Category: The Dish

He talks with Marty:

Last on our agenda–but longest–was Israel. [Obama] knew my historic concerns. I said that I was pessimistic about the possibilities of peace. He said he was "skeptical." That is exactly the right frame of mind for a president to bring to the 100-year dispute that has eluded the most ingenuous formulas for resolution. It is certainly better than being too optimistic. That was the trap into which Bill Clinton fell. (This was not Obama’s observation but mine.) You hit a snag. You put pressure on the party over which you have the most leverage–Israel, in this case–and yet the Palestinians remain recalcitrant, feeling that their real concession was to sit down at a conference table in the first place. Nothing happens. You squeeze a little more out of the Israelis, only to encourage the Arabs to demand more, which they do.

Reihan is right that recent events put the Iraqi prime minister in a much better light:

Though these gains may be temporary, there has also been a more lasting change: The Sadrists have been marginalized. Even the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has been reluctant to make political interventions in recent years, pointedly condemned Sadr for refusing to disarm. Leading Sunni faction have also returned to the fold. The Kurds, who have their own problems with Sadr, are also on board. Maliki, suprisingly enough, increasingly looks like the leader of all Iraqis.

Not just for beagles any more:

At Ridley’s Fish and Game shop in Corbridge, Northumberland, the owner David Ridley says he has sold 1,000 – at £3.50 a squirrel – since he tested the market at the beginning of the year. ‘I wasn’t sure at first, and wondered would people really eat it. Now I take every squirrel I can get my hands on. I’ve had days when I have managed to get 60 and they’ve all sold straight away.’

Simpson likens the taste to wild boar. Ridley thinks it is more a cross between duck and lamb. ‘It’s moist and sweet because, basically, its diet has been berries and nuts,’ he said.

(Photo: by Gabriel Bouys/Gett.)

This post contained a dead link. Here’s the live one.

Ambinder covers the fight for Mississippi’s first congressional district.

I’m all for a revived liberalism but this is a sign that it comes with costs:

…the news, like other things in life, should not be seen as a straight commodity. It is not there to turn a profit. It is there to keep our democracy healthy and our public informed. If that means it can’t be appropriately subsidized through advertising, and needs public subsidies in a blind trust, or some sort of philanthropic revenue scheme, then so be it. Other countries do this, and do it well. But either the way, the bottom line should be that if it turns out that responsible news reporting isn’t profitable, then we should sacrifice the profitability, not the responsible news reporting.

We?

You can see them here. There are now some questions about their authenticity. Le Monde has a story. From the website:

Mr. Capp was assigned to the occupation forces outside Hiroshima after World War II. According to to Mr. Capp’s oral history (available along with the photographs in the Robert L. Capp collection), he found these photos among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside of Hiroshima. Since making these photographs publicly available, I have received reliable proof that at least two of these photos are actually of the 1923 Kanto earthquake. While I cannot speak for the entire collection, this evidence raises doubts about all of the photos and raises the strong possibility that the identification provided by the Hoover Archives is incorrect. I take full responsibility for my own failure to take additional steps to verify that the original archival designation was correct. I have removed the photographs until and unless their source can be verified by further research.

A reader writes:

My ten year old son has shown clear and undeniable signs of transgenderism since before he was four. His favorite musicians are all girls (Hannah Montana, Hillary Duff, etc.), all his friends are girls, he enjoys dressing in girls’ clothing–often sneaking into his mother’s closet, and he is presently obsessed with the "fairy" kid-lit of Daisy Meadows. I cannot tell you how much conflict lies within me as to how to "deal" with my son. At church and in society, we get the very clear message that anything akin to transgenderism or homosexuality is a moral choice and is deeply wrong.

And yet, I bristle against this.

I view any attempts to "reprogram" my son as only begetting future years of repression, sorrow, therapy, and in-the-closet-angst.  And yet, I cannot also allow my son to go to school dressed as a girl (which would truly thrill him, I’m sure).  I worry that he would be subject to ridicule and physical violence from his peers.  I worry that his teachers might treat him unfairly.  I worry about the shower of hell that would rain down upon us from my mostly-conservative family.  I worry about things that I cannot even imagine right now.

So for now, we just "let it be."  We don’t try to force him to play with certain "boy" toys.  We don’t try to censor his music choices, nor control his friendships.  We let him be.

And for now, he seems healthy, happy, and thriving.  I believe, as he gets older, he will have the maturity to become whomever he wishes.  For now, our job must be to guide him in truly moral matters (like stealing, lying, cheating, doing the right thing, etc.), and shower him with love, acceptance and affection.

And I pray that we’re doing the right thing.

A life-long procrastinator passes his knowledge on to the next generation of slackers.

Falls Church, Virginia, 5.45 pm.