Christopher Hitchens is clearly controversial and elicits either the deepest adoration from or seething hatred in people. We have enjoyed discussing big thoughts when we ran across each other at various birthday parties that went too late in Adams Morgan and Kalorama-ish homes in Washington.

About eighteen months ago, I was invited to a small dinner at the home of the German Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington, Peter Gottwald, who is a very good guy by the way but not someone who seems to enjoy debate around his dinner table.

I told you I knew nothing of football. I went to high school in Japan. Sumo we can discuss.

The National Bureau of Asian Research runs a really terrific list-serve on Japan that covers Japanese political, historical, economic, and cultural questions in (sometimes excruciating but nonetheless interesting) detail. To subscribe, click here. This morning, an entry by my former Japanese politics professor Hans Baerwald came over the line.

I’m told that the Superbowl is on today. I haven’t seen Matthew Yglesias post on the big game today — but his earlier exposes on big guys chasing a ball in the cold have intimidated me regarding my ignorance of the game. Jim Plunkett and his wife once gave me a Plunkett/L.A.

I hope that the film re-make of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men is a blockbuster. It will star Sean Penn, Jude Law, Patricia Clarkson and Kate Winslett.

There were parts of the President’s State of the Union address that impressed me — and parts that I thought were duplicitous. One of the new initiatives he mentioned has received little attention in the press — and that is more investment in DNA evidence processing in capital punishment cases.

I know that George Bush — after a few days of study, contemplation, and strategic thinking following the December 26th tsunami disaster — decided to weigh in “Big Time” with American aid and support for victims in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Western Africa.

I have written before that America has its head in the sand when it comes to its quickly deteriorating economic portfolio.

James Woolsey and Richard Perle were testifying yesterday before the House Intelligence Committee. They both seem to be thriving despite a mountain of evidence that both are inappropriately financially profiting from America’s “war on terror.