The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Saturday, December 1, 2007

01 Dec 2007 08:49 pm

Slouching Away From Gomorrah

Pete Wehner and Yuval Levin chart the enormous gains in various social indicators since the early 1990s. The one great anomaly is the family, which remains roughly where it was:

Even as the teenage birth rate has fallen, out-of-wedlock births in general have reached an all-time high: 37 percent of all births in 2005. Over half of all marriages are now preceded by a period of unmarried cohabitation, and marriage rates themselves have declined by almost one-half since 1970.

In the life of any society, the place of the family is central. That fact alone makes these last statistics significant, and seriously complicates the picture of dramatic progress in other, related realms. Indeed, the two starkly divergent trends, taken side by side, should cause us to reconsider certain common assumptions concerning just how culture, behavior, family, and society interact, and how they change.

Wehner and Levin don't really have a coherent explanation for this - especially since social conservatives have long argued that the breakdown in traditional family structure is the core reason behind other social ills, such as crime. Perhaps it isn't in all social settings. Perhaps living in sin for a while before marriage is actually a social good for some; perhaps lower rates of marriage are not the end of the world - as many victims of awful marriages can attest. Perhaps child-birth outside marriage is not necessarily a bad thing if the relationship is solid and care for the child is secure. Perhaps, in other words, holding the family of the 1950s up as the standard by which all family structure should be measured is not, in fact, very helpful. I don't know, but it seems one obvious inference from the data worth exploring further.

01 Dec 2007 06:29 pm

The View From Your Window

Wilmington, Delaware, 2.45 pm.

01 Dec 2007 05:30 pm

National Review's Fabulist Scandal

The Dish has it covered. Posts here, here, and here.

01 Dec 2007 04:59 pm

Blogging The Brain

Some very cool links from Chris Chatham.

01 Dec 2007 04:26 pm

Torture In American History II

A reader writes:

I'm sure that your post will generate its share of outrage from southerners who feel unfairly singled out for blame for the cultural roots of torture in America, so I commend you to a book called "The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity" by Jill Lepore (now a professor of history at Harvard). Professor Lepore describes a conflict with some eerie similarities to the post-9/11 "war on terror." After a period of engagement, in which the British settlers of New England tried to engage and "civilize" the native population, the Wampanoags turned on the settlers in a series of brutal attacks (including the murder and kidnap of women and children on isolated farms).

Continue reading "Torture In American History II" »

01 Dec 2007 04:18 pm

Beards!

The online pro-follicle community continues to grow. Here's a hot-or-not beard page; a blog dedicated to growing beards to help battered women; and a no-shave November round-up.

01 Dec 2007 04:06 pm

That Bible Question and Mormonism

Now we begin to understand why Romney struggled so much with that question in the YouTube debate about Biblical literalism. The question itself may have been a code attack on Mormonism itself. This LDS official statement is pretty clear:

"Latter-day Saints revere the Bible. They study it and believe it to be the word of God. However, they do not believe the Bible, as it is currently available, is without error... As the Bible was compiled, organized, translated and transcribed, many errors entered the text."

I have a feeling a lot of evangelicals may be getting those sentences by email in the next few weeks. Now, of course, the imperfection of the Bible seems self-evident to me. It contradicts itself many times. But it sure doesn't look that way to fundamentalists and many evangelicals. And the question is broad enough to make it into legitimate mainstream discourse. So the evangelicals don't have to "go there" in attacking Romney's Mormonism directly, or raising some of its more eccentric doctrines; they can simply challenge Romney on Biblical literalism and tell their followers why a Mormon can't answer the question as well as Huckabee can. And it becomes very hard to tell them to knock it off: all they're doing is defending their own approach to Scripture.

01 Dec 2007 04:03 pm

The Neurology of Porn

Macaque apes turn out to be like humans:

Platt found that male macaques strongly preferred to look at pictures of females' rear ends and dominant males' faces. They liked them enough to pay, by sacrificing a chance to get a treat. But you had to bribe those same monkeys with treats to persuade them to look at female macaque faces or the faces of subordinate males.

01 Dec 2007 03:17 pm

Face Of The Day

A child plays as he looks for fish in Southkali, 01 December 2007. More than 3,400 people are confirmed dead after the powerful storm ripped through Bangladesh's southern and central districts on November 15. Thousands more are missing feared dead and an estimated 280,000 without shelter. By Mehdi Fedouach/AFP/Getty Images.

01 Dec 2007 03:00 pm

Strong Dollar, Better American Cheese

, Economy"> , Food and Drink">

Well, let's look on the bright side, shall we? From The American:

It is tempting to compare this growth to the rise of the American wine industry over the past two decades. And not just because cheese and wine are so tasty together. They are similar foods. Both harness the miracle of fermentation, the activity of bacteria on a simple commodity (milk or grape juice). Both are as much art as science, cherished for their unique capacity to speak of the land and the tradition in which they are born—what the cognoscenti call terroir.

