Month: March 2010

Yediot Ahronoth:

“Netanyahu too needs to do some thinking. Ever since he came to power via real democratic elections, and ever since he formed an impossible government, the State of Israel's global status has been deteriorating to the point of genuine danger. We're approaching, with immense speed, the realisation of the well-known song, The whole world is against us."

Maariv:

“It’s politics time now. Even if the magic formulas are found that will make it possible to square the circle and keep bumbling on, Binyamin Netanyahu knows that he is on a collision course. He will be able to avoid it once or twice, but in the end, it will come. The light that is looming ahead is the headlight of an oncoming train.”

Obama, yesterday:

Jonathan Bernstein zooms out:

What was interesting over the last week is that Obama certainly did not use the occasion of the passage of health care reform to argue for liberal principles in any simple way, but I think he may be building a profound case not for a liberal set of ideas, but for a positive view of political action in general, one that could then be harnessed for activist government, but is more broad than that.

Drum considers the initiative:

So what are the odds of Lee's initiative passing? Recent polls suggest that 55 to 60 percent of Californians support legalization, a margin that's almost certain to drop once the saturation advertising starts. So it'll be a close call. And me? At the time I wrote my marijuana piece, I'd never smoked a joint. I still haven't. But the chances are good that I'll vote to allow everyone else to do it.

Hit it again, Harder. Harder.

A recent lengthy interview on Canadian television that helps illuminate his intellectual evolution (and its probable futility in today’s GOP):

It's an upset victory in Iraq. Michael Wahid Hanna analyzes:

Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's electoral list narrowly edged the incumbent Prime Minister Nuri Maliki's State of Law alliance in the official (but uncertified) results of the March 7 elections announced today. The horse-trading and deal-making which will produce a new government will now accelerate. But to a very large extent, a little-noticed Federal Supreme Court decision yesterday drained the drama from today's announcement. Despite Allawi's winning two more seats than his rival, he may not get the chance to form a government. Allawi's chances of becoming Iraq's Prime minister will hinge largely on the question of how much Maliki's Shiite rivals really hate him… and how loyal his political allies will be if their Shiite co-religionists make his exit a condition to forming a government. 

Radio Free Europe:

Nabil Ahmed, a correspondent for RFE/RL’s Radio Free Iraq, says there are no parties immediately strong enough to form a ruling coalition on their own…Ahmed says that means tough fights ahead. "The winning lists are strong enough to try to make alliances with smaller parties,” he says. “But they also are strong enough to try to break each other apart by wooing away wavering loyalists. So there will be many battles and efforts to create new alliances in the days ahead."

Reidar Visser describes the next steps. First the vote has to be certified:

[If] certification takes place around 1 April, a meeting of the new parliament must be held within 15 April, a new president must be elected within 15 May, a PM nominee must be identified by 1 June, and a new cabinet must be presented for approval by parliament before 1 July. The psychological deadline is likely to be the start of Ramadan around 10 August and the scheduled completion of withdrawal of US combat troops by 31 August.

The Economist:

[T]he two men may consider forming a government of national unity. Their views are much closer than their fierce and rhetorically exaggerated campaign rivalry suggests. Together they would have a comfortable majority—and a chance to reconcile Iraq’s two main Muslim sects. The trouble is that neither man can abide the idea of playing second fiddle.

Joan Chittister, as so often, pushes the envelope deeper:

The question is why would a good man with a good heart, as [Cardinal Brady] surely is, think twice about his responsibility to take moral and legal steps to stop a child predator from preying on more children everywhere, some of them for years at a time?

The answer to that question is a simple one: It is that the kind of "blind obedience" once theologized as the ultimate step to holiness, is itself blind. It blinds a person to the insights and foresight and moral perspective of anyone other than an authority figure.

Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience.

It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.

From where I stand, if there are any in whom we should be able to presume a strong conscience and an even stronger commitment to the public welfare, it is surely the priests and religious of the church. But if that is the case, then the church must also review its theology of obedience so that those of good heart can become real moral leaders rather than simply agents of the institution.

A bifurcation of loyalties that requires religious to put canon law above civil law and moral law puts us in a situation where the keepers of religion may themselves become one of the greatest dangers to the credibility — and the morality — of the church itself.

But steadfast too:

We have both been part of the conservative movement for, as mentioned, the better part of half of our lives. And I can categorically state I've never seen such a hostile environment towards free thought and debate — once the hallmarks of Reaganism, the politics with which we grew up — prevail in our movement as it does today. The thuggish demagoguery of the Limbaughs and Becks is a trait we once derided in the old socialist Left.

Well boys, take a look in the mirror. It is us now.

A reader writes:

Just wanted to mention that ice cream isn't healthy for dogs, since they can't digest dairy properly. My grandpa's an animal nutritionist and invented a dairy-free "ice cream" for dogs called Frosty Paws.

Get your paws on it here. There's also Muttlicks which the beagles go nuts for.

A reader writes:

The blog GotMedieval, by an actual Medievalist, has a pretty good response to the Last Supper nonsense.

Another writes:

I am utterly shocked that you didn't title the post "Jesus Christ, Supersized."  Such a missed opportunity.