• ROSS DOUTHAT IS A FILM CRITIC: Hey, anybody want to see the new Judd Apatow movie about awful Adam Sandler saying unfunny things to “liked him better when he was fat” Seth Rogen and also Leslie Mann? No? Go with that impulse, because apparently Funny People is a morality play about America in which people are punished for their sins. And that is why Ross Douthat uses this film for masturbation material rather than using normal pornography, because porn would be cheating. [New York Times]

What’s the sort of news that can rouse us from our weekend weather intoxication? The arrest of a former White House adviser, of course: MORE »

Claude Allen (right), the President’s principal domestic policy adviser, resigned abruptly this week, citing the old Washington Classic about spending more time with one’s family. Allen was a Movement Conservative with strong ties to the fundamentalist Christian element of Bush’s base and acted as “point person on abstinence initiatives.” MORE »