Author: Andrew Sullivan

Today on the Dish, bloggers reacted to Afghanistan's new bounty, Andrew offered a snap analysis, and Thomas Barnett's focused on the China connection. In Israel coverage, Schumer admitted his desire to punish Gazans, the Globe and Mail profiled the Knesset member present on the flotilla, Victor Davis Hanson suggested that Obama is anti-Semitic, and Andrew went another round with Chait.

In Palin coverage, she defended her wardrobe and told a pernicious lie about her hotness. Andrew challenged Lisa Miller over Sarah's cover story, Jay Nordlinger earned a Malkin over Trig, and we highlighted a bit of hathos. (Some South Carolina hathos here.)

Updates from Iran here and here. Kristol beat his war drum, a NC congressman went ballistic on an amateur reporter, Fiorina couldn't say sorry, Josh Green did so to Rand Paul, and McArdle got married.  Andrew discussed homophobia with Dan Savage while Apple succumbed to the ick factor. World Cup coverage here, here, here, here, here, and here.

In assorted commentary, Scott Horton sounded off on Dawn Johnsen's failed bid, Balko cheered Brownback's call for eliminating government programs, Beinart mulled over the media coverage of Afghanistan, Exum examined the argument that terrorists are idiots, Louis Klarevas worried about them getting guns, Greenwald argued that partisanship is breaking apart, Bartlett surveyed Republicans in favor of debt default, and Tara Parker-Pope assessed the value of pets.

Readers extended the thread on dead birds, another hailed the role of Twitter in Iran, and another criticized Jonah Lehrer's take on scientific truth. Creepy political ads here, a cool ad here, and another Malkin Award here. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

— C.B.

A reader writes:

I have to disagree with Jonah Lehrer's recommendation that "scientists should learn to expect this cycle — to anticipate that the universe is always more networked and complicated than reductionist approaches can reveal." That is the basic definition of the scientific profession – to expect that cycle. Newton knew that he had only reached his own incomplete understanding by "standing on the shoulders" of giants and the scientific community has not forgotten the lesson. They know and, yes, anticipate that each new discovery about the universe will raise more questions than it will answer.

It is the popular press, not scientists, that have fallen into a cycle of anticipation and disappointment. A physicist will never talk about a "God Particle" because they know that the discovery of one will not disprove or prove God's existence but simply cause us to reconsider the framework with which we approach the question. The term "Theory of Everything" is at best only used semi-ironically. Proving one would unite the two fields of physics but would it cause scientists to shut down their laboratories and declare the enterprise finished? Of course not, it would only provide new questions.

As is often the case, Carl Sagan said it best: "We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key."

Noah Millman makes a compelling case:

The opposition [to the stimulus]…is usually described in terms of austerity, that we should be trying to cut the debt and have government tighten its belt just as private citizens have had to tighten theirs. And austerity makes absolutely no sense in the current economic environment. Precisely because interest rates are low, this is a good time to borrow. But the question is: borrow for what? Every dollar we borrow today has to be repaid or refinanced – and we should assume that refinancing will be at substantially higher interest rates than today. The argument we need to be having is about how to increase national productivity.

That means reducing or eliminating subsidies for uneconomic activity – whether the mortgage interest deduction or agricultural subsidies. That means shifting the tax burden away from income – and especially away from wages – and towards consumption. That means shifting discretionary spending priorities away from defense and towards a sustainable infrastructure. That means shifting spending away from retirees and towards youth – and that, in turn, means getting more value per dollar out of both health-care and education spending (two areas where, I suspect, productivity growth properly measured has actually been negative).

There’s a vital role for Republicans to play in this argument that I don’t really hear them playing.

That role is getting into the weeds and finding ways to shift how government spends, not merely what it spends. But I fear the anti-tax ideologues will veto any shift toward consumption or energy taxes; and the very hard work of getting healthcare and education more efficient won't win many campaigns.

