Amazon users have been posting tongue-in-cheek reviews of the brand of pepper spray used by UC-Davis police (click the image to enlarge):
Adam Serwer selects a few:
[V]isitors have added views like "Perfect for use against peaceful protesters, especially ones who are sitting down and pose no threat," and "It really is the Cadillac of citizen repression technology."
A reader writes:
"Go get a job, right after you take a bath." Apparently, Newt isn’t aware that … THERE ARE NO JOBS! We have a 9% unemployment rate, and that’s because there aren’t enough jobs, not because millions of Americans don’t want to work. Is this Newt’s brilliant jobs plan? "Go out and get a job"?
The rhetoric and point of view is right out of 1968, as though these were the dirty hippies so demonized by the press back then, protesting the Vietnam War. This kind of personal attack on the protesters may appeal to his base, but it’s really appalling, and I hope that it turns off millions of moderate-thinking voters.
Yes, Gingrich is boomer polarization personified. Another agrees:
Sorry Newt, another extremist and failed politician beat you to that line more than 40 years ago:
"You come up when I get through and I'll autograph your sandals for you. That is, if you got any on . . . You need a good haircut. That's all that's wrong with you. . . There are two four-letter words I bet you folks don't know: 'work' and 'soap,'" – George Wallace to some hippies, 1968.
The lesson here is that today's GOP thinks that resurrecting George Wallace is the key to winning in 2012.
Another:
Both Gingrich and Kyl called Occupy freeloaders this weekend because they use public parks and services without payment. Last I checked, the federal government – which provides funds to state and local governments – has a budget deficit and carries a growing national debt. Americans are paying for government services with cash (taxes) and debt. Therefore, the Occupy members as citizens of the US owe some of this debt.
Like the rest of us, the Occupy members are paying for the services with this debt, a debt they feel and will feel with lower growth rates, higher future taxes, less future government spending on services and infrastructure, higher government interest payments to wealthy domestic and foreign debt holders and higher interest rates. We are mortgaging America's future, and the lower and middle classes represented by the Occupy movement will suffer the most from this debt burden.
I am sure that Gingrich and Kyl do not consider themselves to be freeloaders because they pay income taxes. However. until the taxes cover the budget, the taxpayers of this nation are not currently fully paying the cost of what we are getting so there is no bright line between those not paying enough taxes and those not paying any taxes.
Further, the Occupiers do pay sales taxes to the extent they make purchases. Sales taxes are the biggest state revenue source in many states.
Megyn Kelly claims pepper spray is "a food product, essentially." Deborah Blum explains why this is highly misleading:
The reason pepper-spray ends up on the Scoville chart is that – you probably guessed this – it’s literally derived from pepper chemistry, the compounds that make habaneros so much more formidable than the comparatively wimpy bells. Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray.
But we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign than it really is, like something just a grade or so above what we might mix up in a home kitchen.
I'll be live-blogging the debate tonight. This is becoming an extended version of the Stations of the Cross, isn't it?
Ambinder examines the short-term political implications:
In the past, Obama might have blamed Congress itself, lumping Republicans and Democrats together. Now, though, with an election less than a year away, the president feels freer to make the case that Republicans refused to consider raising revenues, insisting instead that the middle class bear the burden for deficit reduction. Democrats have always been afraid of making the case that tax increases are necessary, but the politics have changed; jobs and economic recovery are the top priority. Deficit reduction is seen as the primary means to that end (whether it is or isn’t is a separate question), and Americans prefer a mix of cuts and tax increases to achieve it.
More to the point, the default outcome of the next couple of years is already now set toward serious deficit-cutting. The sequestration and the sunsetting of the Bush tax cuts make a big difference in cutting debt in the short and long term. And so Obama will be able in the campaign to focus more on growth and jobs – backed by his clear declaration that he will veto any attempt to wriggle out of the sequestration as an insurance policy for his fiscal conservative cred.
