Month: May 2012

Courtesy of James Lipton:

From the text:

Listen to his laugh.  It resembles the flat "Ha! Ha! Ha!" that appears in comic-strip dialogue balloons. But worse – far worse – it is mirthless. Mr. Romney expects us to be amused, although he himself is not amused. Freeze the frame, cover the bottom of his face with your hand, and study his eyes. There’s no pleasure there, no amusement. Genuine laughter is triggered only by, and is completely dependent on, shared perception. That’s why we say we "get" a joke.

Jim Holt explores numerology and the last century's greatest poet. Plus: an Iowa sailor in black silk stockings.

Allahpundit's comment section.

Michael Marder considers the vegetal souls on our plate:

For example, studies have found evidence of "deliberate behavior" in plants: foraging (note that the botanists themselves use this word usually associated with animal behavior) for nutrients, the roots can drastically change their branching pattern when they detect a resource-rich patch of soil, or they can grow so as to avoid contact with roots of other members of the same species, in order to prevent detrimental competition. Of course, plants are not capable of deliberation or of making decisions in the human sense of the term. But they do engage with their environments and with one another in ways that are incredibly sophisticated, plastic and responsive — in a word, intelligent, though not perhaps conscious.

Adam Kolber isn't buying Marder's call for "plant liberation":

[T]he signaling mechanism Marder describes is common to lots of systems that have no moral claim to our actions. I suspect, for example, that the advanced heating and cooling systems in modern buildings have the kinds of abilities that pea plants have. Yet surely we can assemble and disassemble such systems without worry that we are hurting anyone by doing so. Now, if plants could feel pain, that might be a different story. It wouldn't mean we'd have to stop eating plants, but we might at least have to think differently about the issue.

A reader writes:

The Huff Post's article is interesting but incomplete.  The best the writer can come up with by way of an explanation for Albania's progressiveness on gay rights is that it has a strong "feeling of community" among the new gay Albanian activists, who also engage regularly in interventions and collaborations with other human rights NGOs and the government. The real explanation is much more basic – and way more interesting:

Until very recently, Albania was a total mess (I mean, it's still a mess; you should see it, but it's all relative). After all, Albania had endured over four decades of insane rule by Enver Hoxha, and when he died in the '80s, the country descended into a period of prolonged chaos (remember the crazy stock market Ponzi schemes that nearly threw Albania into revolution?). It was just like North Korea would be if suddenly its totally unsocialized citizens were granted the freedom to do whatever the hell they wanted.

Fast forward a few decades and Albania achieved some measure of stability. It's a new century. Technology advances connect the country to the rest of the world in hitherto unimaginable ways. The borders to neighboring countries like Greece opened up. It's fair to say that the Albanians' minds were blown. Exposed now to the Europe that Hoxha tried everything to prevent them from learning about, the population was able to take stock more fully of just how screwed up a country they had.  Decade after decade, as the world advanced, Albania had remained a North Korea-like backwater, and suddenly the veil was lifted. It's like they'd just come out of stasis.

Albanians were (and still are) aghast at their fate. They're deeply traumatized and embarrassed by how far they lag behind the rest of Europe, and they are OBSESSED with achieving modernity.

I was in Albania pretty recently and have friends there (and in Greece, were a number of them work on my family's farmland). We talked about the push for gay rights, and they attribute it to the prime minister's attempt to make up for lost time – to show the rest of Europe that Albania isn't just making progress; it's leading the way. The push for marriage equality there wasn't quite a political stunt, but it was definitely intended to be an attention grabber that would change the rest of the world's perception of Albania in the most dramatic way possible. The PM didn't have any particular investment in the issue of gay rights; he just wanted to get Albania on the map FAST.

A few other things come into play, by the way. One is that it's probably the most progressive Moslem-dominated country on the planet.  Read about Albania's brand of Islam. It's something unto itself. In fact, the Saudis have poured money into Albania to establish its brand of Islam there, and the Albanians thus far have had very little interest in embracing it. But that's a topic for another email.

