"What the hell went on here this weekend? Half of this work is gibberish. Chevy is spelled wrong!"

- Ted Chaough

"Are we Negroes?"

- Bobby Draper

See the USA, in your Chevrolet! See, nothing to it.

Kenny Cosgrove doesn't think so. After The Crash of the title...

Championing what he calls "prudence, not exuberance," Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday rolled out the annual "May Revise" of his proposed California state budget. How's it playing? Oh, and what's the play?

Brown delivered the May Revise to the approval of most. But amidst muted approval from Republican legislative leaders...

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I have to eat something."

"Doesn't ice count?"

Longtime rivals-turned-sudden partners Ted Chaough and Don Draper, during a whiskey-soaked yet surprisingly effective brain-storming session on how to sell margarine.

Another entertaining Mad Men episode brought the immediate aftermath of the precipitous merger between Don Draper's...

In what may be a good way to guarantee that the controversy doesn't go away, President Barack Obama spent several minutes during his Monday press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron angrily denouncing what has become a media firestorm over the Benghazi disaster as a "sideshow."

Obama knew...

One of the strangest things about California over the past decade is how little impact Arnold Schwarzenegger's two landslide wins for the governorship had on the Republican Party. Instead of a right-wing party moving more toward the center, the GOP became instead, after some perfunctory genuflections toward Schwarzenegger's electoral success,...

Q. "What the hell are you doing in Detroit?" A. "My doctor recommended an ocean voyage."

Exchange between rivals Ted Chaough and Don Draper.

"I love Bobby Kennedy."

Peggy Olson

Mad Men's ratings edged back upward for the first time in a somewhat uneven Season 6 with...

"Some people call me a terrorist. I consider myself a teacher. Lesson Number One: Heroes. There is no such thing."

The Mandarin
Iron Man 3

So, what is the message of Iron Man 3? That's a question with a multi-faceted answer. Even if it only refers to the...

We live in a crisis-ridden age. But as fast and furious as the crises seem to come, it's important to remember that crises fade, too.

In crisis mode today it's about getting to the bottom of the Boston Marathon bombings. That, and the reported use of chemical weapons by...

Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hosted a major forum on immigration policy Tuesday in Los Angeles featuring some major national and international figures. But will the latest attempt to change the nation's faulty immigration policy fare any better than it did in 2006 and 2007, before top Republicans realized how definitively...

The Flood is a good episode of Mad Men, especially in a Season 6 off to an uneven start.

It came at a good time, too, reassuring that our characters are not all irretrievably stuck in tedious personal melodramas. That, actually, they can be very appealing people.

Spoilers follow, as...

I have a confession to make. I kinda like George W. Bush. (Insert caveats.)

I was reminded of this Thursday as I watched what his fellow former President Bill Clinton amusingly dubbed "the latest, grandest example of the struggle of former presidents to rewrite history," the dedication of the...

The surviving Boston bombing suspect says that he and his brother were motivated in their terrorist attack by a remarkably vague-sounding desire to protect Islam and protest the wars in Iraq (already ended) and Afghanistan (winding down). Say what?

What distinguishes terrorism from simple criminality, or sheer madness, is...

Will Mad Men regain the acclaim that made it the best drama on television? Based on the response to To Have and To Hold, so far the answer would have to be no.

This may have been the most entertaining episode of the still new Season 6. But I have...

Even before the wild overnight developments in the Boston bombings -- Russians, Chechens, the Caucuses (sic), Kyrgy-what? -- it was clear that we are culturally unprepared for the complexity of the Boston bombings.

Wednesday saw a panoply of false news reports from wire services, newspapers, and cable news outlets...

Governor Jerry Brown is just back from his first major trip abroad during this incarnation as California's governor. It coincided with the annual state Democratic convention, but that didn't give him pause as he had bigger fish to fry in China.

While he was away, Brown got some good news...

Gusts of history are blowing through Mad Men now, with characters increasingly uneasy about America being pushed around in the Asia-Pacific region, taking note of conspiracy theories around the assassination of President Kennedy, and joyously and joylessly embracing the burgeoning sexual revolution.

Unfortunately, two of our main characters have chosen...

At the risk of being overtaken by the sudden whim of a young dictator, or a mistake by players on any side, I wonder if the current crisis with North Korea might just end around the time that Exercise Foal Eagle does.

That's this year's annual joint military exercise by...

Mad Men is back, and I'm glad. Even though the two-part premiere episode wasn't perfect, it brought some keen acting, sharp dialogue, and stunning visuals. And it brought the show fully into the beginning of the fire that consumed the late 1960s.

For a show that has often, and oddly,...

Don't look now, but a country with actual nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, as well as one of the world's largest militaries, is threatening not only one of America's closest allies but the U.S. itself. And it's not named Iran.

Put that together with a new Chinese leadership looking to...

Strategy documents from an eminent consultancy circulating in the highest level of political circles around the President of the United States and the Governor of California have recently come into my possession. Having properly vetted these memoranda, and with slight redaction for redundancy, I present them for your perusal.