So next year we may have a choice between deficit cutting that includes the wealthy and successful in the sacrifice, or deficit-cutting that exempts the wealthy and successful from any sacrifice, while piling the entire burden on the middle class. Whether or not Obama wins that argument (I'd say he wins it easily), Michael Scherer doesn't think next year's electoral outcomes will change the underlying deadlocked dynamics:
Whatever happens, the losing party is likely to retrench to the margins. This has been the pattern for the past decade. In American politics, each defeat is inevitably interpreted as a need to return to “core values” and to rebuild the party brand. That means that more intransigence, not less. And if a muddled 2012 result greets Americans on November 4, then power will remain shared, with both parties having veto power over the other. In other words, bipartisanship is the only route to a long-term deficit deal. Compromise is the only alternative.
Allahpundit is on the same page:
The silver lining here, supposedly, is that the GOP’s going to take back the Senate and the White House next year and then write its own deal on deficit reduction. In that case, explain to me how a Republican dream package gets past a Senate filibuster. We’ll pick up a few seats in November but we won’t have 60, and the remaining Democrats in the chamber will face enormous pressure from their base to block any form of tax reform that extends the Bush tax cuts for the rich. And they’ll have support for that too: In today’s new CNN poll, 67 percent said they wanted the Super Committee to increase taxes on businesses and higher-income Americans. A redder Congress means the GOP will have a stronger hand in negotiations, but there’s still going to be a showdown — and maybe gridlock — over taxes.
If Obama wins decisively, it seems to me that he will have a strong mandate for his version of debt-reduction. He'll still need some part of the GOP. His only hope is that, after a second defeat, they will be open to some sort of compromise on revenues. Oddly enough, I think they'd be more likely to compromise if a hardliner, like Gingrich, is the nominee, rather than Romney. They can always argue that Romney was the problem, not their ideological purism, at a moment of national crisis. But with Gingrich in the dust, they'd have more reason to move on.
A reader writes:
Hmm, ten quey cranes narrows it down to the two hundred or so of the largest container terminals in the world. Palm trees indicate a tropical or subtropical climate. The other big hint is the word "fegic" on the building on the right. I googled that and got nothing of course, but I surmise that it is a Slavic name, possibly Serbo-Croatian or Polish. The buildings themselves appear to be a mix of early and late twentieth century construction. So … with all that, what do I have? I'd guess a large port in South America. Picture doesn't appear to be hilly enough to be Santos, so I'll go with Buenos Aires.
Another writes:
The architecture looks continental-inspired, almost French, and it is a commercial container-centric port, with the AT-ATs lurking in the background the way they do in Oakland. There is also the "fegic" brand on the building; Googling fegic yields lots of soccer-related results, but it's obvious it's a Slovenian surname. So we search for ports in Slovenia, and we get three major hits, of which only Koper looks commercial enough (the others look like yatch marinas). The palms had me worried, but several photos of Koper turn up palm trees. So we dig through photos via Google Maps, and we hit this one:
Sure enough, we have our cranes. But do we have other things? The warehouses in the background (or something very similar) turn up across the inlet from the cranes (centered on this map). From the angle of the photo, if those are cranes and warehouses, the roundabout is southwest from them, at an angle. And there's a couple roundabouts southwest from the warehouses that look like candidates map-wise, but there are no photos. So that's as close as I got.
Another:
I once read that 25% of the world's cranes are in Dubai, so it seems like a good guess.
Another:
Channeling the inner George W. Bush inside all of us, I'm going to go with my gut. I dont need no stinkin' research to know that this is Oakland, California. I know immediately because I recognize those giant cranes in the East Bay every time I drive home from Los Angeles to Marin County. I ran lots of internet searches on "Tegic", and apparently it's a now a subsidiary of Nuance, Inc. I searched all Nuance locations, and none of them looked like this, nor could I find one in Oakland. But in the words of George W. Bush (ok, every single Republican candidate for President), no use letting facts get in the way of a good gut feeling. And since there just was a general strike to close the port of Oakland by Occupy Oakland, it is certainly topical and would make sense that you would put it up.
