The Dish

A reader writes:

You seriously need to watch the Glenn Beck interview with Sarah Palin.  Someone embedded them all in one place. This woman is straight out of an Orwellian nightmare.  The juxtaposition of the two is uncanny.

The Big Picture zooms in.

DiA gives one reason:

There aren't that many social settings in which people are expected to set aside their fixed positions, listen to opposing arguments with an open mind, accept new evidence and testimony, and come to a fair, just conclusion, in the knowledge that they will be respected rather than disdained for changing their minds. One such setting is a courtroom.

Norm Geras joins the debate:

[U]nlike car accidents and other such fatalities, deaths due to terrorism are being actively procured by the country's enemies; and for a government to respond in a laid-back way to an effort to kill hundreds, or – as it might also be – thousands of its citizens would invite charges of fecklessness and irresponsibility. It is its duty to take threats of this sort very seriously. If a government doesn't try to protect the country's citizens from enemy attack that is a major delinquency. So, while over-reaction is certainly not a good idea, vigilance, and vigilance that is plain and visible, is very much to the point.

A few days ago Matt Frost tried to understand the actions of DHS secretaries:

I pulled the same data that Nate did, and get the same aggregate totals for his ten-year period. But dividing those numbers out to the level of the individual passenger makes no sense to the managers responsible for maintaining the system. Nobody cares what your odds of being a victim are. What matters to the security principals is the risk of one catastrophic failure in the entire system during their tenure.

Say you are the Secretary of Homeland Security, and you plan to serve for four years before getting the hell out and working on Wall Street. There will be almost 3 million enplanements during your tenure. Aircraft for which you are nominally responsible will fly almost 30 billion miles. If we must do the Nickelodeon Numerology game, it would take light about 43 hours to go that far in space! Using Nate’s estimate of one terrorist per 11.5 billion miles flown, you can expect about 2 1/2 incidents on your watch. Look busy!

Andrew Sprung points to a World Politics Review article by Masoud Shafaee:

[T]he regime may face its greatest threat not from within, but from outside the country. Ever since June's contested election, observers have been keeping a close watch on Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (who hails from Iran but resides in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq), considered the highest living authority in all of Shiite Islam. Sistani comes from the "quietist" tradition of Shiite theology, one that, unlike the Islamic Republic's ruling doctrine of velayat-eh faqih, holds that clerics should abstain from becoming directly involved in politics. So far, he has refrained from condemning the regime's actions. But his clout is so strong in the Shiite world that, were this to change, the Islamic Republic would arguably no longer face just a political crisis within Iran, but also a crisis of religious confidence among all Shiites. 

Sprung adds:

Perhaps Sistani's support would provide critical mass to the reformist/revolutionaries in Iran.  But is there any reason to assume that that support may be forthcoming?

A reader writes:

I don't have a compelling narrative to relate regarding crystal meth, only this: In 1987, I visited my sister in Phoenix, Arizona and spent a meth-fueled night reminiscing with her about our childhood in Minnesota. I have not seen here since. Somehow, by the grace of God or genetic luck, I walked away from the drug unharmed after only a very brief period of experimentation. She never stopped, and that insidious addiction destroyed her life.

She was once a vibrant and joyful person. When my mother saw her about ten years ago, she was 80 pounds and a mere shell of her former self. My mother was devastated. And now my sister, the one who took care of me as a child so often after my father left and as my mother worked long hours to take care of five children, is gone — forever. I cannot write that without crying. 

No one has heard from her in years, and we don't know if she is dead or alive, but with meth there is really no difference. My sister died a long time ago.

(Photo source)

Steve Lombardo sizes up the current political environment:

The GOP is benefiting from the anti-incumbent sentiment, but it remains a largely hollow brand. Until the Republican party can paint a picture of its new brand image in a clear and compelling way – it remains a default party rather than a movement. Voters are being repelled from the Democrats and are only moving over to the GOP column by default. The only way to lock them in is to present a clear and compelling agenda–and that has not happened to date.

Today on the Dish we were all over the catastrophe in Haiti. Details from on-the-ground bloggers, tweeters, and readers here, here, here, here, here, and here. Dramatic footage here and here. Face of the day here. Ben Smith and TPM aided in the cause. You can help here.

While the Prop 8 trial won’t be televised, Margaret Talbot, FireDogLake, and David Link were on the case. Meanwhile, DADT looked to be on the ropes. Things looked up for Scott Brown in the Bay State but not so much for Harold Ford in the Empire State. Updates from Iran here and here. Hitchens was itchin’ to invade.

Andrew, with the help of Ambinder, Sargent, and a reader, turned up the heat on Heilemann and Halperin. Frum and Andrew wrestled with Palin’s Fox debut while David Corn piled on Rubin’s defense of the former governor.

A reader sent us a heartbreaking account of meth’s mayhem. More input here. The Dish’s fratty side came out here and here. And dog-blogging went into overdrive.

— C.B.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

David Silbey has a chart showing deaths among coalition forces in Afghanistan (click to enlarge):

The worst month for coalition forces in Afghanistan was July 2009, when 77 fatalities occurred. That month still does not rival the worst months of Iraq (141 in November 2004 and 131 in May 2007), but each summer and each winter has seen a higher number of fatalities, and January 2010 is, only 12 days into the new year, already the second-worst January of the war.

A reader writes:

The protestent church I attended used the exact same wafers.  I'd imagine there are many other protestent congregations that do as well.  We let our religious leaders have sex – granted only in marital bonds, so to speak – so the Astroglide wouldn't be scandalous. I would also assume a priest would have an assistant buy the wafers.  Certainly his time would be better spent doing something else.

Another reader points to this Onion classic (NSFW). Another writes:

To throw another anecdotal log onto the fire, the hotel/conference center where I work just hosted a three-day retreat for several ministers. The big joke circulating the building was the pay per view bill of the head minister. Looking at the conference schedule side by side to his pay per view bill, whenever he had a break between sessions he was leading, he would be in his room watching hour after hour of gay porn!

And Astroglide need not be for gay sex. It could also be for wanking, for mutilated penises. But that, of course, is also a mortal sin – as sodomitical as gay sex. Robbie George once conceded that the state theoretically should be able to police and prevent masturbation but practicality made it impossible. Funny how that never made it into the Kirkpatrick NYTMagazine puff piece.