The Dish

They make cities safer. And greener.

Paul Kedrosky posts a chart  showing the difference between economic predictions and reality. (the Dish assumes that the numbers along the y-axis are GDP.)

Nate Silver studies that Rasmussen Massachusetts poll: 

A 30-point drubbing by Coakley wouldn't surprise me; nor would a race that kept us up late on Election Night.

And frankly, if I were either party and my internal polling showed a 15-point margin, I'd still be thinking about putting some money into this race. Special elections in many ways resemble presidential primaries, and polls are off in primaries by an average of about 7 points. That would imply something like a 3-5 percent chance of a Brown victory, which feels about right. But considering how consequential that 5 percent could be — the probable collapse of health care reform — it's something worth hedging against if you're the Democrats, or taking a flier on if you're the G.O.P.

Mike Konczal transforms into his evil twin to propose a way for credit card companies to rip off old people suffering from dementia.

Today we continued to focus on GWOT. Obama refused to hold anyone accountable for the undie-bomber (though the US was kept safe from Joan Rivers). Bruce Schneier insisted that profiling doesn't work and Paul Campos explained what "terrorball" means. The Dish asked the burning question on everyone's mind: "Why didn't the undie-bomber just blow himself up in the toilet?" Readers delivered. We also found all you need to know about Yemen blogging. And suicide-bomber blogging.

In torture talk, Julian Sanchz failed to make sense of the Corner, Jonah Goldberg continued to spread ignorance, Greenwald stood up for the rule of law, and we got a good look at who went to Gitmo. On Iran, Andrew and Graeme took stock of the situation and we watched some more horrifying footage. Morozov and Dreher threw cold water on the influence of the Internet there. 

Chris Matthews joined the flogging of Politico while the scrutiny of Rasmussen continued. Brit Hume's crusade for Tiger's soul continued here and here. Some unsettling far-right rhetoric here, here, and here. A dose of hathos here. Michele Bachmann discovered that extreme rhetoric might not be in her best interest, Andrew explored proto-fascism on the right, and a reader sent a disquieting dispatch from the South.

Wisdom-tooth blogging continued apace. The latest recession update here. And this window is particularly great.

— C.B.

One of our most devoted Persian-speaking readers sends this new video and writes:

A collection of the most horrifying scenes of Ashura…body after body…you can hear people filming, saying in disbelief,: "That was a gun shot? Ya but must have been a rubber bullet"….Then the subtitle shocks you: EXCEPT IT WAS A REAL BULLET …

The most powerful (and graphic) montage begins at the 5:20 mark. Our reader adds:

Those being arrested in the footage are among the hundreds that might now be executed. They are pushing for fast scary trials sometime this week and they are preparing the public that some will be sentenced to death for protesting!!! They think a few publicized death sentences and quick executions will scare people.

Today 36 members of the most hard line members of parliament known as Ahamdi Nejad circle brought to the floor a bill that, if passed, will reduce the appeal time for such death sentences to 5 days as oppose to 20 days. Trying to send the msg that not only we will issue death sentences, we will waste no time in carrying them out. So the difference between those that ran fast and those who couldnt escape arrest is now life and death.

A reader writes:

Have you read that article by Jennifer Rubin in Commentary? I did, and it drove me nearly apoplectic. I wish I could quote at length from my BlackBerry to illustrate how delusional the article and the author is about Palin and Jews, but let me summarize as best as I can.

Jews' hatred of Palin goes beyond liberal/conservative divide. They hate who she is. Palin is sexy, Jews like frumpy. Palin is blue collar and has worked jobs Jews won't touch. Palin's child is in the military, Jews never do that. Palin has 6 (or 5) children, Jews never have that many kids (unless their frum, then they're OK). Jews read, but they have been misinformed about Palin, who loved to read as a child, and they simply don't appreciate "instinctual" leadership anyway. Oh, and Palin has a Downs baby, while Jews love to abort.

My G-d, if the writer's last name weren't Rubin and the magazine not Commentary, I might be forgiven if I thought I were reading an excerpt from Mein Kampf. The picture Rubin draws of her fellow Jews is so mind-numbingly one-dimensional, I almost take pity on her. But, as a Jew who didn't attend an Ivy League institution, and whose cousins that did came from lower-middle-class circumstances whose parents sacrificed literally everything to give them the best, and counts Jewish military members (marines included) amongst relatives and friends, well…Rubin shows that she and Podhoretz and the rest of them in the Commentary cocoon must walk around with their kops in their tuchas.

Bruce Schneier says no:

[P]rofiling creates two paths through security: one with less scrutiny and one with more. And once you do that, you invite the terrorists to take the path with less scrutiny. That is, a terrorist group can safely probe any profiling system and figure out how to beat the profile. And once they do, they’re going to get through airport security with the minimum level of screening every time.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, we’re all more secure when we randomly select people for secondary screening — even if it means occasionally screening wheelchair-bound grandmothers and innocent looking children. And, as an added bonus, it doesn’t needlessly anger the ethnic groups we need on our side if we’re going to be more secure against terrorism.

Joel Osteen, who personally doesn't support marriage equality but doesn't preach against it because he doesn't want to "go there," recently gave the opening prayer at the inauguration of Annise Parker, the first openly lesbian mayor of Houston. Unlike much of the gay press, Timothy Kincaid supports the decision:

Joel Osteen does not agree with my understanding of Scripture; but his disagreement does not make him a hater or a bigot. And I recognize the value in having a lesbian politician – elected despite her opponent’s religion-based homophobic campaign – being given blessing by the pastor of the largest congregation in the nation.

I agree. We gays should be seeking friends and alliances, not only searching for haters. That doesn't mean we should ignore complicity in anti-gay violence, as the Ugandan example shows. But when evangelicals or Mormons or Catholics or Muslims show respect, we should always reciprocate.

Suderman is saddened that C-SPAN probably won't be allowed to televise the health care negotiations and that the final stage of health care reform will happen behind closed doors:

[W]ithout reporters and recorders in the room, we'll miss out on the historical record, which is both useful (in terms of understanding the legislative process) and interesting (as political narrative). That's important for any bill, and it's especially true with a bill of this size and this sort of transformational impact. When future generations — or, hell, current generations — ask how we got the system we have, we'll be able to tell part of the story, but when it comes to the end, we'll simply have to speculate, or shrug our shoulders in confusion, as crucial details from the final days of negotiating will be missing.

Ezra Klein takes an opposing view.