great and puzzling news...

The good news:

Thanks to a radical shift in thinking among independents and Democrats during the past year, for the first time in Gallup Poll tracking a clear majority of Americans now approves of gay marriage.

A new Gallup Poll released this morning finds that this month 53% of Americans say same-sex marriage should be recognized in law as equally valid with traditional male-female marriages.

It's always great to see the populace ahead of its leaders; but with the Strom Thurmonds of equal marriage rights John McCain and Rick Santorum still going strong, we'll probably get federal recognition for same-sex marriage in about thirty years. After all, we found out about Thurmond's mixed-race shame-child a few decades late. How long before we discover Messrs. S & M's secret rentboys?

And speaking of hypocrisy, here's the weird part of the study:

Support for gay marriage is higher among Catholics than Protestants, among the unmarried and among those who attend church less frequently.

Seriously, Catholics: is there anything your leaders say that that you actually follow? Or is the built-in guilt like an invitation to flout church doctrine? Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[ToTT]

atlas judged

It's during moments such as this that I have trouble with what passes for mainstream libertarianism these days.

The newest announced Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul, wasted no time inserting himself into the international scandal involving the arrest of the head of the International Monetary Fund on sexual assault charges. 

The 12-term Texas Republican representative is no friend of large financial institutions, be it the IMF or the Federal Reserve. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday" 48 hours after announcing his candidacy, Paul sought to paint the removal of Dominique Strauss-Kahn from a departing international flight and his arrest on suspicion of attempted rape of a Manhattan hotel maid as the kinds of high-handed things to be expected of such authorities.  

"These are the kinds of people who are running the IMF," Paul told Chris Wallace, "and we want to turn the world's finances and the control of the money supply [over] to them?"

My problem is quite simple: if you believe that the intervention of the state leads to a subjugation of the capable by the ineffectual, then morality has no place in your world-view. In short, it shouldn't matter whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a sexual predator or not, because the institution he heads distorts and usurps the natural order of things.

But if there is a better candidate to run the IMF, then you're not in favor of its abolition -- you're favor of its reform.

You can't say the state is the source of all evil, except in cases where you like the rules or the individuals who happen to be in charge. Libertarianism is an all-or-nothing proposition.

[ToTT]

questions answered

I started to watch this video, but realized that if the answer wasn't microbial gremlins or extraterrestrial life, I was likely to be disappointed by the answer.

[the Today show. yeah, I know.]

Charlie Sheen has taught us something after all:

Charisma is a lot easier to manufacture on film than it is on stage.

[EW, image via BBC News]

Noooooooooo

After I was handicapping the Republican primaries, someone said I sounded like I was talking about baseball. It's just as well baseball season opens today, because this is some depressing stuff, as far as I'm concerned:

In an unusual move, the coveted first debate of the 2012 presidential primary season is being rescheduled. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation announced that it is moving its "Reagan Centennial GOP Presidential Primary Candidates Debate" from May 2 to Sept. 14, 2011.

But where can I find a televised train wreck that is as excruciating as it is pleasurable to watch this Spring?

Oh, wait... never mind.

[CBS News and Meet the Mets, Meet the Mets...]

aww...but we like YOU

Did Radiohead totally dis North America back there? This went out this weekend to their subscriber list:

"all good record stores ... and the USA&Canada" -- what is this, 1770?

 (I know we deserve it, but what did Canada ever do to you?)

the crown aiming at the heart of Lenin. Makes sense.

Decades after its official end, the Cold War continues to yield outstanding drama with high enough stakes (it could have incinerated the world after all) that ended with a damp squib.

Nearly a century ago, Britain was accused of masterminding a failed plot to kill Lenin and overthrow his fledgling Bolshevik regime. The British government dismissed the story as mere Soviet propaganda - but new evidence suggests it might be true.

[BBC News]

when appealing to people's better nature doesn't work...

appeal to their wallets.

Arizona established itself over the past year as the most aggressive state in cracking down on illegal immigrants, gaining so much momentum with its efforts that several other states vowed to follow suit. But now the harsh realities of economics appear to have intruded, and Arizona may be looking to shed the image of hard-line anti-immigration pioneer.

In an abrupt change of course, Arizona lawmakers rejected new anti-immigration measures on Thursday, in what was widely seen as capitulation to pressure from business executives and an admission that the state’s tough stance had resulted in a chilling of the normally robust tourism and convention industry.

Who said the business lobby only works for evil? Apparently, sometimes greed can spur wins for the ethical side as well.

[NYTimes]

question

As a Western nation engaging in its third concurrent war in a Muslim country -- and clearly leery of any more open-ended engagements -- do we really want to call this "Odyssey"?

something about chickens and roosts

One wishes this was surprising. As it becomes clear that the wave of democratic movements sweeping the Middle East was little more than a narrow window of opportunity, it's equally clear that leaders in the West might be more than a little relieved:

The son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has alleged that his country helped finance Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential election campaign. "We funded it and we have all the details and are ready to reveal everything," Saif al-Islam said.

