The Dish

This could prove interesting:

One of the arguments of the Olson/Boies legal team that is suing to overturn California’s Proposition 8, is that the motivation and intent behind the anti-gay marriage amendment was one of animus directed towards gay people as a group…To advance this argument, they subpoenaed the correspondence of the Yes on 8 campaign. Naturally, the campaign resisted, but Judge Vaughn Walker agreed with the Olson/Boies argument…The most relevant information will be in relation to what messages the campaign decided not to present to voters as this will put those they did use in perspective.

But I’m sure that the virulent homophobia and blind hate expressed in the communications will also go far to illuminate the attitudes of the campaign against marriage. Unless, of course, the Yes on 8 Campaign always spoke in loving terms about gay people and couples…

 
Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is seen in a video broadcast by an Israeli news channel on October 2, 2009. Israel freed 19 Palestinian women prisoners in a swap for two minutes and 40 seconds of footage showing soldier Gilad Shalit looking healthy after more than three years in captivity at the hands of Gaza militants. By Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty.

"Note to GOP officials/consultants – resist temptation to pile on about Chicago losing just becuz Obama made the pitch," – GOP strategist Scott Stanzel, via Twitter. (Glenn Thrush spotlights those who failed to heed the advice while Yglesias patiently explains to the Corner why the Olympics is not like negotations with Iran.)

Ambers explains the administration's view on consistency:

It's quite possible that a variant of the failed strategy in Iraq — primarily counter-terrorism + bribery + a war of attrition over the resources (substitute poppy for oil) might work better in Afghanistan. If  Obama decides to go this route, and it looks like some influential folks are beginning to favor it, he will have backed away from what one might call a campaign promise to resource Afghanistan properly.  That doesn't get you points in politics. For some reason, everyone obsesses about consistency, which this administration believes is just about the worst value to hold when it comes to foreign policy.

To them, consistency is dogma. In their view, the U.S. ought to treat situations differently because they are different, because ceteris paribus never applies, because situations are always evolving, because interests are always more pressing than values. The downside of flexibility is that it comes at the cost of legitimacy. But so does does dogma, magical thinking, a blind faith in whatever patterns we think we see in the void. I don't know if Brent Scowcroft would call this approach "realism."  It's more… ad hoc.

Reihan doesn't think that Iran handing over the uranium is such big news:

All of this sounds like good news, and it is. Unfortunately, it is also extremely good news for Iran and Ahmadinejad, who has managed to buy still more time to build his weapons program. There's little doubt that the Qom facility is just part of a vast network of secret nuclear facilities that the Iranians have been building for years to evade inspectors. It solves the "puzzle" of why the Iranians haven't been able to account for large amounts of uranium from one of their mines…So while the Iranians will hand over low-enriched nuclear fuel they've said they have, they're not about to give up the nuclear they haven't said they have. Get it?

Juan Cole counters:

The NYT report on all this adds in all kinds of extraneous and unproven allegations, of a network of secret enrichment plants or secret stores of low-enriched uranium or nefarious Iranian plans to make a bomb, or of Iran having enough nuclear material to make a bomb (irrelevant if they can't enrich to 90%), and what Israel thinks of all this (since the Israelis really have thumbed their nose at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and made a whole arsenal of bombs, thus further destabilizing the Middle East, why they aren't under UN sanctions I'll never understand; but they certainly don't have standing to dictate anything to other countries on the proliferation issue). It reminds me of all the NYT front page stories about aluminum tubes and Iraqi WMD of Judy Miller in 2002. Isn't it bad journalism to report completely unproven allegations for which there is no evidence?

Joe Carter circles back to the "Going Galt" phenomenon and makes an astute point:

During the Cold War-era people who held incompatible views—such as libertarianism and social conservatism—embraced a limited form of “fusionism” in order to provide a united front against a common enemy—communism. Today, the common enemy is liberalism and the fusionism occurs not between disparate groups but within an individual. People who would laugh at the absurdity of a “Christian Muslim” seem not to recognize the similar incongruity between being a follower of Christ and an acolyte of Ayn Rand.

