The Dish

Ali Eteraz differs:

Islamic law recognizes abandonment by the biological father. Obama’s Kenyan father abandoned Obama. As such, any religious imprimatur he may have had over Obama — which is already a stretch since the man was an atheist — is null and void. In such a situation, Obama’s mother’s religion is controlling. She was not Muslim. Even if someone makes the argument from patriarchy: that Obama’s paternal grandparents were his rightful guardians, that would fail since they also constructively abandoned him.

There is a corollary issue here: what about the fact that Obama’s second father, the Indonesian, was a "non-practicing Muslim." Doesn’t his faith transfer over to Obama? The answer is no.

This is outside my area of expertise. I’m just glad that the meme that Obama is still a Muslim is no longer currency in informed circles. Luttwak’s point would still hold, of course, if enough Muslims believed it. And the level of paranoia and stupidity in some areas of the Middle East eclipses that in Harlem or West Virginia. But what can anyone do about people willingly believing demonstrable lies?

Obama takes the federalist position and pledges an end to DEA harassment of California’s pot clubs.

"Wouldn’t taking [Karl Rove’s] advice be a little like getting health tips from a funeral home director?" – Bill Burton, Obama spokesman.

An immensely encouraging story in the NYT. "Immensely" because the Iraqi army seems to be the major force here. "Encouraging" because the pushback against Islamism is part of it:

At the College of Fine Arts, female students said they  felt more, but not entirely, free to wear the clothes they liked.

“I used to be challenged for what I wear,” said Athari, a 19-year-old student wearing heavy makeup and a bright orange headscarf pushed high back on her head in the liberal fashion disapproved of by Islamic radicals. “Makeup was forbidden; short skirts were forbidden. I will not mention their name, but they were extremists. They are still here, but quieter now.”

Qais, a music student, spoke of his relief at no longer having to hide his violin in a sack of rice in his trunk.

Most of the students were Shiite, but one youth named Alaa said that he was a Sunni and that 95 percent of his relatives had fled Basra after sectarian killings, including that of his uncle. “I want to thank Mr. Nuri al-Maliki, because he cleaned Basra of murderers, hijackers and thieves,” Alaa said.

This last comment from a Sunni could be in the counter-insurgency handbook. Yes: the gains are obviously fragile and reversible. Yes: Basra is much easier than, say, Mosul or Baghdad because of its relative Shiite homogeneity. But that this calm has come with the Iraqi army, that is reflects on Maliki as much as the British and Americans: these are good things. If we are to leave Iraq, this is surely the best way out.

A reader writes about his struggle with rising gas prices:

Not only is it 25 miles round trip just for me to go to the grocery store, hardware store–any store–but I drive for a living, 150,000 miles a year. With the economy in the dumps, freight has tanked. Because there are too many trucks and not enough freight, many freight rates are flat or lower–and have been since Christmas. Meanwhile, diesel has skyrocketed. It’s hard to tread water…most of the time I feel like I’m sinking. I lose being out on the road working but I cannot afford to stay home either.

So, while the wealthy can afford the increases in fuel and food, and city people at the very least have alternative ways to get around, those of us in the country (and those of us who haul the stuff that everyone buys) are having a very, very hard time. I’d love ‘research into alternatives’; I’d love alternatives period. But while I wait for those–and oil continues to rise–I’ll likely lose my truck and my home of twenty years.

More evidence that nature is not what the Christianists believe:

Yesterday, NPR had a fascinating story about two six year olds who are transgender. You can either read or listen to it here; if you have twenty three minutes, I recommend listening to it. One thing that becomes very clear when you listen to it is that these are not kids (biologically, boys) whose parents put the idea of being girls into their heads. They came up with it on their own. They played with dolls, not trucks; they identified with female characters, not male ones; one decided to go trick or treating as Dorothy when he was two and a half (and that’s not the half of it; read or listen to the story.)

Or not:

The U.S. government has quietly withdrawn a $5 million reward it was offering for the killing or capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, named by Pentagon officials as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Michael Moynihan explains what Republicans could learn from the Tories. Money quote:

The political landscape in America is hardly analogous to that of England. Despite Blair’s public piousness, fealty unto God isn’t a prerequisite for a presumptive prime minister. Nor do issues like abortion, the death penalty, or stem-cell research dominate the political culture. British conservatism is in many important ways distinct from its American cousin. But as many American conservatives have noted—David Frum in his book Comeback and his National Review colleague Jonah Goldberg—America too is becoming more socially tolerant and, if the Republican Party is interested in a successful future, a Cameron-like shift to the center on issues such as gay marriage and the drug war is advisable.

Now they tell us.

Instapundit discovers the libertarian Republican. Where has he been? His explanation:

Paul and I are both libertarians, but of different varieties. Paul is an old-fashioned Rothbardian. I’m more of a Heinleinian libertarian and we, like the Randian libertarians, tend to view national defense as more important than the Rothbardians do.

Paul’s view, essentially, is that if we quit sending troops abroad, other people and countries would quit wanting to kill us. I’m not particularly persuaded by this. First, even during the minimal-government era of Thomas Jefferson we wound up at war with the Barbary Pirates (in many ways, the spiritual antecedents of today’s Islamic terrorists). And second, Paul is not an isolationist – he favors much more commercial and cultural engagement with foreign countries, something which, if experience is any guide, is as likely to anger Islamic fundamentalists and other varieties of terrorists and tyrants as is the establishment of foreign bases.

Sobering:

In many visits to the so-called Holy Land, I have never quite been able to imagine that a Jewish state in Palestine will still be in existence a hundred years from now. A state for Jews, possibly. But a Jewish state …