Author: Andrew Sullivan

That's the total number of the enemy we are asking 100,000 troops to remove from the wildernesses of Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Obama's Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter. 400. More to the point, even a military that knows the terrain, speaks the language, and grasps the local politics is largely helpless:

Months after declaring victory on several important fronts, including in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley, the army has been forced to reopen campaigns after militants seeped back in … “The terrorists have been raised here; they can find their way around blind,” said Maj. Shahzad Saleem, as small gunfire sounded around the hills near Nawazkot where Sepoy Aziz was shot.

Surely, at some point, someone in Washington will be able to point out the obvious.

Brad DeLong's pitch for another stimulus:

To gain $150 billion of increased production and incomes this year we incur a $70 million a year cost going forward…That is not quite a free lunch—they take away my union card as an economist if I start claiming that free lunches exist. But it is certainly a value meal. We are getting more income and employment now—when we really need it—in return for sacrificing only a tiny bit of production each year in the future, when we believe that we will be richer and will mind the reduction significantly less.

The Best Buy employee who created this instant YouTube classic is in hot water:

When [Brian] Maupin refused to take the video down because it didn't mention Best Buy, he was suspended. "I can understand them wanting to, not wanting people to get the impression that Best Buy is like this and this is how it is when you come to our store but … you have to be able to laugh at yourself and say I realize this is an extreme exaggeration.

And NSFW. Gizmodo reaches out:

Hey Best Buy guy. Email us. You don't need to work at Best Buy when you can make funny stuff like this for the internet.

Beinart advises Obama to stand his ground:

I was in Israel last week, and my conversations tracked what the polls suggest: Israelis don’t love Barack Obama. Even leftists don’t grasp his strategy for the region and feel slighted that has spoken repeatedly to the Arab world, but not to them. But many of the same people who derided Obama said they consider him their best hope. It’s a sign of how desperate the Israeli peace camp has become. Do Israeli doves really believe Obama can bring about the two-state solution for which they yearn? Maybe not. He can, however, prevent Netanyahu and his allies from destroying that hope forever. He can preserve the possibility of a democratic Zionist state until Israelis recommit to it themselves. To borrow a metaphor, he can act as a bridge. As long as he doesn’t go wobbly.

Now, they're trying threats:

The Yesha Council, the principal voice of the settlement movement, took out large ads in Israeli newspapers, showing a wan, bloated Netanyahu, and warning him against bowing to possible U.S. pressure to extend the settlement freeze he promised would end in September. The cost, the ads hinted ("We voted for you because you gave us your word"), could be his job. The right's more radical quarters were more explicit. According to Army Radio, right-wing activists plan to put up large numbers of posters reading "Netanyahu is Bad for the Jews," as part of a campaign to thaw the freeze by setting up new, unauthorized settlement outposts.

“If the Medicare cuts in the health care bill are to be believed and CBO's estimates pertaining to the health care bill are to be believed, President Obama has already done more to reduce in magnitude the long-term budget problems for the U.S. than the previous administration, who undoubtedly made the problem worse. That's true despite the amount added to the deficit from the stimulus bill and the costly coverage provisions in the health care bill," – Tax Foundation.

Josh Green finds some evidence that marijuana propositions help Democrats:

I found a few Democratic consultants who have become convinced that ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana, like the one Californians will vote on in November, actually help Democrats in the same way that gay marriage bans were supposed to have helped Republicans. They are similarly popular, with medical marijuana having passed in 14 states (and the District of Columbia) where it has appeared on the ballot. In a recent poll, 56 percent of Californians said they favor the upcoming initiative to legalize and tax pot. The idea that this helps Democrats is based on the demographic profile of who shows up to vote for marijuana initiatives–and wouldn't show up otherwise.

Yes, you and I and anyone who pays taxes in the US are funding far-right Jewish settlers and loony Christianist evangelicals in their bid to make Judea And Samaria and all of Jerusalem a permanent part of Greater Israel. This is not news, of course. The far right crazies, such as John Hagee, are lionized by Netanyahu's government. The Tablet notes:

The Times isn’t breaking this story; if anything, the news is that this dynamic has long been an open secret. “It drove us crazy,” former U.S. Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer says. “It was a thing you didn’t talk about in polite company.”

"Polite company?" What's that a euphemism for? What Kurtzer presumably means is that any airing of this absurd policy will lead to a massive counter-attack by AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby in the media and Congress.

But isn't it nuts that one arm of the US government is subsidizing a policy that another arm is trying to freeze? There is a legislative fix, of course: pass a law that makes it illegal to claim any tax deductions for financing the further colonization of the occupied territories. By all means, carry on supporting projects in Israel proper. But not on the West Bank.

And yes, that sound you hear is of a kind of tragic laughter. The idea that the US congress would ever do anything to restrain settlements on the West Bank is hilarious.

As the American Christianist right ratchets up its anti-gay propaganda in Africa, the victims in Uganda mount. A priest who preached in defense of gay dignity has gone missing and the severed head of a young activist has just been found. His body wasn't far away:

Pasikali and his partner Abbey are youth workers with Integrity Uganda charged with the responsibility of mobilising young LGBT people in activities which build community capacity to face up to the challenge of homophobia, especially in the area of attitude change and care through drama and sports activities.

According to the police, a mutilated torso which was earlier in the week discovered in Kabuuma Zone, about half a kilometre away from Kiggundu’s farm was probably Pasikali’s The torso was described as belonging to a young man and had no genitals.

“If the Conservatives and Liberals can get together in a national coalition and settle their differences, I don't see why you can't have gay marriage," – London mayor Boris Johnson, the highest-ranking Tory to support full marriage equality.