The Dish

Yes, but not a very good one. Here’s the opening paragraph from Penguin’s wiki book experiment:

The deep waters, black as ink, began to swell and recede into an uncertain distance. A gray ominous mist obscured the horizon. The ocean expanse seemed to darken in disapproval. Crashing tides sounded groans of agonized discontent. The ocean pulsed with a frightening, vital force. Although hard to imagine, life existed beneath. It’s infinite underbelly was teeming with life, a monstrous collection of finned, tentacled, toxic, and slimy parts. Below its surface lay the wreckage of countless souls. But we had dared to journey across it. Some had even been brave enough to explore its sable velveteen depths, and have yet to come up for precious air…."

Matt Stoller examines the organizational overhaul the Obama campaign promises for the Democrats. Yes: it’s extremely ambitious. Money quote from an Edwards supporter:

In a strange sort of way, this is rather inspiring. I mean, in almost no time, the guy has managed to consolidate power totally. At the same time, he’s done this in a fashion much different from traditional dictators, or even powerful political figures like Clinton; rather than taking the reigns and giving himself the power and closing the windows so no one can see what he’s doing, he’s opening up the windows more, and simply giving power to those who share his ideology. Yes, this is what Clinton did (empowering the DLC), but he empowered them around himself and neutered any major figures who could oppose them, while Obama is actually training them. I wish he would allow for partisans like us to be in the group, but it is still an interesting thing to watch.

Nuremberg’s Czech striker Jan Koller drinks during the German first division Bundesliga football match Hertha BSC Berlin vs 1.FC Nuremburg on May 10, 2008 at the Olympic stadium in the German capital Berlin. By Michael Gottschalk/Getty.

Or how to waste a lot of beer at the Preakness. It’s from last year, but the Youtube is great.

Thomas P.M. Barnett summarizes Suzanne Barlyn’s article on outsourcing legal work to India:

We’re looking at 29k legal jobs shipped abroad by the end of 2008 and maybe 80k by 2015. India is simply moving up the service ladder, just like China does on the manufacturing ladder. You go from call centers (lower-value business process outsourcing) to knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). Engineering and medicine comes under assault too, as these KPOs act more and more like "branch offices of U.S. companies."

India’s advantages are clear: English speakers and a common law background.

Dan Savage, writing from the Starbucks capital of the world, attacks the petite scone I’ve praised so lavishly:

I like petite vanilla pastries just as much as the next effete urban elitist. And I’ve tried these “scones” from Starbucks—in South Carolina, in Chicago, and in Seattle (at the airport). And those petite vanilla scones utterly flavorless, the icing is chalky, and the edges are neither crispy nor crusty. They taste like lightly sweetened Play-Doh. They are wholly without merit.

A reader adds:

You’re crazy.  Nothing is better than the Starbucks toffee almond bar.  I dislike coffee and would never have a reason to ever go into a Starbucks if it wasn’t for the toffee almond.  To even suggest that something like a petite scone could compete with it is heresy.

I’m grateful for Dan for providing a Proustian edge to my petite scone fetish. Play-Doh! Mmmmm.

I had a feeling this was true:

A consumer advocacy group commissioned the tests in which British microbiologist James Francis took a swab to 33 keyboards, a toilet seat and a toilet door handle at the publication’s London office in January.

Francis then tested the swabs to see what nasty germs he managed to pick up. He found that four of the keyboards tested were potential health hazards — and one had levels of germs five times higher than that found on the toilet seat.

Now we know why Mickey blogs so infrequently.

Phillip Carter reacts to news that Jay Hood won’t be named U.S. military attache to Pakistan because of his ties to Guantanamo Bay:

The cancellation of Hood’s appointment shows a promising new willingness among senior administration officials to listen to world opinion. It would have been incredibly tone-deaf of us to send an officer with Hood’s assignment history to Pakistan — probably about as smart as using an officer like Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a man with a history of worrisome public comments about Christianity and the war on terrorism, to engage with Arab and Israeli officials. The military attache position in Islamabad deserves a soldier-diplomat par excellence, and unfortunately, that’s not Jay Hood.

An excerpt from Taylor Clark’s article on vegetarianism:

To demonstrate what a vegetarian really is, let’s begin with a simple thought experiment. Imagine a completely normal person with completely normal food cravings, someone who has a broad range of friends, enjoys a good time, is carbon-based, and so on. Now remove from this person’s diet anything that once had eyes, and, wham!, you have yourself a vegetarian. Normal person, no previously ocular food, end of story. Some people call themselves vegetarians and still eat chicken or fish, but unless we’re talking about the kind of salmon that comes freshly plucked from the vine, this makes you an omnivore. A select few herbivores go one step further and avoid all animal products—milk, eggs, honey, leather—and they call themselves vegan, which rhymes with "tree men." These people are intense.

The rest is here.

The big state gave Clinton a ten-point victory in its primary. A new SUSA poll gives Obama a 6 point edge. When you look at the demographic date, you find that the black vote hasn’t changed much, unlike in other states. And Latino support for Clinton has dropped, but Obama hasn’t managed to gain. White males have moved decisively to Obama but the biggest swing appears among Asian-Americans. The Asian vote has gone from 71 – 25 for Clinton to 54 – 37 for Obama.