Another:
I don't remember a whole lot of palm trees in Seattle, the architecture doesn't remind me of the more brick Bostonian feel of the downtown port area and I wouldn't bet on a whole lot of roundabouts popping up in the Northwest either. However, the container cranes look like the famed AT-AT Star Wars Walker inspirations found in Seattle and Oakland, CA, and I'm pretty sure this isn't Oakland. A quick Google search also revealed Seattle as the headquarters of Tegic, a predictive text company and the name on the building to the right. (If it ends up being Oakland, I will not be a happy camper.)
Another:
Before it was bought by Nuance, Tegic had sites in Seattle, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New Delhi, Singapore, London, Beijing, Seoul, and Sao Paulo. Of those places, right-hand traffic (RHT) nixed out the U.K., Singapore, India, Japan, and Hong Kong. The palm trees seemed to cancel out Paris and Seattle (in Seattle's case, the car on the sidewalk did as well). This left Sao Paulo, Seoul, and Beijing. Of these, a lack of over-urbanization seemed to cross out Seoul & Beijing, leaving Sao Paulo. Nuance Communications lists the Sao Paulo address as the following: Av. Majo. Sylvio Magalhaes Padilha, 5200, Ed. Quebec, Sala 109 Sao Paulo, SP 05703-010. This is my final guess. In conclusion, thanks to the contest, I learned about Tegic inventing T9, the Arecaceae family being a symbol of victory, and how many countries still use LHT thanks to former British colonization.
The previous readers guessed the wrong Tegic company. The correct one:
This view overlooks the stunning La Place Zallaga in Casablanca, Morocco and the dead giveaway clue: the world renowned architectural marvel of the headquarters of Tegic Logistique, recipients in 2007 of the prestigious ISO 9001 (version 2000) certification by the German agency TUV. Leaders of the logistics revolution in shipping, transport, customs, and storage, Tegic Logistique began with the creation of the innovative Tegic Forwarding system. Tegic's influence grew exponentially with founding of L’Ecole de Déclarants en Douane, ushering in a new philosophy of Customs and Declarations that has come to guide the logistics industry to this day. Tegic Logistique – the last word (well, the last two words) in French speaking, North African, moving of huge containers.
Another makes the inevitable reference:
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world … you had to pick one with a very unhelpful Google Map, and no Street View! But, thanks to the very helpful Tegic Logisitique sign on the building at 119 Avenue des Forces Armées Royales (FAR), I can at least guess that this view was taken from the Sheraton Casablanca Hotel & Towers across the street.
Nearly correct. This reader nails the right hotel:
This picture was taken from the Golden Tulip Farah Hotel in Casablanca. (When it comes to hotels, your readers sure can pick ‘em!) The obvious clue was the Tegic Logistique building, which matched perfectly with the picture on the company’s website. Google Earth couldn’t find the company’s address right away, but a straightforward Google search found a Sheraton hotel nearby. That was easy enough to find in Google Earth. From there, it was simply pinpointing the exact building of the window. This window was easy and fun!
Above photo from another reader. Another:
Lovely hotel – there's a virtual tour available here. I wish the Dish had enough financial muscle to award the VFYW contest winners with a short trip to the location in the photo – perhaps occasionally a hotel such as this one would spring for it in return for the superb advertising practically donated by the Dish for this weekly contest …
We get all our best ideas from readers. Another:
I lived in Morocco for a year on a Fulbright scholarship and I often came to Casa for work and for fun. The train station is a few blocks from the hotel so I immediately recognized the neighborhood by the port. Once, I went into the Golden Tulip to use their bathroom, and I'm happy to report their lobby has been more than fully restored after the 2003 bombing there.
Above image from another reader. Another notes:
The circle, Place Zallaga, refers to an important battle site at which Islamic forces soundly defeated the Christian army.
Another:
The architecture of the building on the left suggests a former French controlled region, and the foliage North Africa. There are not that many large ports in the region. The two cabs on the right side of the picture (one red, one cream coloured) are typical of the city (I'm surprised there are not more of them). Different cities in Morocco have cabs of different colours.
Morocco will have general elections next week. All indications are that the new elections will not make a difference, as the new constitution adopted in June still concentrates all powers in unelected hands.
