The Dish

You won't find the results or analysis in the MSM which is why we have Jim Fallows at the Atlantic. If you did not read his brilliant dismemberment of lazy MSM reporting during the Asian tour, you can reprise the best
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Mohammad Khiabani pursues the practice:

The cellphone has become the ultimate arbiter of social class in Iran, replacing the car. A majority of Iranians do not own a car, but a majority of Iranians do own a personal cellphone, which makes the all important pursuit of conspicuous consumption in the Islamic Republic much easier than before. As much as Iranians complain about their perceived backwardness, the entry of cheap East Asian cellphones into the Iran market over the last few years has put them on the vanguard of new forms of social communication — one of which is probably not seen too much in the West. I am referring here to the phenomenon of Bluetooth "sexting." (If you are an easily offended diaspora Iranian pining in nostalgia for the homeland, please click away now.)

I had heard that Bluetooth was being used to send sexually related matter from phone to phone in the Tehran metro. This seems a highly innovative thing to do, since the metro is crowded with hundreds of people in peak hours, and males and females are mostly separated into separate train cars. Therefore sex messaging is as anonymous as one wants it to be. Given that everyone on the metro is constantly poking at their cellphones, one could never know who was the source of an erotic "sext." Solely in the name of science, one day I decided to turn on my Bluetooth and see what happened on my daily metro trip.

I don't think I had even given my phone a "male" name before I was solicited to "receive data" from a certain Maryam. I agreed, and downloaded a picture of a sparkly neon letter "M." Cute, I thought. Maybe this sexting talk was just another tall tale of ribald and Bacchanalian Tehrani youth. A few minutes later, though, some other solicitor asked permission to send a package. This time, it was a photoshopped picture of a buxom Iranian woman's face, in the passenger seat of an SUV, with her hejab still on, pouting her lips at the camera and superimposed text exclamating that I should call her for a good time. I do not think the number on the picture was the number of the phone that sent me the message; it was more likely the Iranian equivalent of the bathroom stall limerick above your ex-girlfriend's number scrawled with a pen knife.

Origami money hats via The Daily What.

Reihan contrasts the two:

When I compare the headlong rush to transform the U.S. health system to the invasion of Iraq, my left-of-center friends react with horror. Though I think of the Iraq invasion as a noble effort plagued by profound conceptual problems, they tend to think of it as the product of a deceptive conspiracy perpetrated by war profiteers and their pseudo-intellectual henchmen.

Suffice it to say, I definitely don't think that the health reform effort is a conspiracy cooked up by health profiteers, though it's easy to see how private health insurers and the pharmaceutical industry and other powerful incumbents benefit. I think of the health reformers as very similar to me when I was at my most fervently hawkish: sincere and mostly pragmatic idealists who are letting their highest hopes become expectations.

I'm sure some of that is in play and Reihan is right to warn of potential mess. But unlike the Iraq war, health insurance reform was a signature issue in the previous campaign debates – both primary and general – and  a clear Obama campaign pledge from the get-go. Unlike the Iraq war, the proposal's long term costs have been inspected closely by the CBO. I know no one who believes that the total final costs over ten years could go from $50 billion to, by some estimates, between $2 trillion and $3 trillion and counting. And I know of no one who thinks the end result will wreck America's international standing.

But yes, more debate and scrutiny. If you really think three decades of failures, a year of campaign debate and a year of legislative wrangling really hasn't aired the issues sufficiently.

A reader writes:

The National Geographic clip on twins was fascinating, not least for the language it used. At eight weeks, the clip says, the brain of a fetus with a Y chromosome is bathed in testosterone. "Not enough, " it hypothesizes, and the brain isn't sexualized to be attracted to women. The clip doesn't say if a fetus without the Y would receives 'too much' testosterone or 'not enough' estrogen at eight weeks to develop a same-sex attraction.

Later, the clip speaks of switches in the brain causing disease, and it flashes back to the gay twins as it emphasizes the word 'disease,' visually implying the gay twin is diseased, the straight twin isn't, because of the way the switches in their genes were activated. In both instances, the underlying tone is a tone of "being gay is wrong, a genetic disease." This tone, it feels to me, forgoes any question of potential gain for same-sex attraction, re-enforcing negative social bias.

I also thought it amazing that the research suggests attraction to men is the norm, attraction to women must be activated with a testosterone bath. I would have assumed the opposite, that attraction to men must be activated. (I am a heterosexual woman.)

Describing natural phenomena that are not of the norm, without describing them as somehow defective or diseased, is difficult given our cultural inheritance. I don't think all of it can be called bigotry as such; most of it is simply driven by majoritarian default assumptions. Freud saw homosexuality as not normal. But he didn't draw any "disease" assumption from that and saw heterosexuality as equally worthy of explanation.

