The Dish

They’re after beauty again:

Iran on Monday launched a new wave of a moral crackdown against women who "dress like models" and men whose hairstyles are deemed unIslamic, police said.

Tehran’s police force dispatched dozens of police cars and minibuses into the early evening rush-hour to enforce the dress rules at major squares in the city centre, an AFP correspondent said.

The new "plan to increase security in society" — which is limited to Tehran but will later extend nationwide — comes after a pre-summer drive by the police resulted in thousands of warnings and hundreds of arrests.

Over a hundred have been arrested for "sex crimes" in the city where they hanged two gay teens. This has happened before, but it’s a useful sign that the regime does not control the minds of the people.

Maybe I was wrong:

Another Christianist is charged for soliciting sex from a prostitute.

A reader writes:

I was reading your posts about Ron Paul’s candidacy [YouTube Paul convert here], and I had an idea that I’m surprised nobody else has thought of (to my knowledge). Paul isn’t going to win the Republican nomination. But I believe he is poised to become the most significant third-party candidate in 2008. Other potential independents — Michael Bloomberg in particular — seem to want to run as independents just because neither major party will have them. That’s true of Paul, too. But Paul, unlike Bloomberg, will have the support of a party: the Libertarian Party.

The Libertarian Party nominated Ron Paul for President in 1988. He ran his campaign while maintaining good relations with the Republican Party. Since then the need for a credible Libertarian candidate has grown significantly, as the Republican Party leaders have abandoned libertarianism, and Paul’s views have become heretical. Now, thanks to the shock value of his "heresy", he’s already become far better-known than most Libertarian Presidential candidates ever get. The Libertarians would be fools not to nominate him. And if they do, he and his supporters will be even more vocal, from now until November 2008. In a tight three-way race, this could put him in an excellent kingmaker position.

Why not run again as a libertarian? Many of us are dreading the possible choice next year. Paul as a third party candidate would cheer us up no end.

Newt goes nuclear on the current GOP field. But he’s toughest on Chris Matthews:

"You’re watching an utterly irrelevant, shallow television celebrity dominate everybody who claimed they want to lead the most powerful nation in the world."

Newt is still a jerk, isn’t he?

There’s a contest at the Chicago Tribune. The final four: Homer Simpson vs. Ralph Wiggum; Moe Szyslak vs. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. Ralph just edged out Mr Burns. You can vote!

Independents overwhelmingly oppose this president and his legacy:

Among Republicans (30% of adults registered to vote in the survey), 68% approve of the way Bush is handling his job and 26% disapprove. Among Democrats (37% of adults registered to vote in the survey), 1% approve and 97% disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job. Among independents (33% of adults registered to vote in the survey), 18% approve and 79% disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as president.

And there is a very strange pocket of Republicans still completely fine with Bush. That’s what happens with a faith-based politics. No facts or data can affect it. Like Bush’s policies.

A reader makes the following point:

I am pretty sure you have never spent a significant amount of time in NYC. If you had, you would know that the only thing separating hard-working fare-paying riders from smelly, annoying, begging, disruptive sleepers-on-public-transit, it’s the $2.00! Also re a car tax, forgive me, but driving into Manhattan for the privilege of being blown up at the corner of Lexington Ave & 41st Street just somehow seems punitive!

 

My live-blogging begins here. Bottom line here. Best question here. Concept review here. My colleague Marc Ambinder has a great round-up here. Keep scrolling.

I’d say it was a big success as a concept, although I wouldn’t be as excitable as JPod. If you’re sick of people like me on television, or worse, then the direct questions from regular voters and non-voters must have been a breath of extremely fresh air (there’s another asthmatic metaphor). I was fearing it would be lame. It wasn’t. Anderson was calm and appropriately tough (and, yes, I’m a friend but I’d say if he sucked as well). His affect was particularly well-suited to the new YouTube format, and his Kucinich quip was priceless. Here’s a link to the series of questions posed. Here’s a question, for example, that made it very hard for the candidates to retreat to abstractions or dodge the subject. They dodged anyway. But it was more obvious. That’s a step forward. More, please.