Another:
I had an instant, visceral reaction upon viewing the photograph. I spent a miserable two nights in Casablanca in the midst of an otherwise incredible backpacking trip through Morocco about five years ago. Two of my travel partners fell ill to a terrible stomach malady and couldn't leave the hotel. They were up all night fighting over the toilet. During the day, I had to wander about this city alone, fetching food and water. On the one sightseeing stroll I took for pleasure (to the Hassan II Mosque), I took a couple of wrong turns around the Medina and ended up on a side street where local youths threw stones at me. We only went there as a tribute to the movie – embarrassing mistake.
If there is a tie, I hope you'll make an exception for me, since winning this contest would be the only good thing that came out of those days in Casablanca. I would give the book to my travel partner who lost the fight for the toilet and had to use the sink.
There was an indeed a tie – among the 100+ readers who answered Casablanca, the dozens who got the right hotel, and the half-dozen who guessed the sixth floor. From the submitter of the photo:
I am in Casablanca on a business trip (teaching genomics lectures at Hassan university), and they put me up in a 4-5 star hotel. This is from room 608 at the Golden Tulip Farah hotel. The view though is anything but 5 star. Casablanca has some nice areas but is not the nicest cities in the world. Luckily, my family moments me tomorrow to take a trip to Marrakech, Fes and the Sahara.
The winner this week is the only sixth floor guesser who has previously gotten a difficult window (two, in fact) without winning:
Probably North African, given the continental architecture and the palm trees. The port is notably big. And then there is the TEGIC lettering on the building across the way (turns out it's an importer/exporter, with the motto "to say what one does and to do what one says" – a little ethical Easter egg for us?). A couple of searches led me to Casablanca. I thought at first that this photo was taken from the Sheraton, which is a few doors down, but in fact it's from the Golden Tulip Hotel. I don't know precisely which window, and won't pretend, but my guess is sixth floor, given the height of the building across the street.
Congrats on winning the VFYW book. One final email:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Every Saturday, my almost two-year-old daughter takes her afternoon nap at 12:30, and my wife and I then settle in for our own nap, conveniently just after the VFYW contest is posted. And every Saturday, just before she nods off, I indelicately shove the laptop into my wife-with-the-international-travel-job's face, who then mutters something along the lines of "I should know this but I don't," shrugs, and rolls over. After a google search or two I quickly give up and take my nap, not to worry about it again until the answers on Tuesday.
But not this Saturday. She still shrugged and rolled over, but this time a google search of "Tegic" quickly got me where I need to be: The Golden Tulip Farah Hotel, I'm guessing around the 4th Floor, facing Place Zallaga in Casablanca. I know I'm far from the only one who followed the easy clue and got this one, but I got this one. And that's all that matters to me right now. So thank you! And now for that nap …
(Archive)
Mitt's suddenly "playing to win" in Iowa. Nate Silver thinks this wise:
[T]he dynamics of this particular campaign are such that expectations-setting can only be a secondary concern for Mr. Romney. The upside of possibly winning Iowa is too high for Mr. Romney to pass up, and the risks of giving a free pass to another candidate are too great.
Jennifer Rubin adds that a divided evangelical electorate could bolster Romney's efforts.
Richard Stevenson thinks the "argument" is irresistible. John Gans explains the obvious:
Republican candidates are pursuing a nationalist campaign against Obama. [They] will continue to argue that Obama is not proud enough and does not believe the nation is exceptional even if they do not use the word — for example, Romney's "just another nation" comment. Last fall, the Washington Post suggested that, in the 2012 presidential election, the issue of American exceptionalism has already become a "new front in the ongoing culture wars." Spencer Ackerman recently made a similar point.
Steve Benen has more. Meanwhile, a new Pew poll suggests that Americans are tiring of the national greatness agenda. For my part, as an immigrant, I need no lessons on why America is unique and worth loving. But the idea that this single country has some kind of divine blessing that makes it inherently different than and superior to every other country on earth that exists or has ever existed, has always struck me as bizarre.
