Schmendrick's.  Probably still a sweet roll, though.  (They didn't run it past my mother the bagel maven.)
• s. e. smith at Tiger Beatdown on the vanishing paid sick day.