Outside the Beltway

Amazon’s new deal with the USPS offers a way out of the agency’s problems if only Congress would give up its last bit of control.

Author Elmore Leonard has died at the age of 87.

For a guy who just bought a newspaper, Jeff Bezos wasn’t too optimistic about their future less than a year ago.

One of the nation’s papers of record is changing owners for the first time in 80 years.

The soft underbelly of the post-ownership society.

The days of tax-free online shopping are coming to an end.

The Yippee Ki Yay Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

The CIA will soon be storing our nation’s most sensitive information with a private company.

Thanks to the CFTC, Americans will no longer be able to participate in Intrade’s predictions markets.

Reports of the Twinkie’s death have been exaggerated.

Technically, you don’t own your digital music files. That means you can’t transfer them to your heirs after you die.

This charge is false, as 10 minutes’ work by the Washington Post would have shown.

Storing all your data in the cloud isn’t necessarily a good idea.

The President’s former Budget Director joins the ranks of those calling for Postal privatization.

Sometimes, we just ought to accept the fact that people have disagreements when it comes to hot-button social issues.

We’ve reached a point where our wonder at modern technology fades almost instantaneously and is replaced by annoyance that our technology isn’t better

Jeffrey Goldberg asks, “What if Mitt Romney were Jewish?”

The Gods Must Be Crazy, Again Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

Recipe plagiarism and a bonus tale.

Google’s Chrome browser has overtaken Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to become the most used browser in the world.

The argument that Barack Obama hasn’t been vetted is simply absurd.

Rick Santorum’s views on the role of religion in public life are built on lies about American history.

Trying to construct Gingrich’s c.v.

“I would never let anybody write something for me,” Matthews says. “Why do you think I’m like that? It’s amazing to me that you think I’m some lightweight, glib bullshit artist that has somebody do his work for him. The writing is the hard part, the composition.”

Everyone’s talking about jobs again. And it’s not a pretty picture.

The decision to split Netflix into two companies makes no sense. Unless you look behind the scenes.

Derek Thompson argues that “the real reason Americans fell so squeezed” is our obsession with productivity.

Government workers are among society’s favorite whipping boys. Why?

Every episode of every live action Star Trek series is now free for streaming from Amazon.

Examining the impact of current events requires stepping back from them just a little bit.

Borders Books is closing, because the free market works.

Stephen Bainbridge has a new e-book out about a 25-year-old Delaware Supreme Court case.

160 million girls are “missing” owing to selective abortion and cultural preferences for male children.

Go The Fuck to Sleep, the children’s book aimed at parents, has become an Internet sensation and reached #1 on Amazon well before its release owing to a leaked copy.

Go the Fuck To Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland.

Video entertainment is moving in two seemingly opposite directions simultaneously.