More interesting than JPod’s willy anyway:
Elaine: Have you ever seen one?
Jerry: You mean that wasn’t –
Elaine: Yeah.
Jerry: No.. you?
Elaine: Ya.
Jerry: What’d you think?
Elaine: (SHAKES HER HEAD) No…
Jerry: Not good?
Elaine: No, had no face, no personality, very dull. It was like a Martian. But hey, that’s me.
Some recent studies have argued that male genital mutilation is a useful tool in lowering the risk of men getting infected with HIV. But here’s a counter-argument:
This paper provides strong evidence that when conducted properly, cross country regression data does not support the theory that male circumcision is the key to slowing the AIDS epidemic. Rather, it is the number of infected prostitutes in a country that is highly significant and robust in explaining HIV prevalence levels across countries. An explanation is offered for why Africa has been hit the hardest by the AIDS pandemic and why there appears to be very little correlation between HIV/AIDS infection rates and country wealth.
Worth a look. More attempts at an explanation for the high rate of HIV-transmission in Africa here.
Here’s a particularly knee-jerk sentiment, even from Michelle Malkin. She’s responding to the notion of a poetry anthology by Gitmo inmates. Her response:
How about a poetry anthology from the families of the victims of many of those Gitmo jihadists?
The trouble is, dear Michelle, we do not know how many of these detainees had any victims at all; many have been declared innocent of anything by even the Bush administration, and set free; less than 20 percent were originally detained by U.S. forces; the evidence convicting scores of others is either extremely weak, non-existent, or dependent on the testimony of the tortured. Yes, some are the worst of the worst. But, alas, we do not know exactly which. And the sheer assumption of guilt and indefinite detention are alien to every concept underpinning Western notions of justice and legal warfare. Aren’t those what we’re fighting for? Then there’s this piece of bile from Jules Crittenden. He penned his own poem for the Gitmo detainees, irrespective of the circumstances of their capture and imprisonment:
Rose are Red
Violets are Blue
In the Hated Crusader Gulag at Guantanamo
It must suck to be you
It takes a particularly depraved soul to observe captives sentenced to life imprisonment in solitary confinement without trial or hope – whatever their past – and laugh in their faces.
A great idea, until you actually see the sorry-ass video questions YouTube has now assembled. Here’s one. 10 Zen Monkeys have more. The only problem with the revolution is the quality of the revolutionaries:
The impact of his expansion of signing statements is beginning to be felt more keenly:
Federal agencies ignored 30 percent of the laws Bush objected to in signing statements last year, according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office. In 2006, President Bush issued signing statements for 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills passed by Congress, claiming a right to bypass a total of 160 provisions in them.
In a sample set of 19 provisions, the GAO found that "10 provisions were executed as written, 6 were not, and 3 were not triggered and so there was no agency action to examine."
It’s good to be the king.
The commander in Iraq has no intention of doing anything in September but continue what he’s doing. At least that’s what I take away from his interview with the Times of London:
Times: Your mission sounds like a long one, what about the informal deadline set by your return in mid-September to report back to the Congress in Washington? Petraeus: That is a deadline for a report not a deadline for a change in policy, at least not that I am aware of. Ambassador Crocker and I intend to go back and provide a snapshot at that time, however focused the photograph is at that time and begin to describe what has been achieved and what has not been achieved and also to provide some sense of implications of courses of action. Neither of us is under any illusion.” Times: Would you like the surge to continue indefinitely?
Petraeus: It depends on what the sense is for the prospects of achieving Iraq’s constitution.
He seems to believe an oil law might happen soon, but provides no real evidence for that. All in all, Petraeus’s assessment of Iraq is strikingly at odds with much of the coverage. He makes no mention of sectarian warfare, no mention of Shiite death squads, no mention of a civil war, and puts the entire blame for the conflict on al Qaeda and Iran. In fact, you get the sense that, in Petraeus’ mind, only al Qaeda and Iran are preventing total success in Iraq, and that he is almost preparing for war against Iran as a result. He is certainly extremely adamant about Iran’s involvement in recent kidnappings and murders:
They are not rank and file Jaish al-Mahdi. They are trained in Iran, equipped with Iranian (weapons), and advised by Iran. The Iranian involvement here we have found to be much, much more significant that we thought before. They have since about the summer of 2004 played a very, very important role in training in Iran, funding, arming. This is lethal stuff, like EFPs (explosively-formed penetrators), mortars, and rockets that are used against Basra Palace (the main British base in Basra).