Obama's Super PAC goes for the jugular: 

Alex Burns has more: 

The 30-second commercial is going up in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the strategist said, and also includes an online advertising component. It comes on the heels of the Obama campaign unveiling a 2-minute commercial – also focused on Bain shuttering a GST Steel factory – which is set to air in select swing-state markets Wednesday. The key message point in the Priorities ad is the argument that Romney and Bain were making money through a rigged game, in which they’d be sure to turn a profit regardless of how their acquisitions fared. … 

Beyond the content of the Priorities ad, it’s also notable that the super PAC has $4 million to shell out at this stage of the race. The pro-Obama group has struggled with fundraising for much of the 2012 cycle, but those are real dollars on the air at a moment when it counts.

Previous Ad War Updates: May 14, May 10, May 9, May 8,  May 7, May 3, May 2, May 1, Apr 30, Apr 27, Apr 26, Apr 25, Apr 24, Apr 23, Apr 18, Apr 17, Apr 16, Apr 13, Apr 11, Apr 10, Apr 9, Apr 5, Apr 4, Apr 3, Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

Nate Silver warns that "when an election is quite close, it does not take very much to shift the race from one candidate being a 60/40 favorite to it being about even." More generally:

One of the reasons that campaign stories have been so trivial lately is because if one of the campaigns has an especially strong line of attack on their opponent, or a great piece of opposition research, it does not make a lot of sense to drop it now when most voters are not paying attention yet. It is still extremely early for a general election campaign. If the period after Labor Day qualifies as the pennant race, and the summer of the general election year the regular season, we are still playing preseason baseball now.

Today on the Dish, Andrew debated Glenn Greenwald on "sentiment" versus "detached purism" and Obama's gay rights record (update here), livechatted about his cover story, defended its comparison of Obama's experience with racial identity to the gay experience, praised Evan Wolfson for his role in bringing about marriage equality's triumph, and found yet another instance of the GOP kicking gays out of the fold. We highlighted another marriage equality hero, Jonathan Rauch, analyzed the importance of the Van Lohuizen memo for the Republican approach to gay equality, tracked the many meanings of marriage over time, pointed out another devastating weakness in the anti-equality case, looked at TNC's experience with homophobia, and watched Obama's coming-out video.

Andrew also argued that Romney would be worse than Obama on medical pot, castigated his ridiculous foreign policy, and grudgingly acknowledged the "effective, if crude" nature of Mitt's recent line of attack. We tracked the debate over the Bain issue, marked Ron Paul's departure, wondered if his run had accomplished anything, decoded the Tea Party's goals, explained why Obama's style wasn't going to determine the election, and were impressed by Obama's gains among veterans. Ad War Update here.

Finally, Andrew reupped the call for dishterns – less than a week, people! The Grexit from the Euro inched closer, local Chinese leaders mucked with the economy, and the violence in Syria spilled over into Lebanon. A/B testing took over the web, the Internet's data glut messed with our heads, and texts and emails outpaced phones. Prison violence shocked, scopolamine terrified, college football got defended, and graduates had it rough. Banana improvement was a humanitarian priority, tacos were recent inventions, and veggie burgers weren't helping the environment, Ask Tyler Cowen Anything here (with some commentary on the world's healthiest cuisines), Chart of the Day here, Quote for the Day here, Yglesias Nominee here, VFYW Contest Winner here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

– Z.B.

That's how Vice magazine is hyping its half-hour documentary on scopolamine:

VICE's Ryan Duffy went to Colombia to check out a strange and powerful drug called Scopolamine, also known as "The Devil's Breath." It's a substance so intense that it renders a person incapable of exercising free will. The first few days in the country were a harrowing montage of freaked-out dealers and unimaginable horror stories about Scopolamine.

Previous Dish on scopolamine here.