"Boycotting a trial almost never a winning strategy. [Supporters of Prop 8] identified 8 experts. What happened is that their experts broke down, either at deposition or at trial. They tried to come up with the evidence, they knew they were required to come up with evidence. They tried to build that trial record and they simply failed. They didn’t fail because they’re bad lawyers, they failed because there isn’t any evidence to support the argument they’re advocating,"- David Boies, during a conference call previewing the plaintiffs' closing arguments in the Prop 8 trial.
Author: Andrew Sullivan
Daily Show Bait Now, Ctd
Taken. Clive Crook weighs in on the Ambinder-Greenwald spat:
Greenwald demands skepticism toward those in power — which any good journalist must have — but then confuses this with implacable hostility. They are not the same. The job of a reporter is to question, understand, and inform. You need a vigorous skepticism to do this. But unreasoning hostility is as inimical to understanding as blind deference.
Did The Goat Have A British Accent?
Ouch. They are called Lancelot and Arthur, after all. But it's in a good cause.
How Low Can Thiessen Go?
An insight into the partisan fanaticism of this protege of Jesse Helms and Dick Cheney.
Points For Originality
TNR found this fine fellow in front of the White House. But he can't compare to this:
The White House was forced to respond Wednesday to a conspiracy theory too silly for even the birthers: Did Barack Obama appear in the video for Tag Team's 1993 one-hit wonder "Whoomp! (There it is)"?
The Dems And The Gay
Some are as backward as the Republicans. Which is why repeal of DADT has taken so long. Take it away, Rachel:
Paths To Safety
Yglesias buries Caitlin Flanagan's latest article about "hookup culture" in a mountain of data. Douthat moderates:
Eventually, somewhere between the AIDS epidemic and “Sex and the City,” youth culture began to adapt, becoming considerably more coarse and cynical about sex than the characters in “Forever,” but somewhat less naive as well. And this is the crucial thing to understand about contemporary mores: Many of the trends that Flanagan laments, from the rise of oral sex (and other alternatives) to the ubiquity of pornography to the culture of casual hook-ups (which, especially in high school, don’t necessarily involve intercourse), emerged in part as paths to safety — as ways to navigate the post-sexual revolution landscape without experiencing as many dangers, physical and emotional, as the young people of the 1970s faced.
Face Of The Day
A Chelsea Pensioner wipes his eye following the Founder's Day Parade at The Royal Hospital Chelsea on June 10, 2010 in London, England. The celebration is also referred to as is 'Oak Apple Day' as it commemorates the escape of founder King Charles II following the Battle of Worcester when he hid in an oak tree to avoid capture by Parliamentary forces. By Oli Scarff/Getty Images.
Theocon Watch, Ctd
A reader writes:
In today's Theocon Watch post, you missed that Pakaluk stated the following:
"I saw this beginning to happen in my son’s school: not wishing to offend, teacher and parents would refer to the two men as the “parents” of that boy, even though only one was the father."
By this logic, the Church should not be calling any people who adopt children parents.
Another writes:
I just realized that Professor Pakuluk’s article seems to rest on the presumption that his ideas will lose if challenged. Pakuluk’s concern seems to be that if his children or the children of any other catholic parents in a catholic school encounter a homosexual couple, they will decide that the Church is wrong. Pakuluk never even seems to consider that his children might determine that the Church was right, much less that the children of the gay parents or the gay parents themselves could be won over to the Church’s position. Instead, Pakuluk takes it as a given that his children’s acceptance of Church doctrine will crumble when faced with reality.
Great point. The kind of fundamentalism exemplified by the current Pope is indeed based not on confident faith, but on neurotic fear.
Breaking The Type Caste
Nina Shen Rastogi notices a surge of non-stereotypical TV and movie roles played by actors of Indian descent:
Performance historian Brian Herrera theorizes that South Asian actors may have gotten a boost from the flurry of terrorist-type roles that followed in the wake of Sept. 11. A one- or two-episode arc as a featured character on, say, 24 would represent a solid credit line for a young actor, potentially opening the door to more interesting opportunities down the line. It’s a trend Herrera has noted with other minority groups, though in less-accelerated forms. “So many of the elder statesmen of Latino actors got their start doing gang stories in the ’80s,” he notes.
The Dish 