Month: October 2011

Joe Klein captures the hilariously contrived (and borderline racist) condescension from places like the Weekly Standard:

I know what I’m about to say is impolite, but Herman Cain strikes me as something of a jerk and an ignoramus. He has made absolutely outrageous statements about Muslims, immigrants and homosexuals; he takes the most extreme position imaginable on abortion. Indeed, I have never, ever seen him acknowledge the idea that complexity exists in the world…or that an ability to weed through complex issues might be a qualification for the presidency.

And that is why he is doing so well – along with an ability to charge Obama with playing the race card. We'll see again tonight if his moronic marketing slogans can sustain his momentum. I'd merely note that he is less of a farce than Palin was – and she was anointed by the establishment. When the rot in a party has gone this deep, and when its presidential line-up is this thin, absurdities like Cain will keep emerging.

The prescient comic explains the Wall Street mindset.

Ben Alpers roughs up Yglesias' long-running view of David Brooks as a follower of Leo Strauss. I know Straussians. Straussians are friends of mine. David Brooks is not a Straussian.

The ghastly attacks on mosques on the West Bank and most recently in Israel proper as well are horrifying enough. But that they are sometimes conducted with the tacit acquiescence of the Israeli police and military makes them something more disturbing. The attack on Palestinians and Israeli peace activists by settlers in Anatot recently was particularly unnerving. We've run the video before, but it's worth refreshing your memory:

One of the terrorists has been identified as a local police investigator. A complaint has been filed. Here is Bob Wright's interview with one of the peace activists attacked that night:

Here he explains how hard it is to get any police response to fundamentalist violence out of control. And the violent settler "price-tag" movement is gaining strength in Israel proper now as well.

Erik Churchill previews the Sunday vote:

The success of Sunday's election will be judged first and foremost on whether Tunisia will continue with its peaceful transition to democracy. While most observers expect calm, a slight disruption, especially if centered around the fairness of the polls, could quickly degenerate into large disturbances.

Secondly, a strong turnout will show the legitimacy and support of Tunisians for the democratic process. The weakness of the voter registration drive gives cause for concern that Tunisians will not show up on Sunday, potentially delegitimizing the results. Thirdly, Sunday's vote will test whether the government will be able to accept the result of Ennahdha's presumed victory. A result of less than 20 percent could raise calls that the voting was rigged, while an absolute majority by Ennahdha could spark protests from secular groups. This is known as the Algerian scenario, after the Islamist victory of the Islamic Salvation Front in the country's 1991 elections, which sparked a backlash from military regime and ultimately resulted in civil war.

Peter Beinart's understanding of the movement:

By confronting Wall Street, it is creating the populist energy that Obama himself has not. What we are witnessing in Zuccotti Park actually represents an improvement over the Obama campaign. That campaign was largely about faith in one man. The Occupy Wall Street movement, by contrast, represents a direct reckoning with the most powerful forces in American life, forces that are not voted in and out of office every two or four years. And it represents a belief that young Americans must force that reckoning by themselves. No politician will do it for them. Those instincts are exactly right, and we’ve never needed them more.

Will’s Sign at Occupy Times Square, quote by Conor Friedersdorf from John Grace on Vimeo.

And author of the longest, wonkiest, dullest and most accurate poster of the Occupy Movement. Dish alums, I tell you. Dangerous at large.

The only race Gingrich has a chance of winning. For a price.

In countries with high youth unemployment rates.

Crowd-sourcing gone bad:

One of the more interesting developments in crowdsourced offenses has been the birth of the crime "flash mob." The practice of crime flash mobs has become so common that the media have now coined a term "flash robs" to describe the ensuing theft and violence.

In these cases groups of individual criminals, who may or may not even know each other, are organizing themselves online and suddenly descending into unsuspecting stores to steal all that they can in a flash. The unsuspecting merchant has little he can do when 40 unruly strangers suddenly run into his shop and run off with all his merchandise. Dozens of these cases have occurred, including one in which co-conspirators planned an attack via Facebook and Twitter that lead to the pillaging of a Victoria’s Secret store in London.