The Dish

Tom Bissell reflects on being addicted to cocaine and video games:

What have games given me? Experiences. Not surrogate experiences, but actual experiences, many of which are as important to me as any real memories. Once I wanted games to show me things I could not see in any other medium. Then I wanted games to tell me a story in a way no other medium can. Then I wanted games to redeem something absent in myself. Then I wanted a game experience that pointed not toward but at something. Playing GTA IV on coke for weeks and then months at a time, I learned that maybe all a game can do is point at the person who is playing it, and maybe this has to be enough.

TNC responds:

I think this will be the last time I engage Andrew on this question, mostly because I don’t think I can access much more until I’ve read Strauss, Oakeshott, and Andrew’s The Conservative Soul. It shames me that I haven’t, and it shames me more that I don’t know when I’ll be able to.

One of the unfortunate things about being ravaged by some object of my curiosity, is the accompanying inability to think long and hard about anything else.

So for the past year and half, a large section of my brain has been occupied by the Civil War and Detroit. I’ll be done with Detroit soon enough (one hopes), but this Civil War thing will be counted in years not months. 

This is why looking at anyone’s book-list, or book shelf, and exclaiming “I can’t believe you don’t have xxxx!!!” will always–always–miss the point. There’s too much out there to know. You can’t possibly experience it all. For me this is more true. I have to leave space for my own stories, and guard against getting loss in someone else’s.

"No-one should be in any doubt that the Conservative party abhors homophobia, that we support equal rights, that we support civil partnerships, that we think that part of being a strong central right party in Britain today – one of the bedrock issues is being in favor of proper equality for people whether they are straight or gay, or black or white, or men or women, or whether they live in the town or the countryside or whatever God they worship – important points,” – David Cameron, Tory leader.

Patrick Ruffini thinks that Republicans  "have been seriously outgunned" on health care policy:

On economics, you always know what the conservative answer is: tax cuts and generally hands-off regulatory policies to spur economic growth…On health care, I have no idea what our basic guiding principle is. Seriously, I don't. 

We have tried ineffectively to stretch free market rhetoric to health care without appreciating that health care is already too far removed from a free market for the analogy to make sense. Real markets are sensitive to price. Health care isn't. The insurance companies hide the cost of actual care from the consumer.

And that couldn't have been pointed out, say, eight months ago?

So reports Ackerman:

Gates has some unilateral tools at his disposal, and this week he intends to use them.

“He will announce changes to the way the current law is being enforced that make it more difficult to begin investigations and kick people out,” said a defense source who would not speak for the record ahead of Gates’s announcement. Spokesman Geoff Morrell hinted in his briefing yesterday that Gates would make some changes, but did not specify any.

Yglesias declares victory:

The crux of the matter is that progressive efforts to expand the size of the welfare state are basically done. There are big items still on the progressive agenda. But they don’t really involve substantial new expenditures. Instead, you’re looking at carbon pricing, financial regulatory reform, and immigration reform as the medium-term agenda. Most broadly, questions about how to boost growth, how to deliver public services effectively, and about the appropriate balance of social investment between children and the elderly will take center stage. This will probably lead to some realigning of political coalitions.

Julian Sanchez isn't so sure.