Author: Andrew Sullivan

Building off the Dish, E.D. Kain considers sunset clauses for entire branches of government:

Too often our government is a self-serving, bloated mega-institution incapable of ever cutting off any of its outgrown limbs. Making more if it temporary – or at least writing in the possibility of temporariness when constructing it – would at the very least give these big government institutions a reason to try to remain relevant.

Of course, the downside would be an even more concerted effort to self-preserve, but at least there would be a conversation going on about whether survival was in the best interests of the nation at large.

A reader writes:

As a Jewish American, I am offended by Newt Gingrich's suggestion that use the name of Córdoba by Muslims is insulting to non-Muslims. The height of Muslim rule the Iberian Peninsula, the rule of the Caliphate of Córdoba, was also the height of Jewish culture in Spain. It was the decline of the Caliphate of Córdoba that began the end of tolerance of Jews in the Muslim-ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Nevertheless, it was not until Christian rule was established over the entire Iberian Peninsula in 1492 that there was a concerted effort to eliminate the existence of Jews and Judaism in every part of Spain.

Gingrich seems most offended by the fact that the Mosque of Córdoba was established on the grounds of a former church. He failed to mention that the church in question was purchased for the purpose of constructing a mosque on the site. Those who later converted the mosque into a cathedral were not so kind as to offer payment.

I agree with Gingrich that churches and synagogues should be allowed to operate from within Saudia Arabia. However, I am of the opinion that this should not be a pre-requisite for religious freedom in the United States. I was under the impression that the United States considered democracy and freedom of religion to be core principles, not privileges to be used as bargaining chips.

(Photo: The Great Mosque Of Cordoba – now the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption – from Flickr via Wiki.)

Ambinder previews it:

The Democratic strategy in a nutshell is small enough to fit in one but has the protein of a good, tasty nut. The Republicans want to be mayors of crazy-town. They've embraced a fringe and proto-racist isolationist and ignorant conservative populism that has no solutions for fixing anything and the collective intelligence of a wine flask. This IS offensive and over the top, and the more Democrats repeat it, and the more dumb things some Republican candidates do, the more generally conservative voters who might be thinking of sending a message to Democrats by voting for a Republican will be reminded that the replacement party is even more loony than the party that can't tie its shoes. This is a strategy of delegitimization, not affirmation.

A reader writes:

I feel a little embarrassed writing into a site that routinely takes on serious issues to dissent with you and your readers about the state of Doctor Who. The show started going off the rails in the mid '80s. When it finally went off the air in '89, it was nothing more than a vehicle for slagging off Margaret Thatcher (a political stance I doubt you'd agree with). After it was resurrected in 2005, it rapidly degenerated into a maudlin soap opera. 

The modern series is all running around aimlessly or moaning about personal relationships, without the complicated sci-fi ideas and oddball characters that made the old series so engaging.  I threw in the towel and stopped watching toward the end of the David Tennant era. Not only were the scripts terrible but Tennant was the first utterly terrible actor to play the part.  I can handle bad writing or a bad Doctor, but I can't handle both.

I decided to give the show a chance again when I heard Tennant was going, and after a bad start I think Matt Smith might actually make a halfway decent Doctor. But the show is definitely still on probation. Oh well, at least your favorite Doc is Tom Baker, the best ever (with Jon Pertwee a close second).

I don't disagree with its sharp decline in the 1980s – and wince at its decadent phase. But the new series, with Russell Davies in charge, has been terrific, even though the special effects lack that amateurish charm of the early days. Another writes:

I read your Doctor Who post today and thought I'd pass this along – a 2004 piece by Jesse Walker on the return of the series.  It's dated now, of course, but still really interesting for fans of the show.

Another:

If you haven't seen it, check out Mark Ayres' history of the Dr Who theme; it's fascinating reading. Delia Derbyshire's original version remains one of the most astonishing pieces of electronic music ever created.

Another:

Your reader who wrote in about how the Dr Who theme song was made, and how ahead of it's time it was reminded me of this clip from 2010 Glastonbury Festival of Matt Smith on stage with the Prodigy, rocking their remix of the theme song.

Another:

The Dr. Who stuff I came across is from the English comedy show Nevermind the Buzzcock. This past Christmas they put together a Dr. Who themed show and it's quite hilarious. Part 1 is here.

Last one:

Let it be said right up front: I am a massive geek. As a kid, I ran around the yard playing with a toy phaser; I dressed as a Jawa for the Star Wars theater release, etc. I was lucky enough to find a spouse who tolerated such things, even if she didn't enjoy them with me.

Then, Doctor Who happened.

There's something so universal about the Doctor. A warrior who abhors violence, who thinks that everyone deserves a second chance. I've noticed that he has recently earned a hard edge: both the Tennant and Smith doctors take very little bullshit before they will go ahead and end you. For my wife, it was a big door into a larger universe of sci-fi.

