The Dish

Lapham's Quarterly lists a number of classic works and their chemical sources of inspiration. (Click image for sharper version.)

Freddie compares circumcision and abortion:

Often times, in this debate, you encounter people who take it as self-evidently absurd (and, often, funny) that anyone could be emotionally invested in the presence or absence of foreskin. You get these dueling sets of evidence, about STDs and penile cancer, and about pleasure reduction, etc. To me, trying to convince people empirically that the foreskin is important is exactly the wrong way to go about having the argument. Because just as with a pregnant woman and her choice, it is absolutely immaterial that anyone else be able to understand why a man might feel one particular way about his foreskin. It really doesn't matter if anyone on the Internet can be convinced about his feelings. It only matters that we recognize that it is his body.

I had dinner with a Masai warrior last night (no kidding) and he told me that the Masai mutilate their sons at the age of 14. Of course, those boys don't have much of a choice. But in America, why can't parents allow their own sons to make that decision for themselves before they hit puberty? Say around 13 or fourteen?

Portland photographer Carli Davidson has more disturbingly cute shots of "Grandpaw" the Sphynx.

Bruce Bartlett takes on the idea that you have to abolish the Sixteenth Amendment to institute a VAT.

This is a big deal. The MRLP leader, Alan "Howling Laud" Hope, is running directly against the Tory leader in his own constituency. I guess the US has its Tea Party and Britain has the MRLP. They have an important campaign plank – floating bicycles for river transportation:

Mr Knapp, who calls himself shadow minister for big fibs and blatant lies, demonstrated the "Loony Bike" on the River Thames near Parliament on Sunday. He said: "What with global warming everyone might have to use them when the sea levels rise. We might have to build a few more canals and that can only be good for the unemployment figures". 

(Photo: Alan 'Howling Laud' Hope, Leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party, shouts with his mega-phone while on the campaign trail in Witney, Oxfordshire, on April 19, 2010. Hope is running against David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party for the constituency political seat. During the day, Hope visited the council offices to pay a deposit for his election nomination forms. By Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty.)

No, not the Palin household when Levi comes over.

The Liberal Democrat surge is continuing in Britain leading to the possibility of a political earthquake. Here's the latest poll of polls:

What this probably means, however, is that Labour would become the biggest party in the Commons, because of the vagaries of the electoral map. Labour could get 275 seats to the Tories' 245 and the Lib Dems' mere 99.

You may recall how critical it was as the Munich pedophile case broke into view that it be shown that Ratzinger had nothing to do with anything that occurred. This was not very plausible given that he chaired the meeting where the child-rapist, Father Hullerman was reassigned, rather than reported to the cops. But the Munich archdiocese's vicar-general, Fr Gerhard Gruber, took full responsibility. At the time, I expressed skepticism of how conveniently a fall-guy was found. It turns out my skepticism was more than warranted:

A former vicar-general in the archdiocese of Munich has claimed that he was pressurised last month into taking the blame for a mistake made 30 years ago by the then Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), concerning the case of a paedophile priest.

Fr Gerhard Gruber has now said he did so only after coming under huge pressure from unnamed Catholic Church sources to take responsibility, so as to “take the pope out of the firing line”.

In a letter to a friend, seen by German weekly magazine Der Spiegel , Fr Gruber wrote that he was “begged” in numerous phone calls and after receiving a prepared statement by fax for him to sign. The magazine said Fr Gruber expresses unhappiness in the letter at being given the sole blame in public.

The cover-up continues. And Benedict is at the heart of it. To commit a de facto crime by allowing a child-rapist to go on and abuse and rape more children, and when confronted with the evidence, to pressure a minion to take full responsibility … well it's positively Bush-like isn't it? No wonder they got along so well.