The Dish

Well, she did apologize.

If they’re trying to jail you, you’ve probably stumbled on the truth:

Raja Petra Kamarudin, the editor of one of Malaysia’s most popular political websites, Malaysia Today, turned himself in to police on Wednesday, to answer allegations that he had mocked Islam and threatened racial harmony.

"I was alleged to have insulted the king, and also Islam and incite racial hatred, so I am going in there to reply to all these charges. I promise I’m going to give them a hell of a tough time," he told the BBC before he turned himself in.

David Whyte’s "What To Remember When Waking":

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live…

Continued here.

Some interesting new Gallup polling data of potential match-ups between four of the top tier candidates on both sides:

Clinton 44%, Giuliani 50%
Clinton 47%, Thompson 45%
Obama 52%, Giuliani 43%
Obama 56%, Thompson 36%

The poll also finds that Giuliani’s unfavorables have gone from 22 to 32 percent in the last six months. Obama’s have traveled a more modest 21 to 28 percent. Rudy’s favorables have gone backward the more people know him – from 65 percent to 60 in six months. Obama’s have only increased: 46 to 59 percent.   So in six months, Obama has closed a 20 point favorable differential gap on Giuliani. Remind me why any Democrat would back Clinton?

Rudy won’t bite, apparently. Romney’s decidedly cool to the idea. The others are getting iffy. Hewitt declares YouTube and CNN biased. Heh. For my part, the current old white men running for the GOP already seem from some other planet. Ducking YouTube after the Dems did so well will look like a party uncomfortable with the culture and uncomfortable with democracy. But then, we kind of knew that already, I guess, didn’t we?

The former speaker protests that Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon took his remarks about the "pygmies" in the GOP race out of context. Yeah, right.

Hey, it makes a change from Mike Gerson. The attacks here. Tyler Cowen defends him:

Brooks makes nine claims (or try this link), and to my eyes eight of them check out directly, based on material I am familiar with and yes I mean the original sources, not journalistic summaries of them.  (I should note it is not easy to estimate the total gains from globalization, and I wouldn’t put much weight on any particular number here; still those gains are likely very large, as Brooks suggests.)

A runway show in China. They really have come a long way, haven’t they?

A Constitutional guide to the issue:

According to CRS, the inherent contempt power is uniquely characterized by "not requiring the cooperation or assistance of either the executive or judicial branches."

While it is true that the President can immunize persons from criminal prosecution, it does not appear that he has authority to immunize a witness from congressional inherent contempt proceeding. . . . A finding of inherent contempt against an executive branch official[] does not appear to be subject to the President’s Pardon power …

Although the contemnor can seek judicial review by means of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the scope of such review may be relatively limited, compared to the plenary review accorded by the courts in cases of conviction under the criminal contempt statute.