Balko is on-board:

Kansas GOP gubernatorial candidate Sam Brownback is proposing an “Office of the Repealer,” tasked with seeking out bad or repetitive laws, wasteful programs, and archaic state agencies for elimination. As a general rule, the media venerates politicians who propose new government programs as bold and visionary, while anyone daring to suggest perhaps there might be cause to eliminate an agency or two is depicted as some fringe draconian nut. Or just quaint and silly.

A reader writes:

Regarding the NY Post headline, as a Harvard man, I am sure you would agree that the Post was consciously alluding to the Crimson headline from 1968, recently brought back into public consciousness by the documentary with the same title.

To wit: "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29." And I would agree.

An example:

The congressman has apologized. Carlos Miller captions:

There is speculation that the “students” were actually republican plants. It doesn’t make a difference if they were the Watergate burglars, they had every right to film him walking down the street and ask him a [political] question. While Etheridge did have the right to demand to know who they were, the videographers had every right not only to videotape him but to not tell them who they were. What Etheridge didn’t have the right to commit battery on the videographer.

Jay Newton-Small asks:

The seven-term Democrat from North Carolina's Second CD is looking pretty safe. He's raised more than $735,000 compared to his closest GOP opponent, Renee Elmers, who has only raised $73,000. Still, I wonder how long it takes the NRCC to make this into a campaign video?

A reader writes:

I worked for many years with seabirds in California and Hawaii, and I wanted to add something about the differing impact of mortality between oil and wind. Oil affects predominately seabirds, whereas wind turbines affect mostly land birds. Land birds and seabirds have much different reproductive lives; seabirds live much much longer and produce fewer young each year. By way of comparison, the European Blackbird lays two clutches of eggs a year with around four eggs per clutch; a similarly sized storm-petrel (a tiny relative of the albatross) lays a single egg a year. The life expectancy of the Blackbirds is only 2.4 years, whereas the storm-petrels regularly live for decades.

The relevance of this to oil and wind? Adult mortality in seabirds is generally much lower than for land birds, under normal conditions. But increases in adult mortality are much less sustainable. 

In a situation where you have a significant die-back of adults, land birds can sustain that die-back longer and rebound back much faster once that problem has been eliminated. The recovery time of seabirds is measured, however, in decades.  For example, in California's Farallon Islands, the Common Murre was decimated from half a million pairs in the 1860s to around 3000 pairs due to egg collecting for food. Almost 150 years later that has recovered only to around 70,0000 pairs. So there is good reason that seabirds are the amongst the most endangered in the world.

Another writes:

It might interest your readers to know that millions of birds are killed every year when they collide with ordinary office buildings. Compared to this, the fatalities caused by windmills are small.

Another:

Daily Dead Birds is keeping track of the toll.

Another:

As if birds didn't have enough threats, they also have to look out for Randy Johnson's fastball.

That's Thomas Barnett's hope about the mineral discoveries in Afghanistan. Money quote:

Before anybody gets the idea that somehow the West is the winner here, understand that we're not the big draw on most of these minerals–that would be Asia and China in particular.  What no one should expect is that the discovery suddenly makes it imperative that NATO do whatever it takes to stay and win and somehow control the mineral outcomes, because–again–that's now how it works in most Gap situations like Africa.  We can talk all we want about China not "dominating" the situation, but their demand will drive the process either directly or indirectly.  There is no one in the world of mining that's looking to make an enemy out of China over this, and one way or another, most of this stuff ends up going East–not West.

If anything, this news should be used to leverage more of a security contribution out of regional great powers–to include China.

So less of a game changer than perhaps a very welcome game accelerator–as in, China is a lot better positioned to reap the mineral rewards that is Afghanistan, with the question being, "How long does it take for China to step up security-wise and stop low-balling its effort there?"  Certainly, the notion that we turn Afghanistan and all its minerals over to Karzai's cronies, Pakistan's ISI and the Taliban strikes me as truly cracked, but the truth remains:  we and our Western allies aren't enough to make the security situation happen on our own–not for the long timelines required.  If it were that easy, these discoveries would have been made decades ago.

Two ads out today give a sense of the political narratives going into November. Here's Rick Barber, who is running for congress in Alabama:

And here's Reid's new attack ad against tea party favorite Sharron Angle: