Month: October 2009

Eugene Volokh challenges a common criticism:

[If] you oppose all tax exemptions for nonprofits (and for contributions to nonprofits), or for all nonprofits that specialize in speaking — such as advocacy groups, schools, universities, public radio stations, and churches — then churches would naturally be included in your opposition. But so long as charitable nonprofits, under a very generous standard of what constitutes a suitable charitable purpose, are tax-exempt, the same would cover churches.

Today on the Dish we dove into the new GDP numbers. Justin Fox showed caution, the GOP abandoned concern over the unemployed, and Ed Morrissey was poised to pounce on Obama. Also, more bad news out of Iraq.

In hate crimes follow-up, Andrew reiterated his position, John Cole launched an attack, and some readers backed Cole. Another reader reminded us not to forget about the equality battle in Washington, and we watched more ads from Maine.

In Palin news, she appeared to demand $100K to talk to Iowans (though her camp denied it). Meanwhile, readers called her out on her latest hypocrisy and the DNC cataloged her many lies. Readers also accused Andrew of having starbursts for Levi and warned him to back off Oprah.

In a flurry of commentary today, Sully delivered a polemic against HRC, exposed the apparent gayness of the Vatican, wrestled WaPo over its federal spending priorities, wondered why the paper hasn't delved more into Nozette, and updated us on Tehran's testiness. In other commentary, libertarians turned on Hayek, TNC offered wisdom on writing , and TNR received a Von Hoffman Award nod.

This viral video almost makes you feel sorry for douchebags. Almost.

— C.B.

I've largely stopped watching non-Shep Fox because it makes me ill. When I watch it by accident, it somehow always manages to shock. I caught a Hannity interview with Malkin last night flipping through and simply couldn't believe that this level of pure propaganda, without even a pretense at balance or debate, was now a prime-time feature. (MSNBC., of course, is pretty awful too – with Olbermann and Shultz being obvious knock-offs of Fox. Maddow is better but oozes toxic levels of smug. It wasn't so bad when Bush was in power – opposition always makes anger less smug – but now it's suffocating.)

Anyway,  

Clearly the public understands that the network MSM is skewed to the left. But there's a difference of magnitude between that assessment and that of Fox. Quite simply, most Americans see Fox for what it is: an appendage of a political operation, not a journalistic one. Its absurd distortions, its relentless attacks on Obama from the very start, its hideously shrill hosts, and its tawdry, inflammatory chat all put it in a class by itself.

It makes the partisan British tabloids feel legit. Why? Because they are not inherently dishonest the way Fox is.

AIPAC prepares a resolution. It reads like Michael Goldfarb in a bad mood. This passage is interesting:

Whereas the concept of `universal jurisdiction’ has frequently been used in attempts to detain, charge, and prosecute Israeli and United States officials and former officials in connection with unfounded allegations of war crimes and has often unfairly impeded the travel of those individuals;

A reader writes:

As a former Catholic seminarian and professed Cistercian Monk…

I could never understand how I could be so doctrinally conservative and equally delighted when balls were in my face. Now I get it. I was never a doctrinal conservative. That’s why I was able to renounce the Deposit of Faith without so much as a thought. It was a liturgical ceremonial traditional fetish (which also manifests whenever something Royal happens on the BBC) that is by definition: Gay!

Thank you. I can enjoy the rest of my day now. Life is Grand. I think you’re Grand.

And irony is really gay as well.

Ken Silverstein interviews "Desmond Travers was one of the four members of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which produced the controversial Goldstone Report":

We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques—one where worshippers were killed—and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship.

A reader writes:

Hey—I know the vote in Maine is important but there is another repeal effort we are fighting here in Washington State that I am at a loss to understand why you don’t highlight as well. It is not marriage, per se, we are fighting for but an extension of domestic partner benefits that mandates total equality between straight and queer couples. From a local paper:

 

The yearly Washington Poll shows the statewide Referendum 71 for gay couples’ rights passing one week before the Nov. 3 election. The poll was conducted by a social research school at the University of Washington that has a track record of correctly forecasting election results. Its poll shows R-71 is winning by a 56 percent to 39 percent margin among registered voters. The edge was 57-38 among likely voters; likely voters were those who have sent in ballots already or said they voted in November 2007.
 
Referendum 71 asks voters to endorse or reject Senate Bill 5688, which state lawmakers approved and Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law as the third installment of expanded rights for registered domestic partners. It would provide all remaining state-level rights of marriage to registered partners, including same-sex couples and heterosexual couples in which one partner is 62 or older.

This is huge.

I sure hope it passes, and helps cement a floor for equality in terms of benefits. I certainly don't intend to signal any ambivalence about the vote. But domestic partnership, even with equal rights and benefits, remains something other than marriage and the polls are not as close as they are in Maine. Hence my emphasis. 

Justin Fox puts today's GDP numbers in perspective:

We're probably out of the recession, but it's still impossible to tell if we're in much of a recovery. This is partly because of a litany of cautionary notes that need to be sounded every time a GDP number, especially an "advance estimate" like today's, comes out.

Some economic releases—like the weekly jobless claims number released today—are raw data. Many others involve some extrapolation from a survey sample, but are still effectively data releases. GDP, by contrast, is an estimate, put together by perhaps the most understaffed of government statistical agencies, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, with data from a plethora of sources and a bunch of guesswork. It will be revised in a month, revised again a month after that, then revised again a couple years down the road. The final number could end up pretty much anywhere between 1% and 6% (or even beyond: the initial GDP growth estimate for the first quarter of 2000 was 5.4%; it has since been revised all the way down to 1.1%). And even that final number will involve estimates and assumptions (especially those involving the inflation rate) that some might take issue with. Beyond all that, there are the usual questions about whether high unemployment, continuing financial troubles or other factors might drag the economy back down in the coming months.

Elizabeth Pisani sorts through the conflicting press reports:

I finally got around to combing through the full report of the trial in the New England Journal of Medicine. Both the optimists and the pessimists are right. It really depends on what your hopes and expectations were. If you are a basic scientist (as most of the people involved in the study were) you’d be pretty thrilled by the results, because they show that vaccines might one day work. If you are a public health boffin such as myself, you’d be pretty disappointed, because the study suggests that that this vaccine doesn’t work for the people who really need it — a point much underplayed in the official reports.