Category: The Dish

Here’s an interesting critique of "Misquoting Jesus."

How to keep the tax cuts and reduce government to match ’em. Well, it’s much more specific than my wish list.

They’re on the march. In Georgia, there’s a bid to ban the sale of anything that even tastes like marijuana. I’m not talking about candy that actually gets you high. I’m talking about candy that has no THC but merely tastes like pot:

"This dope candy, I believe, is a gateway product to other drugs," said Fort, who has spearheaded the effort to have it outlawed in Georgia. If Fort’s bill were to become law, selling the marijuana-flavored candy would be a misdemeanor on the first offense. A second offense would be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison – which is comparable to the punishment for selling real marijuana.

These puritans are out of their tiny minds. But you knew that already, didn’t you?
(Hat tip: Demmons.)

Kevin Drum has challenged me to detail how I’d balance budgets while keeping Bush’s tax cuts. (A small clarification: I’d keep the estate tax as it once was; and I’d add a buck to the gas tax pronto.) I’d prefer experts like Brian Riedl or Veronique de Rugy to propose detailed cuts. But my back-of-the-envelope wish-list is that I’d repeal the Medicare drug entitlement, abolish ear-marks, institute a line-item veto, pass a balanced budget amendment, means-test social security benefits, index them to prices rather than wages, extend the retirement age to 72 (and have it regularly extended as life-spans lengthen), abolish agricultural subsidies, end corporate welfare, legalize marijuana and tax it, and eliminate all tax loopholes and deductions, including the mortgage deduction, (I’d keep the charitable deduction). For good measure, I’d get rid of the NEA and the Education Department. I’m not an economist, so I do not know whether this would do the trick entirely, and I’m open to debate on any of the particulars. But you get my drift. Maybe someone out there could do the math. I’m also fascinated by Charles Murray’s new proposal to abolish the entire welfare state and replace it with with cash grants to individuals. I look forward to conservatives continuing to insist I’m a lefty. I also look forward to ferocious opposition from the left. But the bottom line is that the middle class and the prosperous elderly are far too pampered by government in this country. They need to get rid of their debilitating and unaffordable dependency.

An update on a fascinating and revealing moment in Noam Chomsky’s deplorable career.

This is a wonderful quote from an Afghan judge about a man who faces the death penalty because of his conversion to Christianity:

"We will invite him again because the religion of Islam is one of tolerance. We will ask him if he has changed his mind. If so we will forgive him."

There are many Muslims in the West and elsewhere who do not support or tolerate this kind of medieval oppression. I look forward to hearing their protests. Please let me know of any I might have missed.

He’s a fascinating character, and this blog discussed him here and here. He’s the former fundamentalist who became an agnostic after studying the various textual sources for the Bible. Here’s a 40 minute interview with him on NPR’s usually great "Fresh Air".

A reader writes:

"Your blood-and-thunder, hateful tirades against our commander-in-chief in time of war and at a vulnerable point IN that war has at last marked a watershed in your ‘evolution’ from long-ago conservative to current leftist-in-just-about-everything-name [sic].
Your language, your attitude and your position have finally placed you pretty firmly in the camp of Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin and the Hollyweird left in general.
It confirms my ‘bigotry’ from the get-go: Gays cannot sacrifice enough of their sexual self-interest to adhere to an ideology as austere as conservatism. The pull to the left is too strong for homosexuals to resist for very long. So formalize and render legit your new political ‘awakening’: declare conservatism behind you.
There is a long, proud history of betrayal in the homosexual community, whose most celebrated example – the locus classicus, if you prefer – is Philby and his crew.
Congratulations on joining that fine tradition!"

So let’s recap: I’m in favor of Bush’s tax cuts, but want spending cuts to match them; I favor balanced budgets; I favored and favor the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns, but want to execute them competently, with enough troops, and in adherence to America’s long tradition of humane warfare; I oppose affirmative action and hate crime laws; I favor privatizing social security; I opposed the Medicare prescription drug entitlement; I want more money for defense, specifically more troops; I favor states’ rights; I’m a First Amendment nut; I have few problems with gun rights; I would criminalize third trimester abortions; I support marriage rights for everyone, because marriage is a critical institution fostering self-reliance and responsibility. And all of this now makes me part of the "left," equatable with individuals who betrayed their own country for Stalin’s Russia. I notice that my correspondent describes conservatism as an "ideology." I think that speaks volumes about what has happened to what was once regarded as the antidote to ideology.

The Republicans have just raised the debt limit to $9 trillion. The president’s incompetence has led us into a very difficult time in Iraq. They have few substantive proposals to offer the public. So what are they going to do to stop a Democratic landslide this November? Yes, you guessed it: another bout of hysteria around the terribly dangerous prospect of gay couples settling down and committing to each other. Fred Barnes lets us know what’s coming down the pike. No worries, Fred. We know by now what we’re going to be dealing with. It happens like clockwork every summer before an election year. I remember the first time, back in 1996. But each time, it gets a little staler, doesn’t it? The bigotry gets a little more obvious – and the threadbare nature of what’s left of the conservative movement a little bit starker.  But hang in there. You can maybe squeeze a few more votes out of it. And, by this time, you certainly know how. Joe Gandelman rounds up bloggy reax here.

The great conundrum of the stoner is the inevitable existential tension between the marijuana and the munchies. But in this almost-free country of ours, someone found a way to combine the two: cannabis candy. Yes, according to the Smoking Gun, an enterprising crew created marijuana-based candy bars: the products "carried labels such as Toka-Cola, Pot Tarts, Puff-A-Mint Pattie, Stoney Ranchers, Munchy Way, and Buddahfinger." Here’s a visual sample from TSG: