Can’t you give us a way cooler version of the Kindle?
A Question About Prostitution
A reader has an interesting point:
1. Why is it illegal for me to pay a prostitute for sex, but it’s NOT illegal for a film director to pay two people to have sex in front of a camera and then make money for his product in the form of a DVD or an online download?
2. As a corollary: Why are a prostitute and her john held in such contempt by the media and the public, but Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy are treated as rock stars on both cable and network television? Are they not prostitutes? They were, in actuality, paid for sex. No?
A thought experiment: if you hired a couple to have sex in your bedroom while you watched, it would be prostitution. if someone else hired them, put it on video and you watched them in your bedroom, it would be porn. Why is one illegal and the other isn’t?
Quote For The Day
"Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be," – Thomas Jefferson.
McCain And The Economy
It’s his weak spot. Here’s what he may be trying to accomplish. And here’s why it’s an uphill struggle.
Seven New Deadly Sins?
James Martin untangles another media bungling of Catholic theology.
Standing Room Only
Orin Kerr wonders when you should show up to get a seat at the Supreme Court for DC vs Heller.
Legalizing Prostitution
Badford Plumer weighs the pros and cons.
The Surge Stalled?
The great news of last year has been buffeted by brutal news such as yesterday’s suicide bomb attack against five US soldiers. The image of a man coming up to those soldiers – who were on patrol, chatting up residents, doing what we have asked them to do – and calmly exploding himself is hard to get out of one’s head. It captures the awful, soul-sapping difficulty of fighting a death cult with no scruples, no rules, no morality, no honor. Now we have more solid data:
Newly declassified statistics on the frequency of insurgent attacks in Iraq suggest that after major security gains last fall in the wake of an American troop increase, the conflict has drifted into at least a temporary stalemate, with violence levels remaining stubbornly constant from November 2007 through early 2008.
I don’t feel in any way vindicated. I don’t know what the underlying dynamics are in Iraq – dynamics that are very hard to understand and constantly shifting. The surge has achieved much more in tamping down violence than I expected. But it isn’t a panacea; and it can’t work miracles. The ditch we’re in is deep, as surge supporter Michael O’Hanlon acknowledged today. Only more candor – from Obama and McCain – can help us.
Fallon Fired?
Thomas Barnett’s Esquire piece may well have done him in. Who knows what this says about Iran policy? Or Iraq policy? Fallon was known as a believer that the indefinite Iraq occupation was slowly wrecking the US military.