Maybe I’m misreading him, but my impression from Petraeus’s rhetoric is that those people who believe this war is coming to a close are deluding themselves.
If the Times interview is what Petraeus is telling Bush and Cheney, then they have only begun to ramp up this war in Iraq. My bet is they will try to extend the war into Iran if they can, and are obviously looking for a trigger to do so. But until then, they have no intention of changing a thing, except perhaps putting even more troops on the line. From everything we know about Bush, he will continue on, even if a majority of both Houses oppose war-funding. He doesn’t need his party any more. Only a veto-proof margin will suffice, and if that happens, expect a massive Rudy-driven, Romney-approved "stab-in-the-back" campaign, accusing all critics of being supporters of Iran or al Qaeda. Or Bush will force the Congress to cut off all funds, and then declare the troops abandoned and betrayed by the "enemy within".
Of course I hope I’m wrong. But what evidence do we have that Cheney ever bends to a reality he cannot shape? We need to remember. In Bush’s and Cheney’s view, they’re still the deciders. The task for the rest of us is to follow them and shut up. We got one "accountability moment" to affect the war in 2004, and we don’t get a second one. The Congress? Bush and Cheney don’t really believe any other branch of government has any right to affect war-policy. This is their war, not the American people’s. And they will expand and extend it as aggressively as they can, regardless of the consequences.
(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty.)
A reader writes:
If someone could perfect human cloning and make about 40 million copies of David Gergen that’d probably do it.
That headline should get me some page-views. Anyway, an expert writes:
You wrote:
"When your most intense sexual pleasure comes from scar tissue, something has gone wrong."
However, the scientific study to which you referred investigated "sensitivity" of skin tissue. It appears to have documented nothing about pleasure. How the study was conducted is not specified in your report, but there are several types of nerve endings in the skin, each of which reacts to different types of stimuli. For example, any particular point on the skin may be sensitive specifically to such stimuli as pain, cold, heat, touch, or pressure. Sensitivity is often expressed in terms of the distance between two points of stimulation necessary for the brain to discriminate between them. For instance, would two pin pricks (excusing the phrase) touching the circumcision scar, 2 mm. apart, be perceived as one or two pains? And would that sensed pain be interpreted by the brain as unpleasant or pleasant?
To the best of my knowledge (which admittedly is not encyclopedic) there are no nerve endings in the skin that specifically register pleasure. The perception of pleasure is a subjective one made by the brain, not the penis, and, as I assume you are aware, a sensation that is pleasurable to one person may be repulsive to another.
Going one step further, scar tissue, by its nature, is sometimes hyposensitive and sometimes hypersensitive. Therefore, to find that a circumcision scar is the "most" sensitive point on a penis does not indicate that it is normative for penile skin sensitivity. It may be abnormally sensitive, that is even more sensitive than the same penile skin site before circumcision.
In short, the study referred to seems to say absolutely nothing about penile pleasure, and even without reading the original study itself I would wager that it can not do so. And incidentally, I am neither an advocate nor an opponent of elective circumcision. But I do believe the data about the protective effect of circumcision against HIV is an overwhelmingly stronger argument than data that measures something that may have nothing to do with pleasure.
I’m not convinced that the pleasure of sex, as measured by penile sensitivity, is perceived by many men to be repulsive. I can see who some men might want to blunt such sensitivity to avoid premature ejaculation or even longer masturbation sessions. But it still seems to me to be a choice that should be reserved for him – and no one else.
The iPhone approacheth. With sideburns:
John Podhoretz describes this post, which refers to a new scientific study on the effects of male genital mutilation, as a "psychotic diatribe." I know it’s a stretch for JPod, but what part of the argument does he disagree with? That circumcision has a profound effect on sexual pleasure? That many men may not to want to have a part of their body mutilated without their consent? I’m not saying it should be illegal. I am saying it’s wrong. Maybe JPod could actually craft an argument against mine. If it’s not too much work.
The Dish 