The Dish

Ronald Bailey advocates for reproductive rights contracts:

Rather than wading into questions of genetics, why not apply an ethical analysis of contractual obligations to these cases? In the New Jersey surrogacy case, the sister agreed to bear children using donor eggs and sperm from her brother’s partner for the male couple. After the court ruled that she was the legal mother of the twins, Ms. Robinson reportedly said it is “one more step in helping to insure stability and peace in the lives of our girls.” The claims of the two Hollingsworth dads should not turn on genetic ties; in the absence of a showing of coercion or fraud, the surrogate should honor her contract in which she agreed that the gay couple would be the parents of the children she bore them. Imposing the outdated notion that the woman who bears a child is necessarily his or her legal mother without regard to actual contracts agreed upon by consenting adults, the courts are abetting emotional and financial instability for children rather than preventing it.

"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee," – Bill Clinton, to Teddy Kennedy, referring to Barack Obama, while appealing to Kennedy to endorse Hillary for president in 2008.

“Why the fuck do you think I’d want to go sit outside a Wal-Mart and hand out leaflets?” – Elizabeth Edwards.

Buzzfeed compiles 24 fantastic photos of Jack at the Lakers game.

"No evidence for existence of G-spot say scientists at Excuses Excuses University," – The Daily What.

A reader writes:

Thank you for continuing to talk about Palin and to show your old clips. Americans have very short memories.

But the main point I want to make is that Palin has constructed a very small bubble for her intellectual life. She thought that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 because she is in that bubble. And she and her followers want to remain there.

Just last night I decided to take a look at her Facebook page and commented on the last note there, one where she says that we don't need a president who is a scholar of constitutional law to deal with the threat of terrorism.

I posted completely rational entries about two Supreme Court cases (Hamdan and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, cases decided in 2004 and 2006) and what they said about the rights of suspected terrorism and their coverage under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. When I went back to

the Palin FB page today, I could no longer post on the FB page.

I don't know if they removed my posts, but in any case, found this appalling. I did not say a thing about Palin but offered information — including links to the decisions and quotes from them — and explained a bit of constitutional law on terrorism. Yet this was so damaging to what they want to believe, that I cannot add anything else. Believe me, I have plenty of other things to do, but still it was rather telling that they did not welcome accurate information but rather could not abide it if it contradicted their world view.

The full story of Palin has yet to come out. I regard her selection as veep as a moment of real crisis for the American polity and her resilience a threat to it. So I will relentlessly cover her until more people realize the sheer farce that has become of Republican politics and media corruption. Her success is due to both in equal parts.

Ted McCagg picks his top drawing from last year.

Poochinski, the reincarnated cop voiced by Peter Boyle.

Tom Elrod makes the connections:

[W]hen I say conservative, I mean a small “c” conservative that sees the world along the same lines as Edmund Burke: “A disposition to preserve.” I'm going to call this “social conservatism,” by which I don't mean the religious or moral conservatism of modern political discourse, but a conservatism that is interested in preserving traditional social features – in particular, the idea of “family” – but which sees such preservation as ultimately futile. The family will dissolve, eventually, and so we must do what we can to keep it going as long as possible. It is a worldview based not on progression but on loss.

[O]ver the years, Pixar has made a number of films which return again and again to the anxiety of familial dissolution. Monsters, Inc. does this through the small family unit of Scully and Boo; Finding Nemo is about a father's inability to let his son go; in Up, an old man learns to live after his wife's death. In the (unfortunately) much-maligned Cars, the modern world's loss of small communities (exemplified by Radiator Springs) is a tragedy, and the film (despite the restoration of the community at the end) is mostly a lament for lost values. None of these films may be overtly political, but the moral message is innate: The family (or small community) is central, and it is failing, so we must do what we can to preserve it.

(Hat tip: Kottke)