Category: The Dish

I linked to Pharyngula’s report on Hitch’s alleged support for killing lots of Muslims. Others strongly disagree. Check out countering views here and here. A newspaper report here quotes him as follows:

Responding to a question from an audience member on what he said was the futility of killing Muslims in Iraq to end extremism, Hitchens parodied:

"’How does killing them lessen their numbers?’ You must have meant something more intelligent… We worry too much in America about our ‘right’ to be in Iraq… Make them worry. Make them run scared… I’m going to fight these people and every other theocrat all the way. All the way. You should be ashamed sneering at the people guarding you as you sleep."

Some video is available here.

Repeat after me: "No more triangulation!"

Yglesias gives it a once-over.

JPod, son of NPod, to edit Commentary. Bill, son of Irving, edits The Weekly Standard. Jonah, son of Lucianne, got to edit NRO. Thank God we left the country-club Republicans behind.

One reason anyway:

A reporter in Iowa asked Obama why he doesn’t wear the pin and Obama explained that, to him, wearing the pin had come to seem like a "substitute for true patriotism." Bravo, Senator. And then, in yet another shining example of why the media is part of the problem, ABC’s Claire Shipman said, "TMI, too much information — all he had to say was, ‘Don’t judge me by what I wear, move on.’ He played into the idea that he’s not ready for prime time."

What, schoolgirl? "Too much information?" What is she, 12? This is typical press hypocrisy — they say they want somebody who doesn’t give pat political answers, but when they get one, they call him a loser. They say they don’t like safe robots like Hillary, but they create conditions where only that species can survive. And they give cover to people like Sean Hannity, who reported on "no pin" gate and then had to call a doctor because his fake outrage hard-on lasted longer than 72 hours.

It’s a growing trend, as Manga meets the Gospels:

Combine the developing popularity of graphic novels with the growing market for Christian literature in general — and throw in the fact that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time — and you have a winning business model.

“If you went to Barnes and Noble, it used to be that there was one bay of graphic novels,” says Avery. “Now it’s huge. That’s what kids are buying, that’s what people are interested in. Zondervan specifically wanted to tap that market.”

It makes sense: Christians don’t want to do away with comics or books or music — they just want to make sure they’re created, and consumed, their way. (There are some real crazies who disagree with the concept of Christian rock entirely because pop music is evil, but they’re in the minority.)

These publishing houses are simply doing what megachurches, musicians, and Christian role models have done before: recreating popular culture in piety’s image. Rather than waste their time criticizing Harry Potter or railing against rock music, many believers are immersing themselves, and their children, in Christian alternatives.

A blog-post that manages to incorporate the Armenian genocide and transgendered rights:

Gitlin is right; a banner of righteousness wrapped tightly around the head is a moral blindfold, and Ralph Nader and people who voted for him are not on any high ground for having given the world President W as the price of their purity. Barney Frank is right about protecting the gay rights barge from foundering on its first trip across the river under a cargo of every good cause.

A reader writes one of the best rationales for Clinton’s candidacy I’ve yet read:

If worst comes to worst, we might get a president like Hillary, who is that girl nobody really likes but everyone wants in their project group anyways because they know she is smart and will do all the work.

Well, someone’s got to:

I’ve never seen Beck on TV, and I know one is not supposed to write “Glenn Beck’s show” without interposing the word “shitty” in the penultimate position, but I get the sense that if I had to watch one of these right wing bloviators, Beck might be the one that made it fitfully interesting.