This makes the Economist's chronicle of European leaders' moral equivalency make all the more sense:

IMAGINE your awkward neighbours across the street. You befriended them, drew them into the neighbourhood-watch scheme and even made some nice trades. All of a sudden they are exposed as criminals, or maybe brutes with women enslaved in their basements. Would you feel guilt about your friendship? Remorse about having ignored the telltale signs? Or would you feign outrage, like Captain Renault’s in “Casablanca”: “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Such are the emotions that Europe’s leaders feel as their friends across the Mediterranean are toppled by long-suffering subjects. True Europe has had little choice in its neighbours. Good relations were a necessity of life, particularly for countries with oil and gas, or those that guarded against terrorists and illegal migrants. Yet some European actions now seem craven indeed. Remember Gordon Brown’s dissimulation about the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan jailed for life in Scotland for his role in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing? Or the sight of Silvio Berlusconi kissing the hand of Muammar Qaddafi? In the grab for a share of Libya’s oil wealth, many others have been stained. Libyan petrodollars, moreover, have found their way into companies and institutions across Europe, from the Juventus football team to the London School of Economics.

Understandable, if still shamefully craven. And no wonder Sarko has been so eager to lead this operation -- beyond just trying to purge the nasty taste of Tunisia's collaborationism -- he's trying to clear his election debt!  [BBC, Economist]

why politics matter

Take the time to read this article. It explains in excruciating detail why the closing of Guantanamo Bay matters; why policy decisions taken on the highest level need to be considered for its minutest consequences; and why we thought we were voting for Barack Obama -- so that callous dismissals of stories like this as inevitable collateral damage ("stuff happens") was an inexcusable disregard for the sanctity of universal human rights.

Eight years ago, an [REDACTED] Afghan kid—some say he was [REDACTED] years old, others say he was 12—was grabbed in a Kabul marketplace after a grenade attack on two American soldiers. He was interrogated, [REDACTED], and then taken to Guantánamo. He spent his teenage years there, seven in all, confined in a [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] with the supposed "worst of the worst." But then, thanks ot the superhuman efforts of his defense team and one intense [REDACTED] military lawyer, the government's case against him disintegrated. Now he's back in Afghanistan, free as a badly damaged bird, in a [REDACTED] country he barely recognizes, wondering where you go when you grew up nowhere

[GQ]

speaking truth to power (from the seat of power)

Dear (Former) State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley: Fucking Good On You.

Debate over the controversial treatment of alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning apparently has cost State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley his job.

[...]

Manning’s treatment since being arrested last May and charged with providing thousands of classified documents – many of them diplomatically embarrassing – has been the subject of considerable debate.

He’s being held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day in a windowless 6-by-12-foot cell, and for a time he was stripped naked at night – due to concerns about the possibility of suicide, according to defense officials.

If only someone with the government was willing to put morals above their career when it came to Guantanamo Bay.

[CS Monitor]

TRUTH WILL OUT

As I am sometimes convinced that the powerful without scruples are completely shameless -- here's some heartening news. John Ensign apparently has a grain of shame left:

The decision to be announced in Nevada reverses Mr. Ensign’s stated determination to run again despite an ongoing ethics investigation into his admitted affair with the wife of a former staff member. Mr. Ensign’s parents eventually provided nearly $100,000 to the family of the aide, Doug Hampton, and Mr. Ensign also faced questions about helping with the lobbying career of his one-time chief of staff.

File under This is EXACTLY what it looks like

[NY Times]

the reason why we shouldn't circle the racial wagons...

...is because if I felt some misplaced tribal loyalty to another person simply because they looked like me, I couldn't call Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas a democracy-undermining self-interested loathsome little toad. But since I'm free of such fetters, I can.

Duke Snyder, 1926-2011

Something that's not really all that germane to COItc's pursuits is my undying love for a long-dead baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. So it's especially tragic as we lose the surviving members of that team, as their ranks are never to be replenished, and saying goodbye to each player means saying goodbye to the team all over again. This one's an especially painful one.

Although he made his home in California, Snider retained emotional ties to Brooklyn.

He made that clear on Sept. 12, 1963, when the Mets gave him a “night” at their home in the Polo Grounds, where the Brooklyn Dodgers had long been the hated foe. Snider’s former Brooklyn teammates were introduced — Robinson, Campanella, Erskine, Furillo, Don Newcombe and Ralph Branca. And then Snider moved to the microphone.

“I look up into the stands and it looks like Ebbets Field,” he said. “The Mets are wonderful, but you can’t take the Dodger out of Brooklyn.”

[NYTimes]

kids, lawn, etc.

Goodness, I knew I was old, but if blogs like this one are becoming obsolete:

Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation.

What does kind of dinosaur is our podcast?

[NYTimes]

great/horrible

You decide which.

if you're not going to donate to our fall production...

Felipe Ossa has some key insight as to where you can send that disposable income.

 (hint: it's all about the kitty.)

SUCH a bad idea

DID THEY NOT SEE LOGAN'S RUN?

This never ends well...

oh, don

Apparently McNamara II -- er, Donald Rumsfeld -- has seen fit to write a book.

Mr. Rumsfeld condemns what he describes as [L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian director of the American occupation of Iraq]'s heavy-handed, top-down approach and his decision to delay the transfer of authority back to Iraqis. Those actions, he writes, “inadvertently stoked nationalist resentments and fanned the embers of what would become the Iraqi insurgency.”

Interesting theory, Don. I have another -- maybe it was the arbitrary invasion of their country that lit those insurgency fires. But I guess it's just another known unknown, eh?