Today on the Dish, we considered Iran's interest in delisting MEK as a terrorist organization, and many times it's the children of Muslim immigrants who become radicalized, not the parents. Americans practiced cultural terrorism by accepting Pakistani gays, but forgot to instill American values in our own children. Bruce parsed religion and tolerance in Western society, and Douthat and Dan Savage batted another couple rounds on marriage and monogamy. The average It Gets Better video helped the kid who isn't going to grow up to be Lady Gaga feel ok about it.
Anwar al-Awlaki was more of a thinker than a fighter, we wondered whether to worry over terrorist body bombs, and debated whether last week's raid on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul could be Afghanistan's Tet Offensive. We checked in on Libya's stalemate progress, fusion power could be around the corner, and the lack of diversity in our crops threatened the entire world's food supplies. Portugal was winning the war against drug addiction, Mexican immigrants still had an economic incentive to work here, and the lottery of asylum means lying on applications isn't that uncommon.
Felix Salmon feared Republicans would pull a debt ceiling stunt every year, and the red line may be Bush's tax cuts. Sacrificing short-term gains for long-term ruin wasn't new, Bachmann dreamed of a Romeny match-up, straw men don't hold up, and Nixon's pessimism could be making a comeback in the GOP.
UN peacekeepers could be held accountable for human rights abuses on their watch, children of the Holocaust were sent to Zionist group homes, and animal testing doesn't square with our scientific rationale. Crazies wrote letters to Casey Anthony, MRSA still scared me silly, and bad jobs need an upgrade. We wondered why Cubs fans stick around, new lightbulbs could last 20 years, and Americans needed subtitles for big words. Cool ad watch here, chart of the day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.
–Z.P.
(Photo: Dummies and puppets representing Prime Minister David Cameron (L) and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt (R) are held aloft by Rupert Murdoch at the launch of the campaign group Hacked off near Parliament on July 6, 2011 in London, England. The Prime Minister has promised that there will be a public inquiry into phone hacking carried out by journalists at The News of the World newspaper. By Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images.)
The Dish 