The Dish

Few of us remember the Assassins when we try to understand al Qaeda or Hamas. But asymmetric warfare through terror by a handful of fanatics is not new in the world history; and certainly not new in Islam:

Even the most powerful and carefully guarded rulers of the age—the Abbasid and Fatimid caliphs, the sultans and viziers of the Great Seljuk and Ayyubid empires, the princes of the Crusader states, and emirs who ruled important cities like Damascus, Homs, and Mosul—lived in dread of the chameleonlike Assassin agents. Known as a fida'i (one who risks his life voluntarily, from the Arabic word for "sacrifice"; the plural in Arabic is fidaiyn, or the present-day fedayeen), such an agent might spend months or even years stalking and infiltrating an enemy of his faith before plunging a dagger into the victim's chest, often in a very public place.

Perhaps most terrifying, the Assassins chose not only a close and personal manner of killing but performed it implacably, refusing to flee afterward and appearing to welcome their own swift death. Fanatical and disciplined, Hasan-i Sabbah and his successors were brilliant practitioners of asymmetric warfare. They developed a means of attack that negated most of their enemies' advantages while requiring the Assassins to hazard only a small number of their own fighters. As with any effective form of deterrence, the Assassins' targeted killings of hostile political, military, and religious leaders eventually produced a stable and lasting balance of power between them and their enemies, reducing the level of conflict and loss of life on both sides.

(Painting: An agent of the Order of Assassins – left, in white turban – fatally stabs Nizam al-Mulk, a Seljuk vizier, in 1092, the first of many political murders by the sect. The faces in this depiction, which was contained in an illustrated 14th-century manuscript, were later scratched out. From Topkapi Palace Museum, Cami Al Tebari TSMK, Inv. No. H. 1653, folio 360b)

Tom Philpott rails against government regulators over BP's wanton use of chemical dispersants:

As I reported in early May, the dispersant products, branded Corexit 9527A and Corexit 9500A, were made exclusively by a former Exxon subsidiary now owned by a company called Nalco. Exxon researchers had already acknowledged that they were significantly toxic for aquatic life. But just how toxic was mysterious—particularly for humans. The publicly available data sheets for both products revealed that they have the “potential to bioconcentrate,” but added this stunner: “No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product.”

Information about their precise composition was also vague, clouded by a veil of secrecy based on “proprietary” concerns. I found the information scarcity outrageous. A private company fouls a vast public resource and then dumps hundreds of thousands of gallons of a toxic chemical potion into it. Doesn’t the public have the right to know precisely what’s in that potion?

(Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

They just get it:

When I set out to find more LGBT titles, I turned to my school’s library. Honestly? It was pathetic. There was not one single LGBT novel. But oh, of course the librarian went out of her way to buy books about gangs, drugs, and teen pregnancy. Like, for real, the people who actually do care about gangs, drugs, and teen sex sure as hell don’t read–they’re too busy (note: gangs, drugs, and teen sex. Yeah, they’re going to interrupt all that fabulous action to sit and read a good novel!). When I asked her about it, she replied, “This is a school library. If you are looking to read inappropriate titles, go to a book store.” Uhm, how in the hell is LGBT YA lit “inappropriate”?

Read the whole thing. And check out Brent's blog, co-authored with his BFF Emily. Two teenagers writing about writing.

A reader writes:

See, this is why I don't care what you or anyone outside New York City says about the snobbishness of my hometown: it's just the greatest mix of people from everywhere on Earth, with all kinds of music, language, food, colors, faces – God, I love it.

This is why misfits move there from all over – especially from "Middle America." This is why almost a century ago gays started fleeing Oshkosh and Houston for NYC:  bring your song with you and no matter if it's a weird song you can sing it. Whatever makes you "different" elsewhere is what makes you welcome in New York.

I haven't lived there in 10 years. But this made me miss my home.

The St Petersburg Times has a searing expose of how the Super Adventure Club has allegedly forced dozens of members of the elite Scientology group, Sea Org, to have abortions against their will:

According to those speaking out, women who didn't schedule abortions were shunned by fellow Sea Org members, called "degraded beings'' and taunted for being "out ethics,'' straying from the order's ethical code.

Some were isolated, assigned manual labor and interrogated until they agreed to abortions, said church defectors, including men whose wives got abortions.

Scientology leaders have denied the accusations – made by several women under oath.

I wonder why the Christianists have not protested this policy of religiously-pressured abortion. Maybe Sarah Palin could have a word with her publicist, Greta van Susteren, about the policy.

GQ has a terrific, eye-opening account of the men who worked on the Deepwater Horizon rig before the disaster struck. The whole piece has a tragic irony to it. You can see what's coming, even if they can't. Money quote:

The problems with Macondo started on his last hitch, about two weeks into the job. Twice drilling had to stop—oilmen call it getting stuck—once to patch a crack in the bore hole, then again to drop a cement plug into a tender spot in the subsurface that collapsed around the drill string, the miles of pipe attached to the drill bit. All told, the Horizon lost at least ten expensive days. And no one gets a completion bonus when a well comes in late.

Mike senses the crew is frustrated but still determined, muscling through the final days of a job gone wrong. The well's been drilled almost to depth, 18,000 feet, and then all that will be left is sealing it off until a production rig starts pumping out the oil and gas. Another ten days and the Horizon will move on to another site. And the news on the rig isn't all bad. Next week, executives from BP are flying out to congratulate the crew for its safety record. In seven years, it hasn't lost even an hour of operating time because someone got hurt.

Greenwald calls for the arrest of Rep. Bob Etheridge.

It has taken Britain almost four decades to admit to a war crime in Northern Ireland:

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry report found that all those killed were unarmed and that paratroopers had lost control and opened fire without warning. Some had been trying to flee when they were hit and soldiers had made up false accounts in a bid to cover up their actions, the report found.

A total of 13 unarmed civilians, seven of them teenagers, died in Londonderry when soldiers from 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment opened fire during clashes after the banned march was stopped from entering the city centre on January 30 1972. A 14th man died some time later from his injuries.

This panicked murder of unarmed civilians was the Brits’ Gaza moment (along with their Cheney moment in instigating the torture of terror suspects in prison). And this long-delayed report helps show how war crimes take time for democracies to process and take responsibility for. The entire history of the last forty years suggests something else as well: that Irish terrorism was not defeated by force of arms, or brutality, or collective punishment. It took negotiations with the worst parties, a stoic acceptance of some terrorist violence because the attempt to stamp it all out only made it worse, economic growth, and insistence on the most logical partition.

Maybe at some point, the Israelis will absorb these lessons. And maybe they won’t.

Some critical pushback on Lady Gaga's recent pretensions.