Category: Old Dish

“One’s life is probably in no greater danger in the jungles of deepest Africa than in the jungles of America’s large cities. In my judgment, much of the problem has been brought about by the mollycoddling of criminals by some of the liberal judges who have been placed on the nation’s courts in recent years.” – Senator Robert Byrd, a former racist who now directs his bigotry at gays.

The liberal media sees both through the prism of intellectual snobbery, says David Adesnik.

It doesn’t get more depressing than this.

“Judge Roberts has a first-rate mind and by all accounts he’s a wonderful person. In addition, his opinions to date are excellent and they show a healthy respect for people who disagree with him. It’s far too soon to reach any final conclusions – the process has just started – but Judge Roberts combines quality with a fine character, and that’s certainly something to applaud.” – Cass Sunstein.

“”He’s conservative in manner and conservative in approach. He’s a person who is cautious and careful, that’s true. But he is also someone quite deeply immersed in the law, and he loves it. He believes in it as a discipline and pursues it in principle and not by way of politics.” – Laurence H. Tribe.

It’s so good to see two proud, accomplished American women taking on the genocidal government of Sudan:

When NBC diplomatic reporter Andrea Mitchell tried to ask el-Bashir about his involvement with alleged atrocities, guards grabbed her and muscled her toward the rear of the room. State Department officials shouted at the guards. “Get your hands off her!” Wilkinson demanded. But all the reporters and a camera crew were physically forced out as Rice and el-Bashir watched.

Later, describing Rice’s meeting with el-Bashir, Wilkinson said, “She was very direct about the skepticism of the international community about their ability to improve Darfur.”

Rice put it this way: “I said action, not words.”

Mitchell is a great reporter. She asked the right question. Rice did right. I think we know what that thuggish government is about. If they do this to the entourage of the secretary of state, can you imagine what they do to domestic dissenters?

Yes, Canada now has marriage rights for all its citizens, equally. I don’t know what’s more remarkable: that it happened or that no one really noticed. In a few years, I confidently predict this will be a complete non-issue. What will be dicussed is why so many otherwise reasonable people got so enraged by the prospect of gays being brought fully into the fold of family values and social responsibility. (This piece by Julian Sanchez on gay adoption shows how irrational and hostile to children that opposition in America can now be.)

Anne Applebaum asks some disturbing questions.

There’s some indication that the London attacks may have been perpetrated by more members of the same group that committed 7/7. The difference is that today’s attempts at murder seem amateurish in comparison, which must be good news. Money quote:

Prof Paul Rogers, of Bradford University, agreed that the second wave of attacks was an “ominous” development. He said: “It implies there might be another cell primed and ready to attack. The one ominous thing is that this appears to be a group of a similar nature to the previous July 7 bombers.”

Prof Rogers said, however, that the apparent failure of the devices to detonate on the Underground lines would provide investigating teams with crucial evidence for the earlier attacks.

“The level of forensic evidence will be extremely high, much higher than last time. They will have the devices and much can be done to them in terms of fingerprinting, DNA, the origin of the detonators and where the bags were bought. If this was a series of dummies deliberately timed to cause mass panic then it puts the people responsible at considerable risk of being found.”

A silver lining. Memo to Londoners: don’t let these bastards get away. Ordinary people on the scene can be the best law enforcement we have.

“I was on the tube at Warren Street and I saw a flash in the next carriage and all of a sudden the lights dimmed and the emergency lights came on people were screaming. This cant be happening to us, not again.” – Jason Sunderland from Stratford, London. More first-hand accounts of the London explosions here.

Remember all the stories in the New York Times and the New Yorker claiming a huge new wave of HIV infections among gay men in the last few years? In Michael Specter’s recent New Yorker piece, we were simply told, “What’s new is the rise in [HIV] infections in the gay communities in such cities as San Francisco and New York.” Huh? Last time I checked, New York City had reported declining HIV rates for three years in a row. (To give a simple example, according to the New York City Health Department, 6,478 New Yorkers were diagnosed with HIV in 2001; in 2003, that number was 4,205.) Similarly, Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen, in a February column, wrote of “the apparent upsurge in HIV infections among gay males.” The New York Times reported as fact that “a growing number of gay men [have] become infected despite warnings about unsafe sex.” Now, in another city, we’re seeing a big readjustment in infection figures – downward. Money quote from San Francisco:

Since 2001, the city’s highly regarded epidemiology team has held to an estimate that more than 1,000 city residents are newly infected with the AIDS virus each year. But last month, a federal study of HIV among gay men in five U.S. cities found that new infections in San Francisco were occurring at about half the rate recorded four years ago. “This one (CDC) study has been quite an eye opener for us,” said Dr. Willi McFarland, epidemiologist for the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Office of AIDS … Data from the city’s sexually transmitted disease clinics, where infection rates are expected to be high and were 5.4 percent in 2000, have fallen to 3.2 percent. At a clinic that provides anonymous testing services, rates have fallen from 3.9 percent to 2.8 percent.

Some of us have had our eyes open for a while now. How many stories will the New York Times devote to this news? My prediction: nada. Will the New Yorker, famous for its rigorous fact-checking, account for what appear to be obvious mistakes, which were the basis for the argument of the entire piece? Will Richard Cohen?

ONE MORE DETAIL: How are the AIDS and HIV “experts” explaining the drop? Here’s an interesting angle:

“HIV incidence among men who have sex with men in San Francisco appears to be decreasing,” said city health director Dr. Mitch Katz. The reasons for the apparent decline in new HIV infections may take years to understand, but Katz said the most likely explanation is that effective AIDS drugs have lowered the level of virus in those men who are HIV-positive and still having unprotected sex. Another possibility is that gay men are increasingly reserving the most risky behaviors, such as anal intercourse without a condom, for partners who are of the same sero-status — a practice known as “sero-sorting.” For example, HIV-positive men who sero-sort would have unprotected sex only with HIV positive partners.

This is what has also been called “bare-backing.” As long as it is between men with the same sero-status, and everything is disclosed and negotiated beforehand, it can help restrain the epidemic, rather than perpetuate it. The ironies continue.