He also points to a cult of personality on the right:

Their defense tends to be based on a variation of a common theme: They don’t actually subscribe to those crazy views (at least not all of them), they just align themselves with a personality that does. It’s politics by proxy with a Machiavellian cult of personality twist. If any victories against liberal elites can be attributed to our favorite TV personality/failed politicians/radio host/third-rate novelist, then that cult figure, their views, their motives, and their actions, are provided blanket immunity against criticism. These St. Georges slaying the liberal dragons are placed beyond reproach. You are no more allowed to question the right’s preferred cult of personality – CoulterHannityBeckLimbaughPaulLevinRandPalinWhoever – than liberals can challenge Obama.

I had my first Big Mac in months last night having landed back in DC. It's one of my favorite comfort foods. For the poor, it has the same appeal. TNC talks about coping on a tight budget:

When other aspects of your life aren't going to well, that McFlurry is an awesome pick-me-up. Trust me, I know. I almost hit 300 pounds (298 at the height of my glory) while I was doing the entry work of becoming a writer–spend long hours alone in the library at Howard, writing pieces for 10 cents a word, coming to New York and writing editors who didn't know me from the next wannabee, losing three different writing jobs. I had years when I grossed five figures, years when I worked as a food delivery boy, and years when Samori's pre-school bill was higher than my earnings.

Ezra chimes in:

This reminds me of Charles Karelis's "The Persistence of Poverty." The basic argument is that the wealthy misunderstand the mental state of the poor, which leads them to make conceptual errors when creating policies to address poverty, or, in this case, obesity. Think of a bee sting, he advises. If you have a single bee sting, you'll go buy some salve to take away the pain. Now imagine three bee stings, a sprained ankle, a burn, a cut, a crick in your neck, a sore throat, and arthritis. Does the bee sting matter anymore?

Karelis argues that this is more the situation of someone in poverty. Obesity is bad, but it may be just one of many bad things. Overdue bills. A horrible part-time job. Endless commuting time on the bus. A mother with diabetes. A child running with the wrong crowd. A leaking roof. In that scenario, slowly reversing your weight gain might be a good idea, but it hardly makes a dent in the overall crumminess of the conditions. It won't replace pain with pleasure. So you do things that are surer to replace pain with pleasure, like have a delicious, filling, satisfying, salty, fatty meal. That may make your overall situation more unpleasant, but then, making that situation pleasant didn't seem like an option in the first place.

This, he would say, is fundamentally different than the situation of someone who is fundamentally happy with his life but thinks he should lose 30 pounds. For that person, those 30 pounds are the main thing standing between him and perceived happiness. It's one bee sting instead of a dozen ailments.

Cigarettes too. I know they're awful. But I find the puritanism and bossiness around them curiously blind to the fact that for many people in rough times and rough places, they are one of life's pleasures. For people with many pleasures, quitting is tough but won't really affect their quality of life. For those with very few, it's one more assault they could do without. Leave people alone.

Larison tries to determine whether Pawlenty knows anything about foreign policy:

The more I search, the more discouraging the results. There are not many results, and those that I do find confirm my impression that he doesn’t know anything and has compensated by echoing the most ridiculous criticisms of the current administration. Pawlenty just launched his Freedom First PAC, which is not primarily concerned with foreign policy, but in his first conference call for the PAC he kept harping on the missile defense decision. This tells me that the primary debates are probably going to be dominated by candidates trying to out-do one another in hawkish ignorance. Pawlenty’s off to a good start in that respect.

Wilford Brimley raps about his "diabeetus." Listen long enough for the great hook:

Michael Totten recommends that we listen to Michael Yon, who is more than worried about Afghanistan:

We are losing popular support. Confidence in the Afghan and coalition governments is plummeting. Loss of human terrain is evident. Conditions are building for an avalanche. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the military commander in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates are aware of the rumbling, and so today we are bound by rules of engagement that appear insensible.

We must curb civilian losses at expense to ourselves. I believe the reasoning is sound and will share those increased dangers. Erosion of popular support seems reversible. There still is considerable good will from the Afghan population, but bomb by bomb we can blow it. We have breathing room if we work with wise alacrity. I sense a favorable shift in our operations occurring under Gen. McChrystal.

Enemies are strengthening. Attacks are dramatically increasing in frequency and efficacy. We are being out-governed by tribes and historical social structures.

He ends the piece:

Either we will begin to show progress by the end of 2010 or, piece by piece, the coalition will cleave off and drift away, meaning 2011 will begin the end to significant involvement in Afghanistan.