Category: The Dish

Yes, you read that right. The Church-State divide is apparently a myth, and will be exposed as such on an upcoming religious-right-inspired, PBS-distributed documentary.

"[E]very morning I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere, is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds. [W]e have shaken the belief that the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open …  We don’t need it, and it’s causing us far more damage than any good we get for it," – Colin Powell, standing up for America against this president.

A reader writes:

I just watched This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. Stephanopoulos asked the roundtable whether the next Democratic president should try to abolish DADT right away and risk the same backlash that Bill Clinton experienced in the opening days of his presidency.

Stephanopoulos was a leading advisor to Bill Clinton when a wave of homophobia swept the nation on the issue of gays in the military. Stephanopoulos was clearly reliving that nightmare in his mind in asking this particular question. To my disappointment, almost every member of the roundtable immediately agreed that a Democratic president should wait before tampering with DADT. Most of these journalists were young and should know better that a sea change in attitudes toward gay people has taken place since the early ’90s.

The only person who was aware of this major transformation was George Will, the oldest one sitting at the table. He explained how his 26 year old daughter and all her friends view being gay as no different than being left handed. This accepting attitude is shared by a majority of Americans under 30, the age group that fills the ranks of the military. As he often does on the This Week roundtable, George Will put the other  journalists in their place, this time in support of an immediate lifting of the noxious Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, a policy that actually puts our nation’s security at risk, contrary to what its supporters claim.

Stephanopoulos represents a certain class of Clintonite Democrat: still so spooked by the 1990s that they cannot move forward. He also promoted Clinton’s anti-gay policy initiatives as a wedge against the Republicans. Alas, many tired Democratic pros are encouraged in their cravenness by the conviction-free HRC and big gay donors, many of whom are also old, and have come to believe their own permament defensive crouch is political realism. George Will remains the class of the conservative punditocracy. Over the last few years, he has put the rest of us to shame.

The truth is: anyone who is serious about winning this war will not be throwing good soldiers on the scrap-heap to cater to fear. It seems to me we should cede anti-gay bigotry to our Islamist enemies. We’re better than them. Or aren’t we?

A policeman is seen through a flag during a demonstration against US President George W. Bush planned by pacifist movements, anti-globalisation and far-left parties in Rome, 09 June 2007. By Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images.

Researcher have found yet another use for the wonder-drug, aka marijuana:

In a study published in the current issue of the journal Science, researchers show exactly how … the body’s own cannabinoids, compounds that are similar to the ones found in marijuana, reduce inflammation.

Mice had a harder time healing from wounds caused by ear tags used to identify them when researchers blocked their internal cannabinoids, said Dr. Meliha Karsak, lead author and scientist in molecular neurobiology at the University of Bonn in Germany. Cannabinoids are involved in many of the body’s daily functions, scientists believe, but they’re still trying to figure out how.

Any treatment would be in the form of a topical ointment. I guess the feds will wait and see if anyone might get some pleasure from such a treatment before deciding whether to ban it or not.

Pretty hilarious snark about Scooter Libby’s elite phalanx of supporters by the Bush-appointed judge.

A reader writes:

It appears pandering to the far right is hereditary. Tagg’s brother Matt’s MySpace page lists something called "The O’Reilly Report" as one of his favorite shows. You’d think they would want to at least get the name right when trying desperately to convince the boorish Fox News crowd that they’re with them.

They aim to please.

On abortion, Fred Thompson unplugged:

That’s the phonetic version of the Japanese for "computer." It’s not so easy in China, as Jim Fallows explains.

The man who designed our window views page, my Atlantic colleague, Shaun Raviv, produces another site and another project, dedicated to finding, scanning and recording book inscriptions. They’re not from or to famous people; they’re just glimpses of one person’s relationship to another, as filtered through the gift of a book, across the centuries and the world. I got lost perusing the other day. The one above reads:

"dear Tim—
This glorious book has very
many weird stories in it.
It is also a Playboy book-
so when you read this book
think of the weirdest,
sexiest girl, you will think of me
Love, Gayl"

Check it out here. And send in your own discoveries.