Category: The Dish

Johann Hari asks:

Why are we glossing over it?

The Telegraph obit is here. As always with obits, the Brits do it better.

The one feeds the other. Do you have any good friends you disagree with politically? Money quote:

Real political debate is mostly done by poor uneducated moderate non-voters with little political knowledge and few social contacts, talking with people they hardly know and rarely talk to.  I suspect causation goes both ways here – not only are rich, educated, social, political folks more likely adopt the political opinions of their close associates (over distant others), but such folks also tend to avoid close association with those who disagree politically. 

Some potentially controversial news about a scene cut from Monty Python’ "Life Of Brian":

A new DVD edition of the film includes the deleted "Otto" scene, which features a radical, first-century Jewish revolutionary who has the same dreams as the young Adolf Hitler. Otto sports a toothbrush moustache, and, in case we still haven’t got the message, his disciples all wear a symbol that combines the Star of David with a swastika. These are "Nazi Jews"…

"I think what it addressed is extremely relevant today," [Terry Jones] says, "with what’s going on in Israel. Eric [Idle, who wrote the scene] put his finger on something; it was quite prophetic."

The data are clear: the richer you are in the Arab-Muslim world, the more likely you are to support terror. It’s the religious ideology, stupid.

As always, couched with others, but since I’ve razzed her for the usual cowardice on the subject (and expect nothing from her on gay rights if elected president), I should note it. But there is no comparison with Obama. Check out his candid response to Russert yesterday:

I’ve talked to African-American ministers. There’s a problem of homophobia in the African-American community. I will go into churches, I will go into meetings with ministers and say, "I disagree with you on these issues. This is not how I interpret my faith." But the fact that we’re having a conversation, I think, allows the possibly that I will change their minds, make them more tolerant of these issues.  They may not agree with me on this, but ultimately, it allows me to bridge some of the cultural divisions that have, I think, prevented us from making progress in this country for so long.

My italics. Clinton would never, ever say such a thing. Then this from Obama:

I would, as president, make absolutely certain that all federal laws pertaining to married couples [pertain to] same-sex couples who have civil unions as well.

A new poll finds that 48 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans still "have no idea" who they’re going to vote for. Another poll shows the race tightening between Clinton and Obama – with Edwards not fading.

That was Norman Mailer’s self-description. Hitch pens a lovely tribute. I have no strong feelings either way and have barely read anything Mailer wrote, so it behooves me to say very little. But it says something about a man so obsessed by faggotry and sodomy that he chose to live much of the time in Provincetown, Massachusetts. As well as all the usual tedious, bossy lefties in that little town, there are still a few free spirits, and Mailer was one of them:

Probably more than anything, Mailer was a libertarian and a foe of any system or mindset that involved the censorious (feminism) or the overweening and the grandiose (imperialism/communism).

Amen to all of the above. And on those few occasions we met – we once had a long, animated discussion about the joys and pains of sex with condoms – he was never boring.

A natural born blogger:

After my son’s football game yesterday I was sitting round with a bunch of Dads. This was at one of their houses, outside on the deck, which he has fitted up very nicely, with a TV and all. It was cold, so we got a log fire going in the firepit and sat around the fire drinking, watching the football game on TV, and b-s-ing. The wives were inside doing whatever wives do when away from their men—exchanging recipes, who knows?

This one is a classic:

"Ron Paul will take money from Nazis. But he won’t take telephone calls from Jews."

No, I’m not making this up. The title of the post is "Ron Paul’s Nazi Supporters."

Oh, please. Get a grip.