Category: The Dish

That helps you avoid being killed.

A vent against half-assed beards on middle-aged guys.

Tell it to Mickey:

It is a very interesting question because I think homophobia is a fear of people loving, more than it is of the sexual act. There seems to be an innate distaste for the love involved, which I find absolutely extraordinary. There were people who thought, well why haven’t we seen Dumbledore’s angst about being gay? Where was that going to come in? And then the other thing was — and I had letters saying this — that, as a gay man, he would never be safe to teach in a school…He’s a very old single man. You have to ask: why is it so interesting? People have to examine their own attitudes. It’s a shade of character. Is it the most important thing about him? No, it’s Dumbledore for God’s sake. There are 20 things that are relevant to the story before his sexuality.

A reader writes:

I don’t want to be harsh, but the writer who suggested methanol doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Yes, methanol is a simpler molecule. Just one methyl group (CH3) makes it the simplest alcohol. Ethanol is next in the series, with an ethyl group (CH3CH2).

You can get methanol from many "feedstocks" for sure, but the process leaves you with a very crude product which must be extensively processed to extract a clean fuel. Generally, breaking down organic refuse to methanol requires heating the material to a high temperature in an inert atmosphere so that instead of catching fire, the cellulose is destructively broken down into a variety of smaller compounds such as Methanol. Even it’s it pure state, Methanol is corrosive to metals common to your average engine and can break down into formaldehyde and formic acid if there are contaminant oxidizers present.

The beauty of Ethanol is that you let nature make it. Cellulose is a polymer (a long chain) of glucose, as is starch. Glucose is yeast food, and Ethanol is the waste product. While an efficient means of breaking down cellulose into its sugar components hasn’t been perfected, once you have starch and sugars, the yeasts cleanly and completely do all the work in converting the feedstocks into a brew that can be distilled to extract 95% pure Ethanol.

One more thing: Methanol is highly toxic, an ounce or so, if not fatal, will destroy your optic nerves forever. Breathing the vapors is hazardous. Even skin contact must be avoided because Methanol is readily absorbed.

Methanol is no more a solution than Ethanol is – which it isn’t. Ethanol is welfare for ADM.

Virginia Postrel on McCain:

McCain is an instinctive regulator who considers business a base pursuit. It doesn’t help that the senator’s personal connections with commerce are largely limited to a highly protected local industry (distributing beer) and outright corruption (the Charles Keating scandal). And he’s every bit as moralistic as Hillary Clinton, our would-be national nanny. His first response to something he doesn’t like–particularly something commercial he doesn’t like–is to ban it. The most extreme, and effective, case of this instinct was his holy war against ultimate fighting, a peculiar cause for a boxing fan and one McCain took up when he was still in his "conservative" stage.

There is no candidate still in the race who actually believes the private sector is as noble and as important an arena as government or politics.

It’s increasingly clear that this is now the Clintons’ strategy. Chait:

[Clinton] needs to convince the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to split for her by about a 2-to-1 margin. The only way she can get a split like that is if she can persuasively argue that Obama is unelectable. And the only way she can do that is to make him unelectable. Some people have treated this as an unfortunate byproduct of Clinton’s decision to continue her campaign. It’s actually a central element of the strategy. Penn is already saying he’s unelectable. It’s not true, but by the time the convention rolls around, it may well be.

Yes, they’re despicable.

It looks like the Jesse Helms ban on all HIV-positive non-Americans may now be over-turned by the Senate. Great news. More details here. It’s a bipartisan move, as it should be:

The Bush administration does not oppose repeal of the travel ban. Last month the State Department lifted its blanket restrictions on hiring people who are HIV-positive to be diplomats. It will now consider HIV the same as other medical conditions, and evaluate candidates on their overall health and availability to serve worldwide.

It’s pretty staggering to read the Corner today and find the following admissions:

I don’t see any problem with Barack Obama admitting that part of his appeal is the hope that he might help mend the racial divide and turn a new page. But he could also say that he’s not running for the President of Black America but of all America and that his qualifications involve more than his skin color. He’s more than eloquent enough to make that case.

Hello? Anyone home? Has Jonah read Obama’s books? Or even a basic profile of the guy? He tries to rescue himself (and fails) in a p.s.:

The point I was getting at is that it would be fine to make that point while also making the point that having a black president would amount to progress for America. It doesn’t need to be either or.

But this is exactly what Obama has been saying in public and out loud for months and months and months.  It must be nice knowing what side you’re on without ever even bothering to find out the most basic facts about your opponent’s message. Then here’s torture maven Andy McCarthy:

Did you know, for example, that the Reverand [sic] is the inspiration for Obama’s memoir The Audacity of Hope — the title is evidently taken from a Wright sermon called "Audacity to Hope." (I didn’t until I heard Rush mention it a few minutes ago.)

Again: where has he been for the past year? And "under a rock" is too easy an answer.

The Clintons sink even lower. And it is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy. In their dreams. Increasingly, the only rationale I can think of for the way the Clintons are now campaigning is that they are running for 2012. They want McCain to win, if they can’t. Why else be this self-destructive?

The in-tray is full of readers who just can’t believe it:

I just listened to that NPR interview you linked earlier. Holy shit was it infuriating.

I think the thing I hate the most about Clinton/Bush style politics is that it completely disables the press. It was obvious that Inskeep thought she was full of shit, but what can he do? Her answers were divorced from reality, but in a way that makes them sound reasonable. The only word that comes to mind is "double-speak." Either Inskeep can accept the rhetorical landscape that she presents, or he can call her a liar. Either way he’s screwed. If he plays by her terms, she wins. If he calls her a liar, she plays the victim card, rails about the biased media, and wins. Trying to merely challenge her assertions in an intellectual way is bound to fail as well, because she’ll just spit out more double-speak, putting the interviewer back at square one.

If all Obama accomplishes as President is to cripple this kind of politics, I will consider him a resounding success. Oh, and congratulations, Senator Clinton. You and your husband now share mental space in my head with George W. Bush. Yes you can destroy my good will for you and your husband. And I’m sure you are ready on day one to make me want to tear my fucking hair out.

I wonder if the Clintons understand what they are doing to people – people who weren’t Clinton-haters in the first place, people whose votes they need.