The Dish

A promising new treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, something many veterans of Iraq will be grappling with in the months and years ahead.

The mullahs torture a man deported from the UK:

"It was really, really cold without any glass in the windows. It was snowing – I was really cold – I only had my T-shirt on and they kept me two days there without any food. My profile was handed to the NSA – the National Security Agency. They tortured me, beat me up, asked me what I was doing in England, who was supporting me, whose idea was it to stitch up my face and lips and be against the Iranian government. They didn’t show me any mercy… kicking me, punching me and sometimes using their batons to beat me up. They just beat me up and made ready my case to the court."

From the hypothermia to the dietary manipulation to the beatings: will Rudy Giuliani explain why this is not torture when the US does it?

Peter Berkowitz is unimpressed.

Not every blogger spends his airplane rides re-translating Heidegger’s favorite poet, Friedrich Holderlin. But then not every blogger is Scott Horton:

God is near
Yet hard to seize.
Where there is danger,
The rescue grows as well.
Eagles live in the darkness,
And the sons of the Alps
Go fearlessly over the abyss
Upon bridges simply built.
Therefore, since the peaks
Of Time are heaped all about,
And dear ones live close by,
Worn down on the most separated mountains —
Then give us innocent waters;
Give us wings, and the truest minds
To voyage over and then again to return…

The fight is ongoing. My respect for CNN increases. Here’s the propagandist’s open letter to the network. Here’s their response.

Could circumcision be affecting women’s sex lives? Some say yes.

There’s a critical vote this week. Some important info here. Call your senators.

A reader writes:

Terry Mangum’s reference to being Elijah is a major clue to where his theology of hate is coming from. There is a scripture in the last chapter of Malichi predicting that before the end of the world, God would send forth Elijah the prophet to turn "the hearts of children" back to God’s covenant with their forefathers.

This scripture is pivotal to the "End Times" theology of many American Christian fundamentalist traditions. That Mangum would be inspired by this prophecy is an indication that he is not operating outside of the mainstream of Christian fundamentalism.

As for Fundamentalist Christians and their hatred of homosexuality, the proof can be found in the history of the Religious Right itself. In the mid to late 70’s, the likes of Anita Bryant, Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell rose to power by provoking mainstream Christianity’s uneasiness over the emerging issue of equal civil rights for homosexuals and the decriminalization of homosexual acts. Even the Religious Right’s opposition to the ERA was partly predicated on the fear that if passed, the ERA would make gay sex, gay marriage and gay adoption civil rights.

In September of 2003 I attended a Southern Baptist Sunday service in southwest Georgia. This was just a few months after the Texas sodomy laws were overthrown. The minister spent his entire sermon lamenting that decision, and predicting that God’s wrath would be unleashed on America if Conservative (aka "Christian") judges were not appointed to the Supreme Court to overturn such rulings.

As I explain at some length in The Conservative Soul, the eschatology of Christianism is just as dangerous as the eschatology of Jewish extremists in Israel and, more potently, the Shiite nutters around Ahmadinejad. It is not surprising that religious fundamentalists cannot see the parallels between their movements. But that doesn’t mean others can’t.

So we were sitting down to dinner at Frappo66 on the Commercial Street sidewalk in Ptown last night, having locked our bikes to a nearby traffic sign. Suddenly, a car careens from the other side of street, with no driver, and, narrowly missing several pedestrians, proceeds to crush the sign, trash our bikes completely and keep going toward the restaurant proper. If it weren’t for a few practical gals on their toes, it could have kept going. A disabled woman had tried to park her car from the outside, by reaching in through the car window and maneuvring the steering wheel. It took off on her. Well, she said she’d pay for new bikes. We’re lucky some small kid wasn’t killed or injured.

Will Saletan critically examines "progressive" views on stem cell research. Mark Hoofnagle demurs.