Month: April 2009

 

A reader writes:

One of your readers wrote, "Even though it's not physically addicting, it can be very psychologically addicting, causing people to lose motivation and desire to do anything else."

Oh please. Wouldn't that apply to everything that is enjoyable? I'd much rather have sex with my wife, watch my son play hockey, play golf, ride a bike, read a book, play with my dog, eat ice cream, or read your blog than go to work, clean the house, or any of the other less desirable activities that daily life requires; yet I, and the vast majority of those around me seem to somehow be able to get on with our daily lives and responsibilities.

I unfortunately work for a company that drug tests, so I definitely do not partake. I did in high school, and to some extent in college. If it wasn't illegal, and I wouldn't get fired for it, I'd have a bong the size of a bazooka.

Jeffrey Goldberg provides a long list of the Islamist's statements on Israel. It's a good complement to this. Reading them all, it becomes quite clear to me that Ahmadinejad does indeed want Israel to cease to exist, but equally clear that he is not speaking of dropping a nuke on it. This one I hadn't read before:

December, 2006: "I want to tell [Western counties] that just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and does not exist anymore, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out and humanity will be free."

As we know, Russia now exists and the Soviet Union was not destroyed by nuclear arms. And if this is the process by which he hopes Israel will disappear, I see no reason to fear an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel (and on one of the most sacred sites in Islam). And since that is Netanyahu's rationale for launching a war, it seems weaker to me now than it did before. It is also worth noting that one foreign minister in the Middle East has actually explicitly and unequivocally proposed bombing another country – Israel's.

"Holy hell has broken loose over this," is how one of Mike Isikoff's sources has described John Brennan's attempt to prevent release of three damning OLC memos drafted by the Bush administration in its systematic program for torturing terror suspects. One begins to realize how deeply important it was that Brennan didn't get the top CIA job. You see now his attachment to the torture regime he pretended to oppose and his fierce loyalty to CIA officers who may have committed war crimes and now seek to prevent the American people from finding out what was done in secret, against the law, in their name.

Only the president can resolve this. And when he does, we will see more clearly than at any previous point how committed he really is to change we can believe in.

In that state the far right cannot claim some kind of judicial tyranny in granting civil equality to all its citizens in civil marriage – and are trying to thwart the will of the legislature by the governor's veto. The Senate has more than enough votes for an over-ride. The House is on a knife edge, with a mere five votes in the balance. You can email state legislators on this page. Please do. They are very close to getting the votes needed for an over-ride. Your email could make the difference.

Is tomorrow. Get busy:

Marc Lynch brings the news:

Hamas and Fatah have announced that their talks in Cairo on a government of national unity have ended without agreement, to be resumed (perhaps) in three weeks.  While some Egyptian sources are trying to spin this as a simple pause, with no deeper implications, few Arab commentators are buying it. Combined with the failure of the Doha summit and the formation of an extreme right-wing Israeli government, the suspension of Palestinian unity talks signals a rather depressing end to months of feverish diplomacy.

Or not enough?

Mark Kende reads through the Iowa opinion:

I've read all the other state supreme court opinions on gay marriage and I think this one stands up pretty well in terms of legal quality, regardless of what side one is on.  The author, Justice Mark Cady, is also not considered a left wing judge by any means which may further enhance the ruling's influence especially since it comes from a "heartland" state.

It's been a crazy day for me and I've been unable to sit down and read the opinion in full and in quiet. Will do this weekend. From the abstracts and summaries, it's clear that the actual arguments for limiting marriage to 97 percent of the population, while denying it to 3 percent, no longer hold in reasonable minds. Once you have accepted sexual orientation as a fixed and profound part of someone's identity, and once civil marriage is not restricted to those with children, it is simply very, very hard to find a secular argument for denying critical civil rights under constitutions that guarantee formal equality. You can reach for Biblical injunctions, or try the logic of unintended consequences, or in the end invoke pure prejudice in a Burkean fashion. But even Burke understood that societies change and grow, social beliefs shift, our understanding of humanity deepens, and an intelligent conservatism adjusts.

That's why, I think, so many conservative jurists have been forced by logic to adopt this position – from the early decisions in Hawaii and Alaska, through the numerous Republican-appointed judges who find it hard to reflect pure prejudice in rational legal judgment. Yes, fear can overwhelm logic and justice. But remove fear – and the case is overwhelming.

Another relative arrested. And an internal spat between the Palins and the Johnstons makes it onto the talk show circuit:

"We're disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship," [Palin spokesperson] Stapleton said in a statement Friday.

A policeman stands guard in front of a house with a poster of US President Barack Obama just before his visit in Baden-Baden, southern Germany, on April 3, 2009. Obama is to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of a NATO summit taking place from April 3 to 4 in Baden-Baden, Kehl and the eastern French city of Strasbourg. By Sascha Schuerman/AFP/Getty Images.