Author: Andrew Sullivan

Gawker has an anonymous, and vile, kiss and tell, which has not a smidgen of journalistic justification and is merely a cowardly, brutal and misogynist invasion of privacy (hence no link). It was also apparently paid for:

(Gawker's editor told a Yahoo reporter that the site paid in the "low four figures" for the O'Donnell story).

Ashley Herzog explains:

So Christine O’Donnell once dressed up in a cute, non-revealing ladybug costume, and Gawker got some asshole to claim she slept in his bed but didn’t let things progress beyond kissing. Even if this story is 100% true (and I have my doubts)…so what? As Amanda said, the only thing this story proves is that O’Donnell is capable of having some good, clean fun.

And maintaining her principles, and demonstrating her non-hypocrisy. Seriously, it's a disgusting piece of page-view whoredom. Weigel is on the same page:

I'm aware that Christine O'Donnell's public commentary career started with her going on TV to talk about how kids shouldn't have sex or masturbate before marriage. But not only has she never called for that behavior to be punished legally, I'm unaware of her ever coming out against the actions mentioned here — which, let's remember are drinking, fooling around, and not having sex. There is no hypocrisy being exposed here. This is anonymous creep shaming a woman who wouldn't sleep with him, and doing so because she's a celebrity now.

Yep, that's the latest anti-gay bile coming from congressman Steve King. Chait takes the Sparta reference and runs with it.

"I never intended to sound insensitive, and have the utmost respect for all people. I apologize for my poor choice of words," – Wisconsin lieutenant governor nominee Rebecca Kleefisch, on using "table", "clock" and "dogs" to stand in for gay people in her slippery-slope case against marriage equality.

A lovely rip-off of the moronic quantification and irrelevance of what now passes for political science. It's why I escaped from this faux-bullshit-science that has no grasp of history, philosophy, or politics:

Man is this on the mark. And I say that as someone with a Harvard PhD in political science. Who ran – not walked – to the exits.

(Hat tip: John Sides)

A reader writes:

Didn't you read the same interview where he said (to paraphrase) "quit wasting your time/money on me, lobby the three senators who are gonna decide this thing." You've GOT the president. Wouldn't your pulpit be far more effective pressuring the people who are gonna decide this thing? Collins. Lieberman. Snowe. Butters.

Never mind the fact that you're being a touch hypocritical preaching meep meep patience with everything else, but this has to happen RIGHT NOW. Everyone chomped at the bit about healthcare, and guess what? It got done. Same with Iraq, same with DADT.

The Smoking Gun gets the gruesome details:

Police allege that [Trevor] Case stuffed "hospital socks" into Danielle Stallworth's mouth and bound her wrists with belts and hair ties before placing a shirt over her head and dousing it with water, according to a Lincoln Police Department report. “He poured a pitcher of water on her head, and she started freaking out and thought she wasn’t able to breathe,” cops noted. The waterboarding practice, of course, leaves victims with the sensation that they are drowning.

One wonders how the New York Times would report this story. Enhanced domestic violence?

"Torture is illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it. If we know or believe action by us will lead to torture taking place, we're required by UK and international law to avoid that action, and we do, even though that allows that terrorist activity to go ahead. Some may question this. But we are clear that it's the right thing to do. It makes us strive even harder to find different ways, consistent with human rights, to get the outcome we want," – The head of MI6, Sir John Sawers.

A simple example from the propaganda channel.

 A reader writes:

Regarding the ultra-"Orthodox" Jews depicted below the fold in your recent face of the day:  Do you really not know who Neturei Karta are?  You can't seriously be pointing to them in arguing that it's not anti-Semitic to protest Israel, are you?

Well, if you didn't know, Neturei Karta is a sect of cultish Jews who reject the very idea of a state of Israel and believe it's an abomination to God (it stems from the eschatological belief that Jews should not settle in Israel until the Messiah comes).

Four years ago they were invited by and joined Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to participate in his Holocaust "conference". These are the people that anti-Semites and anti-Israelites all over the world point to when they say they're not anti-Semitic when they call for wiping Israel off the map.

Another elaborates:

They reject the Jewish state for reasons of pure fundamentalism, but they only reject it right now. They believe any Jewish state must be established by the Messiah, and therefore any Jewish state established by ordinary men is illegitimate for religious reasons. This does not stop them from accepting welfare checks from the Israeli state, using Israeli passports, and otherwise enjoying all the benefits of the Israeli state. Make no mistake that the theology that drives them is any less poisonous than that of American Christian Zionists. They spring from the same apocalyptic worldview.

All this I know. They are a tiny fringe Jewish sect. And you can find them in America as well. Their attendance at Ahmadi's Holocaust conference was disgusting. And they met him recently in New York as well. But they do exist; they are obviously not anti-Semites (an aside to proof of a theoretical distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism); and I put their picture below the fold for a reason.

Rachael Phelps argues that the European view of sex is healthier. She notes that in both Europe and America "the age at which most people start having sex is 17," but that teen pregnancy "rates in the United States are three to six times higher than in Western European countries" and that "gonorrhea and chlamydia rates are 20 to 30 times higher here than in the Netherlands" One major cultural difference:

In the United States, sex is generally kept secret from parents.

In a 2004 study, [Dutch-American sociologist Dr. Amy Schalet ] asked parents: "Would you permit your son or daughter to spend the night with a girlfriend or boyfriend in his or her room at home?" Not surprisingly, nine out of 10 American parents said, no, often adding, "Not under my roof!" … According to Schalet, Dutch parents struggle with their teens' emerging sexuality, but they deal with it by bringing the issue out into the open and into the home, where they can supervise. Nine out of 10 Dutch parents told Schalet they have allowed or would allow a romantic sleepover under the right circumstances: With a child who was 16 or older and in a loving committed relationship that the parents observed develop gradually. It is common for Dutch teens to sit down together with each set of parents to discuss why they think they're ready to have sex, and to seek permission.

The first time they had sex, 64 percent of Dutch teens used birth control, compared with only 26 percent of American teens. Most of the time, the Dutch teens used pills. Think about it for a minute: The majority of Dutch teens are making an appointment, going to a clinic, getting a prescription filled and starting birth control before they have sex.

(Hat tip: Cohn)