Brian Palmer feels DADT is badly named:
[T]here is no provision in law or regulation that forbids a rank-and-file service member from asking a colleague whether he or she is gay. Superior officers, of course, retain the general authority to discipline subordinates who engage in inappropriate behavior—like harassing a peer with repeated accusations—but there is no record of a service member being punished for asking about homosexual conduct.
A reader writes:
With all due respect to your reader, it’s a load of crap that the Enquirer shouldn’t get the award because of the prurient nature of the Edwards story or the fact that they used it to try to make money. Here’s the Pulitzer’s website for past winners for “breaking reporting”:
2009 – NYT- for breaking the Eliot Spitzer Sex Scandal
2005 – New Jersey Star Ledger – for reporting on the resignation of New Jersey’s governor based upon his gay adultery admissions
So in the last 5 years, 40% of the winners for reporting have been for political sex scandals. I also concede that the New York Times isn’t very good at making money of late, but that’s still a large part of their objective. This man was almost the VP in 2004 and reading David Pflouffe’s book, made a huge push to be the VP on the Democratic ticket this year. It’s an important story and the Enquirer should be rewarded to the extent their reporting was on par with the Times or the Ledger.
Ezra Klein dismisses the federalist approach:
The thing that costs money in public health-care programs is subsidies for people who can't afford care on their own. That group gets larger during recessions. But at the same time, state tax revenues drop during recessions. So at the very moment when the programs are most needed and most expensive, the states — which by and large cannot deficit spend — have the least money to keep them running. The results have always been cuts.
Total Dish bait:
The concept behind Bearduary is quite simple, in times of inclement weather when the wind bites and snarls, the landscape turns into bleak unforgiving tundra and the sun sets before the start of happy hour, a true gentleman grows a beard. Lesser men with smooth, soft skin risk succumbing to these harsh conditions or worse yet, completely abandoning their moral fortitude by giving into the temptation of corporate culture's castrating comforts in the form of sweatshop ski masks and mufflers when alas, the undeniable solution lies just below their noses, literally.
Beard Revue chimes in:
What’s better than a month that lasts two months long and is dedicated to bearding? Nothing. That’s what.
(Image from here)
A firsthand account from a plane full of Super Adventure Clubbers:
One girl was in designer cowboy boots. I asked her if she'd brought any sturdier footwear. "Oh no, these'll be fine." I asked another guy what he'd packed and he said he hadn't bothered to bring soap or toilet paper or food, but that he'd just "buy whatever I need at Port-au-Prince airport." I couldn't break it to him. They had no place to stay, and no supplies — their idea was to use the ton of money they had to buy food to distribute when they got there. But there was no food and no water. That was the point.
Frum wants one:
If moderates are to flourish, they need an infrastructure to support them. The Democrats worked hard in the 1980s and ’90s to showcase their centrist governors. They invented superdelegates to balance the left-wing activists who had saddled them with unelectable presidential candidates. They altered their primary schedule to enhance the clout of must-win states in the West and border South.
Republicans can learn from these examples. But first they have to say it loud and say it proud: The time has come to restore the center to the center-right coalition. Maybe it’s even time to start a new convention so the centrists can meet face to face at least once a year, just as their conservative colleagues do. CenPAC, anyone?
The key moment in the Youtube above is at 0:45.
From this week's Economist/YouGov poll:
Given all the criticism of the health-care reform measures now stalled in Congress, isn't it surprising that 46% of the public still support them? The problem is that most of those who oppose the reform bills (54%) "strongly" oppose them (33%), and the Democrats are a timid bunch.
The Dems lack all conviction and the Republicans are full of passionate intensity. Meanwhile, the president is giving a decent impression of the Dalai Lama on a quiet day. But he's done that before, only to reveal a Ninja under the robes.
Yes, what with that retard Palin (not the kid, the loony alleged mom) and Glenn Beck's giggles and Miranda Kerr and Carly's devil-sheep, it's been a great week. But it just got greater:
A high level Pakistani diplomat has been rejected as Ambassador of Saudi Arabia because his name, Akbar Zib, equates to "Biggest Dick" in Arabic. Saudi officials, apparently overwhelmed by the idea of the name, put their foot down and gave the idea of his being posted there, the kibosh.
And no, I can't resist:
"Hamas deliberately conducted its terrorist activities against Israel in a manner calculated by Hamas to produce Palestinian civilian deaths from Israeli weapons," – Alan Dershowitz.
The Dish 