The Dish

The new meme from the right: the American people – not president Bush – lost the war in Iraq. Mort Kondracke peddles the line, and I have to agree with Josh Marshall that it is a sickening piece of denialist drivel. As Josh puts it:

It really does seem as though the cardinals of DC punditry are constitutionally incapable of believing that George W. Bush has ever – in the real sense – gotten anything wrong or that they, the Washington establishment, has gotten anything wrong over the last six years.

Remember: on Fox News, Mort is the liberal.

Congressman Frank gives Mr O’Reilly a taste of his own medicine. And Fox News Channel, for good measure. Yay! I should say, however, I agree with O’Reilly on this, and disagree with my friend, Barney.

I’m against progressive taxation and in favor of a flat tax, an end to all tax shelters (except charity), abolition of corporate welfare, and an end to agricultural subsidies. Just to scramble things up, I also favor a raise in the minimum wage. I didn’t used to. But I’ve been persuaded by the evidence that the benefits outweigh the costs, and that its worth has been deeply eroded in the recent past. The plight of the working poor in a globalized economy deserves addressing. I’m not sure whether this policy blend means I’m a liberal or a conservative on tax issues (although it will tick off some libertarians). At this point, I dont really care about the label. I do think we should talk about fundamental reform of an inefficient, overly-complex and unfair tax system. A shelter-free flat tax might actually succeed in increasing economic efficiency and the amount of tax the very rich actually pay. Why not put it on the table?

A reader adds to our discussion of religious underwear:

Just wanted to drop our two cents or Rupees as you like.

This Hindu reader of your blog felt great empathy for the other faiths who revealed their choice of religious underthings. Many Hindus also have a religiously mandated undergarment called a Kaupin or Kaupina.

It often is just a belt made of cloth with a double strip of the same fabric pulled through the legs and folded/wrapped around the back part of said belt. More common for the priestly profession (I wore it for years), it is said to be helpful in maintaining sexual chastity and is mandatory for all monastics.

Above is a 19th Century depiction of Lord Shiva in a Kaupina. More details here.

A reader hits the nail on the head:

The difficulty with marijuana is that it produces a side effect that our government cannot tolerate. This side effect is so severe that any drug that produces it must be severely restricted or banned outright. And it is an insidious side effect. It is so insidious that it is nearly impossible to detect through measurments of body chemistry, metabolic function, critical organ functions, or tissue damage. You simply cannot find any harm caused by this side effect, but it’s there.

The side effect, of course, is pleasure. Our government will never allow it.

This is the nub of the issue, I think. Sometimes, you hear attempts at justifying the ban on pot that point to marinol, a THC-based drug that allegedly helps nausea. They’re for that, if necessary. And they much prefer it to marijuana, even though smoked or vaporized THC is much more effective. Why? Because marinol doesn’t provide pleasure. And pleasure, even harmless pleasure, is evil and must be prevented. Once you allow people to enjoy life, there’s no end to the dangers. Unless, of course, pleasure is backed up by vast industries rendering hefty taxes, like tobacco and alcohol. Then it’s fine.

For my part, I find the attempt to ban any naturally growing plant to be an attack on reality, and a denial of some of the most basic freedoms. I guess that’s why today’s GOP is so in favor of it.

"I don’t think any sitting president of the United States is a lame duck when it comes to foreign policy. There’s too much power in the presidency, and the interests of our country are too great. If the president reaches out to us in the Democratic Party and really tries to work together, he has a chance to have a legacy here that could be important for our nation and, obviously, for him personally. I’ve offered to be helpful to Condoleezza Rice. I’ve called her. I hope we can all work together, but we’ve got to be tougher in our approach. I believe personally — and I’ve said this publicly — that you have to set a date for the expectation of when the Iraqis will take over their responsibility. And if you don’t get tough and have those kinds of benchmarks, then they have an excuse to avoid it altogether," – Senator John Kerry on CNN.

That’s Maliki’s timetable for taking over security from the U.S. Whatever president Bush says or does, whatever James Baker says or does, that seems to me the actual timetable. If Maliki tells the U.S. to leave in June 2007, what will Bush do? He said today:

"We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done so long as the government wants us there."

So he’s got six months. Not even ten.

(Photo of Western Baghdad yesterday by Mohammed Ameen/Reuters.)

A reader makes some good points:

There may well be good evidence that serosorting is one of the factors keeping the rate of new HIV infections down, but the comparison with the syphilis rate isn’t one of them – for two reasons.

Petrelis notes one of them in the blog entry you cite:

"What’s not footnoted by DPH is the fact that in 1999 the CDC launched a national syphilis elimination effort, one that significantly drove up the number of syphilis tests performed and also enhanced surveillance."

If you look for syphilis and test for it more often and increase surveillance and contact tracing, then you’re going to find more of it, regardless of what’s happening with other STDs

The other was reported widely a year ago:

"A recent rise in syphilis rates in the United States is probably due to natural cycles rather than an increase in unsafe sex or other behaviors…. [Nicholas C.] Grassly and his colleagues argue in this week’s issue of the journal Nature that syphilis infection follows a natural cycle that peaks at eight- to 11-year intervals. Though sexual behavior certainly influences the overall number of people infected, the researchers concluded, those regular ups and downs are an intrinsic property of the disease itself."

The article above goes on to note:

"Because [syphilis and gonorrhea] spread the same way, if changes in sexual behavior had caused the oscillating pattern in syphilis they should have created a similar pattern in gonorrhea. Yet gonorrhea rates show a steady rise from the 1950s through the 1970s, followed by a steady fall."

Because of the above, I’d be a lot more impressed by the slide both you and Petrelis highlight if it compared HIV infection rates with gonorrhea rates.

From the NYT:

"When Mr. Bush, at one point, asked prime minister [Maliki] if he wanted to continue taking questions from reporters, the prime minister swiveled his head toward the president and shot Mr. Bush an incredulous look."

At least one of them is sane.

If you were gay and young in the 1980s, the pop music was a form of emancipation and revelation. Early PSBs, Erasure and Bronski Beat captured the breakthrough. Many of us as teens lived in small towns and yearned for the big city. And no music video spoke to our lives as powerfully as "Smalltown Boy." Even now, it chokes me up. The video is a record of the beginnings of a revolution. You can feel it coming.

Click here to see the other entries…

Why has San Francisco been so successful in bringing down HIV transmission rates? That’s a good question for public health officials. Many now believe it is because of "sero-sorting." This is a technical term for sex between people of the same sero-status. So HIV-positive men stick to their own and vice-versa. In those contexts, using condoms is not as essential to curbing the epidemic. So check out this blog-post from Michael Petrelis, and one of the slides from a recent San Francisco Department of Public Health study:

You’ll notice an alarming increase in syphilis, but relatively stable rates of HIV transmission. The syphilis is not good news, obviously. But it suggests a silver lining: a lot of sex going on without condoms, yet without any spike in HIV rates. That’s almost certainly because most of the people who get syphilis already have HIV. This isn’t good for people with HIV (but syphilis can be treated effectively if detected). But the pattern does seem to be keeping HIV within the boundaries of the existing HIV-positive population. And that’s good news for the uninfected.