The Dish

The Jed Report states the obvious.

Barron YoungSmith wants the history of American conservatism taught in schools.

The contest entries are trickling in. A few of the best so far:

Debates live. Are my ears evil stabbed?

"Not nil!" cheer thoughts that reach Clinton.

Who is the oinkiest of them all? Like you need to ask:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year.

Bob Reich explains how Hillary forced his hand. I think this means Mickey will support Clinton.

Virginia Postrel’s reaction to being plagiarized. I’m usually flattered myself.

A moving story of a middle-aged Jewish woman in Maine – positive now for seventeen years. It will be my fifteenth anniversary this summer. In the battle with the virus, the virus lost. For the time being, anyway. And what else is there?

The Onion radio news has a scoop about the blogosphere.

Edward Lewine on more gay couples raising children:

The difference in experience between older gay men and the new breed has caused something of a generation gap: Men in their twenties and thirties have come of age with the expectation that they can find partners and raise families if they choose to, whereas older men have had to adjust their thinking to the possibility.

The speed of cultural change in the gay community is related to the fact that almost all gay kids are born into and raised in heterosexual families. Once the possibility of having a life as worthy and as good as their straight siblings enters their consciousness, a whole new world is born. It will not be undone, however hard to Bush-Rove right seeks to persecute and marginalize us.

An article on how Catholics should treat critics of faith:

The committed Catholic (indeed, the committed practitioner of any great religious tradition) is bound to bristle at the aggressive tone and the tendency toward caricature and sweeping generalization that runs through these works. It is tempting simply to dismiss these attacks. Yet the Second Vatican Council’s mandate for respectful engagement with the critics of faith invites an alternative course of action. We must certainly defend the integrity and reasonableness of our deepest religious convictions, but an adequate Catholic response must go beyond traditional apologetics; we must also ask ourselves whether there is anything in our Catholic Christian culture that invites these attacks and might be avoided without abandoning what is essential to our faith. I focus on three elements in the Catholic faith that call for our attention: Catholic practices that suggest a naïve theism; the nature of Catholic truth claims; and the exercise of church authority.