The Dish

David Frum and Michael Wolff explain.

Whatever else they are, Barack Obama and Roger Ailes are not dumb. And this war helps both.

More pictures here. A description of the project:

Born in 1980 photographer and illustrator Agan Harahap from Jakarta, Indonesia, currently works for music magazine TRAX. His latest photography project called ‘Super Hero’ consists of memorable political and wartime scenes from the mid-20th century featuring beloved superheros like Spiderman or Batman in some interesting and funny positions – true juxtaposition in effect. It’s fun to see Superman standing in the Neuschwanstein Castle.

"If people want to say that the whole quest to articulate objective human rights standards and international humanitarian law is inherently futile or misguided, then fine. But an awful lot of people who claim not to believe that seem to want to turn around and reject the underlying premises of the endeavor when it turns out that Israel—like its adversaries—sometimes violates those standards," – Matt Yglesias.

The only salient question is: did Israel commit war crimes in Gaza? And yet so many refuse even to address that factual question or the large amount of evidence Goldstone assembled. Just as many simply refuse to grapple with the reality of how the US treated prisoners under Bush and Cheney. The Dish has tried to hold all of these entities to the same standards – the US, UK, Hamas, Iran, Israel. Because double standards are useful for a short time, but fatal in the end. And this is a long, long war.

… as long as they help build market share. The acceptance of non-celibate former Anglican priests in the Catholic church is not new. The priest in the parish where I grew up has a wife. But this streamlining of the process takes it to a new, smoother level. And what it proves is that the Vatican does not believe – who could? – that a married priest cannot serve his flock as well as a celibate one. So the bar on married priests is revealed as a pragmatic one (they were once ubiquitous in the church). Now recall that the celibacy requirement has clearly contributed to the decline of the church in the US and the West and has led indirectly to the sexual abuse problems of screwed up celibates. Why would the Vatican make an exception for Anglicans but not for, you know, Catholics?

The US cuts funding for the Bush administration program to help fund the Iranian opposition. Bad news, right? Not according to the dissidents:

Critics like Iranian dissident and journalist Akbar Ganji have maintained that the program made virtually all Iranian NGOs targets of the hardline government in Iran: "The US democracy fund was severely counterproductive. None of the human right activists and members of opposition in Iran had any interest in using such funds, but we were all accused by Iran's government of being American spies because a few groups in America used these funds." The secretiveness around the program – the recipients of the funds remain classified – has added to the dilemma, Iranian human rights groups maintain. They say it has enabled the Iranian authorities to accuse any Iranian NGO of having received funds from the US government.

A reader writes:

I agree that stoner humor is tiresome (and inaccurate, but that's another fight), but why do we need to make this all about sick people? I'm not trying to be heartless–but I'm willing to wager that a very small portion of marijuana used is to manage sickness. It's a very important part of why legalization is important, and maybe it's an effective message politically, but whenever I hear arguments for legalization couched in medical marijuana terms, I get the feeling that people are thinking "yeah, right. These weed activist people just want to get high." And you know, they're sort of right. I *do* want to get high. What's it to you?

It's not just a medical issue–we need to assert our freedom to engage in an activity that harms very few people and results in needless jailtime and wasted tax dollars. The cancer patient struggling with chemo-induced nausea is an important reason to legalize, but so am I–a 21-year-old gainfully employed elite-college grad who's minding her own business (or the 21-year-old high-school dropout aspiring rapper, for that matter). A "stoner," if you will. I think activists fear that image won't translate well in terms of garnering support, but I think it may appeal to Americans' appreciation of personal liberty. At the very least, they'll appreciate the straight talk.

As Dish readers well know, this is also my position. I do not see the fact that marijuana provides great pleasure as a reason to ban it. My point in the post was a narrower one. If the laws permit medical marijuana, they should only support medical marijuana. And our success in providing medical marijuana responsibly, legally and humanely will be a critical test of whether a more ambitious end to prohibition can be achieved. One step at a time. But, yes, I sense a sea-change. A long, long overdue sea-change.

Oddly romantic. Very oddly:

Strawberry Swing from Matt Clark on Vimeo.

"An alternative video for Coldplay's Strawberry Swing, directed by Ross Neil and Matt Clark, with thanks to HSI London."

Nathaniel Frank carefully dismembers the latest arguments against ending the ban on gay servicemembers in the Weekly Standard.

Michael J. New defends the contraceptive unfriendliness of the pro-life movement against the Dish's critique. He writes:

[In] 2003, Guttmacher released an article in “International Family Planning Perspectives” that showed simultaneous increases in both contraceptive use and abortion rates in the United States, Cuba, Denmark, Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea.

The study he links to concludes:

When fertility levels in a population are changing, the relationship between contraceptive use and abortion may take a variety of forms, frequently involving a simultaneous increase in both. When other factors—such as fertility—are held constant, however, a rise in contraceptive use or effectiveness invariably leads to a decline in induced abortion—and vice versa.

He then links to a study that found among American women "2 percent said that they did not know where to obtain a method of contraception and 8 percent said that they could not afford contraceptives." The earlier study was of 197 countries. From the BBC report:

[G]lobally, the number of married women of childbearing age with access to contraception has increased from 54% in 1990 to 63% in 2003, with gains also seen among single, sexually active women. But there were still significant unmet contraception needs, and a lack of interest among pharmaceutical companies in developing new forms of birth control that provide top protection on demand, the institute said.

And:

The Guttmacher Institute's survey found..that improved access to contraception had cut the overall abortion rate over the last decade.

Theocons cannot have it every which way. Practically speaking, if you really believe that all abortion is murder, a huge program of contraception education and access is the most practical life-saver out there. And yet the Catholic pro-lifers refuse to embrace it and go to these kinds of lengths to deny reality. By their own logic, they are the ones enabling the massacre of millions.

Check out Massimo Calabresi's fascinating account of secret dealing between the US and Iran over re-purposing uranium stockpiles for peaceful uses. It's an impressive feat of cooperation between France, Russia, the US and Iran. Just a small thing. But telling – not least because it suggests there's more going on under the slipstream with this president than he lets on, and because it shows that a less dictatorial US can indeed get its partners to act and its foes to negotiate.