The Dish

Dan Savage notes the latest act of symbolism by the Obama administration to mollify the gay community: the ambassadorship to New Zealand and Samoa. Ronald Reagan also used an ambassadorship to send a symbolic message: he appointed a black man as ambassador to apartheid South Africa. So why not appoint an openly gay ambassador to, say, Jamaica?

Steve Benen rips apart the headline, "Roman Polanski Backers Gave $34K to Barack Obama, DNC."

It's almost a parody of the kind of story Politico's critics might come up with to make fun of the publication. […] As the story goes, a prominent filmmaker is accused of a horrible crime. The filmmaker nevertheless has some supporters in the film industry. Some of those supporters, for reasons entirely unrelated to the alleged crime, also contributed to Democrats, and some of those contributors also donated to Obama. So? Why is that a news story? […] Chances are, they wanted to get "Polanski" and "Obama" in the same headline. It didn't matter if the story made sense.

Ezra Klein, a fierce advocate for menu labeling, reads the sobering news:

The first big study out of New York City, however, suggests that menu labeling has been a bit of a bust in changing ordering habits at fast food restaurants in low-income neighborhoods…I could make a couple of bank shot arguments here (it's possible higher-income people will cut back more, leading chain restaurants to reformulate their offerings to secure their business, leading to calorie reductions across the customer base), but I don't think they make a lot of sense.

You could also see it going in the other direction: people could gravitate toward higher-calorie items on the grounds that they'll prove more satisfying, and represent a better deal. I'm still a supporter of calorie labeling on the simple grounds that people should have this information, no matter how they choose to use it. But so far, the evidence suggests that it's not going to make a dent in obesity rates.

A reader writes (I suspect) for many:

I'm a non-practicing, non-believing guy with Jewish heritage — therefore, a "self-hating Jew" I suppose. Still, I believe there is a solid post-Holocaust rationale for a Jewish state to serve as a safe-haven. I also believe the manner in which Palestinians were dispossessed to make Israel a reality is almost as ugly as Indian Removal policies of United States. I'm 100% in favor of there being an Israel, and I'm 100% in favor of there being a Palestine (contiguous and unadulterated).

But right now, I'm 100% firmly in the camp of "a pox on both their houses."

I've seen this fucking merry-go-round spin and spin and spin for years. It's not going to stop until Israelis and Palestinians have either wiped each other out or decided they no longer enjoy the taste of one-anothers' blood. There just isn't anything any nation or group of nations external to this blood-feud can do to stop it. So, let it burn itself out. If the West (and I suppose China, India, and Russia) begin by publicly acknowledging that both sides are clearly more invested in conflict than peace, then we can move on to consideration of some sort of containment policy that confines the combatants to their own regional Thunderdome.

I'd be perfectly happy if our stated position was: "Kill each other all you want, but have the common courtesy to keep it amongst yourselves."

That means ending aid to both Israel and the PA. I wonder what the vote would be on that if the American people were allowed to have the final say.

New Jersey governor Jon Corzine is catching heat for mocking the waistline of his opponent, Christopher Christie. One of those critics is obesity expert David Kessler, who recently told Goldblog:

This ad reflects a total lack of understanding, empathy and tolerance. No one should be criticized for being overweight. We're all wired to respond to different stimuli — sex, gambling, alcohol, illegal drugs — and for many people it's food. I would rather have this problem than some of these other problems. Some of the world's greatest leaders, from Winston Churchill to Ted Kennedy, struggled with their weight. This struggle has nothing to do with leadership abilities. It doesn't translate into a lack of control in any other part of a person's life. In any case, voters identify with people who are honest and open about their struggles. To be cruel to someone because of this struggle is just unacceptable. It shows a lack of understanding about human nature, and about the environment in which we live.

Ambers adds his thoughts, as does Zengerle.

E.J. Donne thinks the 2010 elections will be fought on the issue:

While official Washington and much of the media focus on the great health-care struggle, the administration’s economic advisers have been busy reviewing proposals to create jobs, aware that pressure on them will grow to deal with high unemployment that threatens to persist through Election Day next year. President Obama’s aides insist that they knew all along that the original stimulus, as one of them put it, would “never fill the full gap from the recession.” Whether or not they anticipated this, they’re planning to act, even though — for political reasons — what comes next will not be called “a second stimulus.”

Nate Silver is for it. So are Josh Marshall and Ezra Klein. And the idea is gaining steam on the Hill:

Does this mean we're reaching consensus? As I've noted, the idea is still very young, and has a long way to go. But it seems to be finding friends very quickly.

If we are looking to further stimulate the economy, it may be the path of least political resistance. Alex Tabarrok's pitch:

[L]ots of firms are selling and hiring.  In July, for example (the most recent data), firms hired over 4 million workers.  Yes, 4 million.  Even in declining sectors like construction there were 346,000 new hires in July alone.  In the 12 months preceding July, firms hired 51.3 million workers.  The problem of course is that during the same time there were 56.6 million job separations (quits, layoffs, retirements) for a net job loss of 5.3 million. Even though we are still experiencing a daily net loss of jobs it's important to remember that there are about 200,000 hires every working day  Lots of firms are hiring.  In order to increase employment a payroll tax cut need not shift firms "from firing to hiring" it need only increase the hiring rate of those firms already hiring or on the margin of hiring.

Free Exchange weighs in to support the idea, while one of Ezra's readers worries that we would never be able to end a payroll tax holiday.

Jump to the 1:00 mark (the rest of the story is here):