I got to fly down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania the other day in a little nineteen-seater plane - two of them in a row, actually, touching down at Albany. They feel like minivans with wings, these little planes - no flight attendants, no overhead bins, no safety demonstration. But the best part by far is that you get to watch through the windshield as the plane comes in to land - the big rec…

My new hero is Judge Robert Doumar, who is ruling on a request by an American-born Taliban prisoner to meet with his lawyer, a request that has been twice denied by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals:

"I have no desire to have an enemy combatant get out of any status," [ U.S. District Judge Robert G. ] Doumar said. "However, I do think that due process requires something other than a…

I'm sitting in an Amtrak train at the Albany-Rensselaer train station, watching the passengers climb on, and I can't help but wonder how much of Rensselaer's economic depression is due to Rensselaer being so damned hard to spell. Only God Himself knows how many companies decided to move their headquarters from Rensselaer to Schenectady or Albuquerque, just to avoid having to spell their addre…