We were married a couple of years after she became a fan of the show. For a wedding present, she got me the pocket watch that the Doctor hides his Time Lord consciousness (Human Nature episode). She ordered that my groom's cake be a TARDIS.

More evidence of GOP fanaticism from Iowa.

Sometimes in the world (if not so often in the US), foreign policy really isn't about Israel. A reader writes:

The recent screeching coming from the neocon stands with regard to Turkey seem to miss the fact Turkey is emerging as the major energy broker of the region with the help of the UK. Take the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline for instance. As its name implies, this pipeline takes crude oil from the Caspian fields all the way to the Mediterranean Turkish sea port of Ceyhan. The pipeline, which came into full operation in May 2006, has for its largest shareholder a company called BP (30.1%). Then there is the South Caucasus pipeline (December 2006), which takes natural gas along the same route as the previously mentioned pipeline but ends up at Erzurum in Turkey instead, where it is joined by the Tabriz-Ankara pipeline coming from the gas fields of Iran (yes, Iran). BP is also an important shareholder of the South Caucasus pipeline (25.5%). The geo-strategic aims of these two projects were to diversify the energy supplies and lessen Europe's dependence on Russian

oil and gas. 

Interestingly, Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortakl??? (TPAO), the national oil and gas company of Turkey, is also a partner of BP in both of these projects (6.53% & 9% respectively). Furthermore, the gas pipeline was also built by Turkish state-owned company BOTA? on behalf of the BP led consortium. BOTA? and Greek gas company DEPA have built an extension of the Turkish pipeline in order to reach continental Europe (November 2007). This last June, BOTA?, DEPA and Italy’s Edison SpA signed a memorandum of understanding for the extension of the pipeline into southern Italy. There is no doubt that these energy deals have reinforced Turkey's position as a strategic ally of the West, contrary to what Mr. Frum or other noecons might think.

More surprisingly, and this is where it gets almost unbelievable, both BP and TPAO have a third business partner not only in the South Caucasus pipeline project but also in the Shah Deniz gas fields of Azerbaijan where the gas is actually pumped out and where BP acts as the operator of the project. This third partner is no other than Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), registered in the Jersey Channel Islands (UK), and a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company. NICO owns 10% of the pipeline project and 10% of the gas fields project. The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has identified NICO as an entity owned or controlled by the Government of Iran, and as such prohibits most transactions with it.

I'm sorry to say it that way but with regards to the national and financial interests of both the UK and Turkey I don't believe that Israel figures much in the balance. Mr. Frum and his former neocon friends can huff and puff all they want but Israel doesn't factor in here. Prime Minister Cameron's comments in regards to the Flotilla Incident and the Siege of Gaza were obviously not meant to please Israel firsters but rather to demonstrate clearly the strategic significance of the partnership of BP (a British company) and Turkish state-owned companies in the area of energy development. And that's part and parcel of the new Turkey.

Brooklyn, New York, 10.48 am

For a glimpse into why American conservatism really is intellectually dead, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is a pretty good start. Daniel Henninger today pulls a Mark Levin, turning a deeply difficult series of choices about taxes and spending into an abstract debate between two theories. And the description of those two theories would flunk a paper in political theory in a freshman class.

The question is how to tackle the mounting debt and current deficit. Henninger accepts that the debt is "dangerous". But he seems to believe that any tax increases at all to counter it would be more dangerous. This is position worth arguing – and I'd agree that the bulk of the deficit reduction should come from spending cuts (and would support the very harsh cuts in Medicare, Social Security and defense to get there.) But I'm not nuts and understand that sustaining the Bush tax cuts indefinitely and providing no additional revenue source means an austerity that makes David Cameron look like the tooth fairy.

So what would Henninger cut? He doesn't say. He cannot say. He wants to have an abstract debate about big government vs small government or taxes vs spending or liberty vs tyranny – a debate that, as long as it is held in such comic-book forms, he will win.But if that is the debate we are going to have, we will all lose. The entitlement crisis and the war debt began far before Obama's term in office and represent deep structural deficits that were ignored during the spending spree and tax bonanza and off-budget wars of the Bush administration that Henninger slavishly supported.

He also has this fathomlessly cynical thing to say:

Somewhere, George W. Bush must be laughing. Amid 9.5% unemployment, Democrats must deal with the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

Laughing? Laughing that he bequeathed his successor a bankrupt government, two lost, counter-productive wars, an unfunded, budget-busting Medicare entitlement, and a tax structure that simply cannot be sustained without massive cuts in defense, Medicare and social security? Are partisan games and dumb-ass generalities and no specifics on spending cuts really what's left of Republicanism?

If so, and you are a fiscal conservative, your only serious (if horribly tainted) choice is the Democrats. The Republicans are still quite bonkers.

Here's what I don't understand: illegal immigration is down in part because of the economy; and enforcement seems to be much tougher if these stories about the corpses of migrants found in more remote areas are true (and dead bodies are a pretty solid statistic). So why the uptick in anti-illegal hysteria now?