Over the past two days on the Dish we recorded the reflections of a military wife, David Brin gave thanks to the United States, Blake Hurst celebrated a bountiful corn harvest, Erik Stokstad showed us how much food we waste, Hank Hyena explained how we could soon dine on dinosaurs, and we learned how domestication dumbed down the turkey. And don't miss this Thanksgiving rap (though you can probably skip this performance).

In other coverage, we discovered more horrors perpetuated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, watched an exploration of the genetic origins of homosexuality, and took note of the latest lies of Sarah Palin. Andrew tackled the vacuous nature of Karl Rove and responded to a reader over Reagan and greed.

In Dish publishing news, we blew through the first 2,000 copies of our Window View book in about four days. But we ordered another thousand at the special $16.25 price, so go here to get one while they last.

— C.B.

A reader writes:

"Everybody in the family played Scrabble and took great pride in hoarding Ks and Qs and slapping them down in long, fancy words on triple-letter scores." — Going Rogue, p. 12.

Any good Scrabble player knows it's impossible to "hoard" Ks or Qs, as there is only one of each in a set of tiles. As a fellow Scrabble player said, "Perhaps she was thinking she was playing Poker, where hoarding Kings and Queens might be beneficial?"

Or perhaps she made this up like everything else.

Steven Simon writes at (pdf) the Council on Foreign Relations about what an Israeli strike against Iran might mean for US interests. His list of consequences:

First, regardless of perceptions of U.S. complicity in the attack, the United States would probably become embroiled militarily in any Iranian retaliation against Israel or other countries in the region. Given uncertainties about the future of Iraq and a deepening commitment to Afghanistan, hostilities with Iran would stretch U.S. military capabilities at a particularly difficult time while potentially derailing domestic priorities. 

Second, an Israeli strike would cause oil prices to spike and heighten concerns that energy supplies through the Persian Gulf may become disrupted.

Should Iran attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz by mining, cruise missile strikes, or small boat attacks, these fears would become realized. According to the GAO, however, the loss of Iranian oil for eighteen months would increase prices by only $6 to $11/bbl, assuming that the International Energy Agency coordinated release of reserves. This said, at the onset of the crisis, prices might hit $200/bbl (up from the current level of around $77/bbl) for a short period but would likely quickly subside. 

Third, since the United States would be viewed as having assisted Israel, U.S. efforts to foster better relations with the Muslim world would almost certainly suffer. The United States has an enduring strategic interest in fostering better relations with the Muslim world, which is distinct from the ruling elites on whom the United States depends for an array of regional objectives. In part, this interest derives from the need to lubricate cooperation between the United States and these governments by lowering some of the popular resentment of Washington that can hem in local leaders and impede their support for U.S. initiatives. A narrative less infused by anti-Americanism also facilitates counterterrorism goals and, from a longer-range perspective, hedges against regime change. The perceived involvement of the United States in an Israeli attack would undercut these interlocking interests, at least for a while. 

Fourth, the United States has a strong interest in domestically generated regime change in Iran. Although some argue that the popular anger aroused in Iran by a strike would be turned against a discredited clerical regime that seemed to invite foreign attack after its bloody postelection repression of nonviolent opposition, it is more likely that Iranians of all stripes would rally around the flag. If so, the opposition Green movement would be undermined, while the ascendant hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard supporters would face fewer constraints in consolidating their hold on power. 

Fifth, an Israeli attack might guarantee an overtly nuclear weapons capable Iran in the medium term.

Sixth, although progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian final status accord remains elusive, an Israeli strike, especially one that overflew Jordan or Saudi Arabia, would delay fruitful renewed negotiation indefinitely. Both Washington and Jerusalem would be too preoccupied with managing the consequences of an attack, while regional capitals would deflect U.S. appeals to upgrade relations with Israel as an incentive to concessions. If Hamas or Hezbollah were to retaliate against Israel, either spontaneously or in response to Iranian pressure to act, any revival of the peace process would be further set back. 

Finally, the United States has an abiding interest in the safety and security of Israel. Depending on the circumstances surrounding an Israeli attack, the political-military relationship between Jerusalem and Washington could fray, which could erode unity among Democrats and embolden Republicans, thereby complicating the administration’s political situation, and weaken Israel’s deterrent. Even if an Israeli move on Iran did not dislocate the bilateral relationship, it could instead produce diplomatic rifts between the United States and its European and regional allies, reminiscent of tensions over the Iraq war.

(Hat tip: Crowley)