Author: Andrew Sullivan

Ahmadinejad has made an agreement with the leaders of Brazil and Turkey to swap nuclear fuel, similar to the arrangement that fell apart last fall. Laura Rozen reports:

[O]ne Washington Iran expert, noting that this weekend’s diplomatic meetings involved Iran’s Supreme Leader, said this time may be different. That signals that Khamenei "is endorsing the deal," the National Iranian American Council's Trita Parsi said, adding it may reduce the bouts of Iranian domestic political infighting that have plagued earlier rounds of negotiations that failed to hold up. "That means this is no longer Ahmadinejad's nuclear deal, this is Khamenei's nuclear deal."

Scott Lucas is updating with developments. Gregg Carlstrom contends that the new agreement, which still has to get the approval of the US, Russia, France, and the IAEA, "will almost certainly stall the current U.S.-led push for another round of economic sanctions against Iran."

Donna Brazile defends Elena Kagan.

Steve Coll describes a meeting with William Hague, the new British Foreign Secretary:

On foreign policy, it was fascinating to listen to the Foreign Secretary tic through the usual issue sets—Iran, Afghanistan, Europe, global development, humanitarian intervention, etc.—and to discover that there is hardly any distance between his coalition’s views and that of the Labour government it is succeeding. I’ll save Hague’s comments about Afghan policy until next week, after a reported article I’ve been working on for the magazine, in which British policy figures, has appeared. But on the Afghan war and every other subject discussed, except perhaps for the European economic crisis, where Hague emphasizes Britain’s skepticism about the euro monetary project, it was striking how centrist and even center-left orthodoxy has replaced the radicalism of the Thatcher years and the subsequent “wet-dry” debates among British conservatives. I used to hold in my mind the truism that continental European conservative parties roughly equate to our Democratic Party in their foreign policy views, but that British foreign policy conservatism was an exception; no longer, it seems.

And this position, remember, is coming from William Hague, one of the formerly more staunchly Thatcherite of the Tories, and still a critical outreach for Cameron on the Tory right. There was never anything "wet" about William. But he has adjusted to reality, as so many of us have.

(Photo: British foreign secretary William Hague by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty.)

Well, you really have to wait for it on this local news spot on injecting collagen into a woman's G-spot to improve her chances of orgasm. It's at the 3 minute mark.

Lisa Margonelli heralds the end of "magical oil":

Between 1995 and 2004, deepwater production grew by 535 percent — an unimaginably high, Madoff-like rate in a country with tapped oil reserves and a driving habit that gobbles up a quarter of the world's oil production…Deepwater drilling had an improbable, unbelievable, giddy rise from its birth in 1993. Every well was pushing the envelope, either of depth in the water or the depth of the drillbit beneath the crust. "Every well I did was the deepest ever," an oil industry professional told me, yesterday. "I worked on 20 wells that set records. Every guy that did my job had worked on 20 wells that set records. We were sprinting, breaking records right and left. Everything they did had never been done before." For 17 years the deepwater rigs were jamming on the edge of the envelope…

[W]e are not only faced with an extraordinarily large, frightening, and nearly unthinkable oil spill, we are also facing the end of magical oil. Like the financial crisis, there are physical issues to deal with now, but in the future there will be a crisis of confidence in the oil industry and in government's ability to regulate it. And at the same time, all of that new oil will not flow magically toward our shores, lubricating our lifestyle, allowing us to glide on without an explicit energy policy. We shouldn't kid ourselves that this is merely a large oil spill. It is much more.

Steve Benen piles on Palin and the "Drill Baby Drill" fervor.

A great column by David Link:

It’s hard, these days, figuring out what you can and can’t say about homosexuality. This is a problem I never imagined the gay rights movement would lead us to. David Axelrod described the new world order most succinctly on behalf of the White House. Discussion of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s sexual orientation “has no place in this process. It wasn't … an avenue of inquiry on our part and it shouldn't be on anybody else's' part." Printing an old photo of Kagan playing softball goes too far.

If you think I’m overstating the case, even Andrew Sullivan has agreed to shut up about it. This is serious.

Axelrod's problem, of course, is generational – he still doesn't get it and there are no openly gay people near the Oval Office – and political – he's terrified of defending a lesbian Justice. HRC head Joe Solmonese's position is just homophobia-phobic, as is his entire closeted operation (ever wonder why they can't call it the Gay Rights Campaign, instead of the Human Rights Campaign? It was designed so people could get mailings without tipping off their homosexuality).

Here's Solmonese, the lap-dog to the Democratic fundraisers who put him and maintain him in his position, to ensure that nothing real gets done to advance gay rights, but that the money keeps rolling in:

"As a gay American, I want to see a nominee who respects the constitutional authority of Congress to promote equality and civil rights. But her private life is simply not relevant."

So the representative of gay Americans believes the closet is a part of "private life" that is in no way relevant to anyone's position on the court. But for Solmonese, diversity still matters:

We commend President Obama for his commitment to diversity and expanding the number of women on the Court.  Diversity on the Court brings a broader view of the way that the law affects real people, including LGBT people. 

So let's get this straight. It's important that we have "diversity" on the court when it comes to women but not when it comes to lesbians or gay men or bi or trans people, in which case the entire question is irrelevant and should be kept under wraps, and those asking a simple question be tarred as bigots.

Does anyone believe HRC has any real interest in advancing gay rights if it would ever, ever upset their paymasters in the Obama administration? Now you know, in part, why they have achieved nothing of any substance on the federal level for twenty years.

(Cartoon by the Sun-Sentinel's Chan Lowe, whose work you can see and enjoy here.)

Scott Adams ponders brain management:

I wonder if we humans will get to a point where we understand how to manage the different parts of our brains in the best fashion. For example, if you have an important upcoming task that involves manipulating objects in your mind, is it better to practice spatial tasks all morning, or better to rest that capacity of your brain until you need it?

During one period of my life I wrote a number of computer programs that involved intense manipulation of objects in my mind, for hours each day. I discovered that it was difficult to be social at night when my mind had been manipulating object during the day. It felt as if I were deep inside a cave and yelling to the people who stood at the cave opening. It seemed as if the practice of programming interfered with, or exhausted, the part of my brain that handles social skills.

Suzanne Lenzer cultivates eating alone:

It goes without saying that eating is nurturing. Our first food comes straight from our mother’s body and for most of us our formative years of eating are shared experiences with those closest to us. Later we share meals with friends, or partners, but for many if not most of us, eating alone is relegated to home or a quick bite somewhere anonymous, where it’s less about the experience than sustenance. Especially, it seems, for women. Independence and self-sufficiency aside, an anecdotal study of just a handful of my friends reveals that women still don’t eat out alone at restaurants with a sense of security, and it’s a shame. Because learning to enjoy a meal out with only your own company or that of a good book is an empowering experience, one that offers an opportunity to nourish both the body and the mind.

(Image: An Afghan girl. By Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Nick Carr muses:

When it comes to the digital networks that now surround us, the fact is that most us can't just GTFO, even if we wanted to. The sooner we move beyond the addiction metaphor, the sooner we'll be able to see, with some clarity and honesty, the extent and implications of our dependency on our networked computing and media devices. What happens to the human self as it comes to experience more and more of the world, and of life, through the mediation of the screen?