The Dish

Does Rosie have a case?

A useful reminder of the corporate welfare that lies behind agricultural subsidies:

[I]f subsidies were really designed to alleviate farmer poverty, then lawmakers could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of 185% of the federal poverty level ($38,203 for a family of four) for under $5 billion annually – one-fifth the current cost of farm subsidies.

Instead, federal farm policies specifically bypass family farmers. Subsidies are paid per acre, so the largest (and most profitable) agribusinesses automatically receive the biggest checks. Consequently, commercial farmers — who report an average annual income of $200,000 and a net worth of nearly $2 million — collect the majority of farm subsidies. Fortune 500 companies, celebrity "hobby farmers" and even some members of Congress collect millions of dollars under this program.

Baghdad is close to being divided into homogeneous neighborhoods, Shia and Sunni. The 600 dumped bodies in the last month are part of the cleansing. We keep talking about the horrors that would follow a US withdrawal. But the horror of cleansing is occurring under our watch. Troop deployments in neighborhoods most dangerous to US troops facilitate it. Probably can’t be helped, but it’s worth noting that the numbers of sectarian murders, according to IraqSlogger, are back up to pre-surge levels. Cleansing may well be inevitable, and may in fact be necessary for some kind of peaceful partition to emerge. But it isn’t pretty. And it’s already here.

(Map by Zeyad Kasim.)

"I take it black. Like my men." Airplane.

A reader writes:

I’m sorry about your lungs. When I read your post it made me think about a dream I had the day I came out to my family at 22 years old.

I was swimming through my house (yes, swimming) with my sister, but instead of going into the house we were going down deeper into the house. I suddenly realized that I had to take a breath. I was way too deep to make it back out. My heart began to beat hard. I felt a sense of doom and terror. Finally, I had to gasp, but nothing. I was fine. Breathing feels strange when you expect your lungs to fill with water. Then I suddenly realized that I was a dolphin, and everything was going to be alright. We continued on deeper into the house. It was fantastic.

Another site, Wooster Collective, has some great photos of the street art wave that’s going on globally. Here’s another site – with plenty of links. My favorite is Sam3 whose work is pictured above. But check them all out.

Turnaround is fair play, I guess.

Juan Cole wonders what this passage in a Daily Telegraph story could possibly mean:

The two countries did agree to form a security committee, with Iraq, to focus on containing Sunni insurgents. The committee would concentrate on the threat from groups such as al-Qa’eda in Iraq, officials said, but not those [Shiite] militia groups the US accuses Iran of funding and training.

Well, staying in Iraq with our current force levels means picking sides either permanently or provisionally. Every side we pick brings us more enemies. We have Krauthammer backing a pro-Sunni policy, and now this hint of an anti-Sunni policy. Each posture makes us less secure, even as it might bring some short-term security to Iraqis in any particular place and time. The hard question is: do we have the forces and resources to create a genuinely national government in Baghdad? The answer is obviously no. We can do some good in the short term, but we have to leave sooner rather than later. Picking sides to make our withdrawal less bloody is defensible. Picking them to keep ourselves as an occupying power for the indefinite future? Not such a good idea.

Soren Dayton thinks Thompson would mean much less dislocation for the GOP.

Ira Stoll writes:

The book quotes Senator McCain as saying, "Dick [Cheney] doesn’t like campaigning." Nothing in the Hayes book suggests that Mr. Cheney is about to do it — except for that the vice president spent nearly 30 hours cooperating with the author and apparently gave the okay for many of his friends and colleagues to grant similar access. The Richard Cheney described in this book isn’t vain enough to do that simply for his reputation in history. My own guess — okay, hope — is that Mr. Cheney has taken a look at the Republican presidential field and sees an opening. If Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans start receiving copies of " Cheney" in their mailboxes, Mr. Cheney’s popularity may yet begin to climb.