The Dish

It’s classic Obama country – but the margin over Clinton, even among women voters, is a useful counterpoint to West Virginia.

Judah Grunstein analyzes China’s response to the Sichuan earthquake and its awkward embrace of international aid. Fallows gathers first-hand accounts of the tremor.

(Photo: A chair sits between the damaged buildings after yesterday’s earthquake May 13, 2008 in Sichuan province, Dujiangyan City, China. A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County of southwest China’s Sichuan Province May 12, killing at least 10,000 people. The death toll is expected to rise as there is no definite estimate of the number of people trapped under mounds of concrete. By Feng Li/Getty Images.)

Every Simpsons Couch Gag ever:

How one walks may be a key part of attractiveness:

The findings reflect the views of over 700 individuals who participated in a series of five studies, three of which involved animated representations of people walking. The attractiveness ratings for perceived women increased by about 50 percent when they walked with hip sway, and attractiveness ratings for perceived men more than doubled when they walked with a swagger in their shoulders.

But no one walks like Xavier.

His bald-faced lie about Obama’s interview with Jeffrey Goldberg stands. Tapper chimes in. When will Boehner withdraw the lie and apologize?

He talks with Marty:

Last on our agenda–but longest–was Israel. [Obama] knew my historic concerns. I said that I was pessimistic about the possibilities of peace. He said he was "skeptical." That is exactly the right frame of mind for a president to bring to the 100-year dispute that has eluded the most ingenuous formulas for resolution. It is certainly better than being too optimistic. That was the trap into which Bill Clinton fell. (This was not Obama’s observation but mine.) You hit a snag. You put pressure on the party over which you have the most leverage–Israel, in this case–and yet the Palestinians remain recalcitrant, feeling that their real concession was to sit down at a conference table in the first place. Nothing happens. You squeeze a little more out of the Israelis, only to encourage the Arabs to demand more, which they do.

Reihan is right that recent events put the Iraqi prime minister in a much better light:

Though these gains may be temporary, there has also been a more lasting change: The Sadrists have been marginalized. Even the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has been reluctant to make political interventions in recent years, pointedly condemned Sadr for refusing to disarm. Leading Sunni faction have also returned to the fold. The Kurds, who have their own problems with Sadr, are also on board. Maliki, suprisingly enough, increasingly looks like the leader of all Iraqis.

Not just for beagles any more:

At Ridley’s Fish and Game shop in Corbridge, Northumberland, the owner David Ridley says he has sold 1,000 – at £3.50 a squirrel – since he tested the market at the beginning of the year. ‘I wasn’t sure at first, and wondered would people really eat it. Now I take every squirrel I can get my hands on. I’ve had days when I have managed to get 60 and they’ve all sold straight away.’

Simpson likens the taste to wild boar. Ridley thinks it is more a cross between duck and lamb. ‘It’s moist and sweet because, basically, its diet has been berries and nuts,’ he said.

(Photo: by Gabriel Bouys/Gett.)

This post contained a dead link. Here’s the live one.

Ambinder covers the fight for Mississippi’s first congressional district.