Again, one notices the distinction between conservatism and the radical nationalism now espoused by a majority of the GOP (excepting Huntsman and Paul). Conservatism has a grasp of history and of morality that does not allow of a nation whose inherent superiority allows it to act with impunity in global affairs, by rules it makes up itself. Human nature is no different in this country than in any country in history or around the world. And this is my main fear about this new kind of exceptionalism – not just its ratcheting up of the McCarthyite "un-American" smear if you dissent from the notion of a divinely-guided super-nation – but its ability to blind us to our own faults.
Is it not telling, for example, that the party that tells us that America as exceptional is also the party that endorses torture but will not call it by its proper name? And the logic is very tight: because America is morally superior, it can act in ways others morally and legally cannot, and when Americans torture, it is not torture, precisely and only because Americans are doing it. It's the kind of perfect self-justification one finds among some of the more self-righteous "born-again", a hermetically sealed circle of self-love, designed not to expose and root out sin, but to reaffirm self-worth regardless. It's a very modern form of solipsism, the kind of thing conservatives would usually condemn if told to a child as a way to build his or her self-esteem. But that's how they see Americans, as children, whose memories evaporate instantly, who are only beguiled by the cliches of lost eras, who need to be told repeatedly, even as they slip behind, that they are still the best. And not just the best. But the Best Ever!
Believe in America, Romney tells us. For Pete's sake, don't question it. Just question those who do.
(Photo by Win McNamee/AFP/Getty Images.)
A reader sends the above chart and writes:
"Universal" healthcare. What an accomplishment. The uninsured rate has gone up, and the rate of those insured by their employers has gone down. This is the measure by which you want liberals to judge the president? No wonder we're outraged. If Obama had actually fought for single-payer universal health care (rather than a huge sellout to private insurance companies, which is exactly what it is), liberals like myself would have much reason to cheer. His failures wouldn't seem nearly so stark. The left has plenty of reason to be upset with Obama, and his cowardice on health care is certainly among them.
Obama rode a tidal wave of progressive enthusiasm to the presidency, and he's done very little for progressive causes. That you, a conservative, are supportive of a milquetoast, right-of-center Democrat who is all-too-willing to sell out his progressive base in the name of achieving goals that are hardly progressive is no surprise.
Look, cheer for Obama all you want – I won't begrudge you that, since he's doing things with which you agree. But to call disenchanted progressive voters "whiners" under the auspices that Obama is fighting for progressive causes is pretty disingenuous. We were led to believe, during the election, that he was much more progressive than he has been as president. It's my right to be disappointed when I gave up 40 hours a week without pay to knock on doors and make phone calls for a guy who promised real, lasting change and since being elected has bent over backward to appease those who defend the status quo and stand in direct opposition to the progressive agenda.
This reader genuinely thinks that universal healthcare was even designed to happen overnight? Seriously? So so lame. Another writes:
I understand your frustration, but I'm torn. On the one hand, Obama has been incredibly effective and competent to an extent Bush could only dream about. On the other hand, I have never been prouder of the left than now. We DON'T worship our leaders; we DON'T shut up and let our president do whatever he wants; we DON'T put politics before country or principle. That's what Republicans did under Bush … and I refuse to apologize for not being like a Republican.
Obama has real problems, from a left perspective. He has not stood up to the corporations as much as he should. He has not had a sterling record on human rights. Many things that he has done that have pissed off the left are things he didn't have to do.
I will probably vote for Obama again; how can I NOT vote for the guy who killed Bin Laden? But I'm not going to act like a conservative and refuse to criticize him because he's "my president." It may be frustrating, but this is what a sober ruling party looks like.
Another:
Democrats are angry at President Obama because they feel betrayed by his extension of civil liberty infringements, powered by things like the Patriot Act. We are angered by his refusal to go after the war criminals from Bush regime. We are fearful that the Obama administration, in perpetuating these abuses, is weakening the fabric of our democracy. We are angry that the Obama administration failed to pursue the bad actors who damaged our economy with financial actions and instruments that bordered on the criminal.
What is so "baffling" about that? You have written about all these issues yourself! You have expressed concerns about where Obama is going with some of these policies. Yet you are baffled?
The Dish 
