Author: Andrew Sullivan

Here are the ten topics (pdf) that have been most contested by armies of editors on the English language version:

1. George W. Bush

2. Anarchism

3. Muhammed.

4. Professional wrestlers and their stats.

5. Global Warming.

6. Circumcision.

7. US.

8. Jesus.

9. Race and IQ.

10. Christianity.

Somehow, the Dish missed the great wrestling controversy and anarchism. But we’ve got the others covered.

The spiral image from above? The combined controversial topics from the English, French, German, Spanish Wikis (blue), Czech, Hungarian and Romania (red), and Arabic, Persian and Hebrew (green). Yes, Israel remains the most controversial and contested topic on Wikipedia across the globe. The idea that the “unbreakable US-Israel” alliance is not a big factor in weakening America’s international leverage is as ludicrous as General Mattis said it was.

Other nuggets from the paper about Wikis around the world: in the Czech Republic, they’re obsessed with gays (1, 5, and 7); in Germany, scientology, homeopathy and Rudolf Steiner; in France, Freud, UFOs, and 9/11.

Here’s the map from the NYT today on regions and income mobility. The redder the region the lower the mobility:

Doesn’t it seem to you that the South stands out with particular starkness? That the most solidly Republican region offers the least equality of opportunity? Among the cities with the least opportunity: Memphis, Charlotte and Atlanta. The most social mobility? San Francisco and New York, along with Salt Lake City. The chances of rising from the bottom fifth to the top is 2.6 percent in Memphis, Tennessee and 2.2 percent in Nome, Alaska. In Seattle and Boston, the odds are five times that. I don’t know why exactly. But so many maps in America still seem to reflect two essentially different countries.

(Photo via Alpa Cannabis)

Is there nothing the plant cannot do? This isn’t a new story but it’s gotten some new attention recently:

The study looked at more than 4,600 people, 12 percent of whom said they were current marijuana users and 42 percent of whom said they had used in the past. Previous research had shown that marijuana users had a lower prevalence for diabetes and obesity, but this was the first study where scientists tried to determine if there was a link between insulin and glucose levels and marijuana usage, Yahoo Shine reported.

There is:

The study concludes: “with the recent trends in legalization of marijuana in the United States, it is likely that physicians will increasingly encounter patients who use marijuana and should therefore be aware of the effects it can have on common disease processes, such as diabetes mellitus. We found that current marijuana use is associated with lower levels of fasting insulin, lower HOMA-IR and smaller waist circumference.”

What we still don’t quite know is why. It works against the hoary stereotype of the munchies, but the data are clear. One possibility:

Some research finds that highly religious people are less likely to take drugs, but more likely to be obese — perhaps because they’re substituting one compulsive behavior (overeating) for the other (smoking marijuana). So, some of the obese people in the national surveys may be religious folk, who might otherwise be heavy marijuana smokers, but are eating too much instead. That could make it look like marijuana is slimming.

Also consider that one of the most popular uses of medical marijuana is to stimulate appetite in people with cancer, AIDS or other diseases. Such patients are significantly less likely to be obese than the general population — so in this case, weight loss would precede or prompt the marijuana smoking.

I’m not buying either argument. Smoking weed is not as compulsive as over-eating. Sugar can have a far stronger grip on a person’s way of life than THC. One possibility is that there is something in marijuana that helps regulate insulin better: “a relationship between cannabinoids and peripheral metabolic processes.” But Prohibition makes it extremely hard to do the research to see if we can make real in-roads against heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Legalizing the plant for research might, after all, cause someone somewhere to experience pleasure – and we know that cannot be countenanced.

Another theory might be that people substitute pot for alcohol. And the more we encourage the move from a highly fattening recreational drug to a far more healthy one, the better. Hence the liquor companies’ strenuous opposition to the end of Prohibition (historical ironies aside).

(Photo: Getty Images.)

John McWhorter reflects on Obama’s impromptu Trayvon Martin speech:

[T]he perception of black men as inherently criminal is what most black people really mean by “racism” when they talk about its prevalence. Most can discuss more statistical manifestations on reflection, but what really sits in the gut is cases like Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, and now Martin. Or, the related experiences that black men have that Obama mentioned having had himself, such as being trailed in stores or watching white women tensing up as they pass.

This stuff is real. It’s raw. Testament to this daily kind of racist dismissal of black men is considered an urgent task of public discussion of the black condition. No one who understands this could possibly condone, for example, the vastly overreaching policy on stop-and-frisks in New York City. Should the police pay as much attention to the Upper East Side as Bedford-Stuyvesant? Of course not. But should most brown-skinned adolescents in a neighborhood expect to be stopped by usually surly cops for no reason? Say yes and you have no right to wonder why you get generation after generation of young men who feel alienated from their own society–which in fact makes Obama’s consideration of Ray Kelly to lead the Department of Homeland Security decidedly more ungainly at this point.

Ta-Nehisi applauds the speech:

I have had my criticisms of this president and how he talks about race. But given the mass freak-out that met him last year after making a modest point about Trayvon Martin, it must be said that it took political courage for him to double down on the point and then advance it.

No president has ever done this before. It does not matter that the competition is limited. The impact of the highest official in the country directly feeling your pain, because it is his pain, is real. And it is happening now. And it is significant.

Bouie doubts the speech will change much:

It’s asking Americans to empathize with Martin—to put themselves in the shoes of a black teenager, walking alone, at night, being followed by an older man—and try to see the circumstance as he would have experienced it. Other presidents have spoken frankly about the challenges faced by African Americans—Lyndon Johnson’s speech on the anniversary of Gettysburg (he was vice president at the time), stands as an excellent example—but no president has ever asked Americans to try to imagine the perspective of a black boy. It’s a powerful appeal, and my hope is that the public will take it seriously. My actual expectation, however, is that they won’t.

Ezra notes how Obama’s rhetoric on race has changed:

In 2008, Obama seemed to believe that with the right leadership, America was ready to move forward on race. “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” he said. In 2013, he seemed to believe political leaders might simply make matters worse, and that, on this issue at least, we are not the ones we have been waiting for. The ones we are waiting for, he seemed to say, are still coming.

Chait thinks Obama’s speech was intended for future audiences:

Obama understands that interjecting himself into a racialized controversy carries risks, but he also believes that the electorate of the future is on his side. His remarks are probably aimed not at the present but at posterity.

My thoughts here.

It’s usually about Israel – and the way in which recently it has truly hurt US foreign policy and interests:

Recently retired US Central Commander General James Mattis warned yesterday that if Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempts to broker a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority failed, Israel would be exposed as an apartheid state … Speaking July 20, at the Aspen Institute’s annual Security Forum, Mattis said that as a result of Israeli intransigence and the US special relationship with Israel, he and his troops have “paid a military security price.” His comments echoed those of his predecessor, General David Petraeus, who told the Senate Armed Service Committee in 2010 that “enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors” had damaged US interests in the region. Petraeus was hammered by pro-Israel forces for his remarks – Abe Foxman called him “dangerous” — and wound up walking them back.

But Mattis wasn’t silenced:

I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel and that moderates all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us because they can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t want to show respect for the Arab Palestinians.

Nick Offerman (aka Ron Swanson) stars in a punk rock video in which he gets drunk and pisses on everything in LA. Hilariously and outlandishly NSFW. We miss you, Zoe.

But then again, shirtless Geraldo is a lot more offensive than a pair of Wiki-balls.

My take on the president’s Friday presser on Trayvon Martin (from last night) is here.