Cheese and wine have traced similar paths to success. Both came to America with European immigrants seeking to recreate the traditional staples of their homelands. Both entered a long dark age of industrialization and standardization, and have spent decades repairing a devastated brand and fighting to capture a suspicious market against an overwhelming tide of high-quality European competition. To this day, the very expression “American cheese” elicits chuckles and images of convenient, individually wrapped slices and aerosolized whizzes.

Cheese 4What has been good for wine has been good for cheese. The rising wealth and strong dollar of the 1990s sent Americans flocking to Europe, returning with a new understanding and appreciation of continental eating.

01 Dec 2007 02:23 pm

A Short History Of Energy Policy

Not exactly encouraging:

We legislated against natural gas after the OPEC embargoes. Then we pinned all our hopes on natural gas and built capacity like crazy people. Then all the nukes were canceled based on one accident, during which, by all accounts, the safety systems actually behaved the way they were supposed to, avoiding a truly calamitous event. Now sequestration is the answer. We keep regulating, legislating, and reacting to one-time events or one type of pollutant with short-term measures.

01 Dec 2007 02:14 pm

A Lyric For Today

Many words may make it sound contrived
But somehow we're alive

The survivors - Our heads bowed
The survivors - At memorials for other faces in the crowd

Teachers and artists
And Saturday girls
In suits or sequins
Or twinsets-and-pearls

If life is worth living,
It's got to be run
As a means of giving,
Not as a race to be won
Many roads will run through many lives
But somehow we'll arrive.

- "The Survivors", by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.

01 Dec 2007 01:25 pm

Is Clinton Collapsing In New Hampshire?

The new Rasmussen poll can't be encouraging for her. The trend is looking brutal:

Clinton’s seven-point advantage is down from a ten-point lead in early November. In October, Clinton held a sixteen-point advantage over Obama. A month earlier, Clinton was ahead by twenty-three percentage points.

Opinion Dynamics sees the same:

A FOX News poll of likely New Hampshire Democratic voters finds that Clinton has the support of 30 percent followed by Obama at 23 percent. Edwards comes in third with 17 percent, Richardson receives the support of 12 percent.

Now imagine if Obama wins Iowa. New Hampshire happens very shortly thereafter. Independents can vote in either primary. I've always thought that Obama is an obvious New Hampshire candidate: an insurgent, a straight-talker, with far more independent appeal than Clinton. If Iowa and New Hampshire fall to him, black voters in South Carolina could realize he's viable and flock from Clinton. If that happens, Mrs Inevitable is in big trouble. (I'd add that an Obama surge in New Hamsphire among Independents could finish off McCain - because, unlike 2000, they won't be voting in the Republican primary.)

01 Dec 2007 12:30 pm

National Review Fabulist Update

A reader writes:

This is David Kenner. I'm an American journalist living in Beirut who writes for NOW Lebanon. Broadly speaking, I'm in Mr. Smith's "political camp" (supporting the pro-Western government, opposing Hezbollah). That said, Mr. Smith's writing on Lebanon is atrocious, and the "facts" that he reported never happened, as anyone living in Beirut could tell you. Really, it's not even a close call. If 4,000 - 5,000 Hezbollah gunmen deployed to Christian Beirut, the country would be descending to civil war. The idea that only Mr. Smith would have noticed this is absurd - somebody is feeding him fake news, and hoping he transmits it back to his readers in the States.

I actually criticized Smith from my blog, which covers Lebanese politics, in October. I suspect that is what he is responding to when he complains that people criticized him for calling Beirut's southern suburbs a Hezbollah "stronghold." Really, this sort of thing makes me very angry... Hezbollah does so much that is truly damaging to Lebanon, journalists shouldn't let them off the hook by making up things that never happened.

Kenner's response to the NRO spin can be read here. My summary of the charges here. The alleged factual inaccuracy - reporting 4,000 Hezbollah gunmen when they didn't exist - dwarfs any alleged incident Beauchamp reported for TNR.

01 Dec 2007 12:26 pm

A Coke vs Pepsi Smackdown

From the annals of punny local TV news:

01 Dec 2007 11:43 am

National Review's Fabulist Scandal

What goes around, I guess ... My take on the story they buried on a Friday afternoon can be read here. Kevin adds:

Well, we all make mistakes. Live and learn, eh? Whether the New Republic will be so charitable remains to be seen.

Insta-silence, natch. But he does manage to attack The New Republic again this morning!

01 Dec 2007 11:35 am

The Environmental Consciousness of Hunters

Frank Miniter explains:

Many nonhunters think hunters are simply bloodthirsty. I dare any nonhunter who feels that way to go to a hunting club, lodge, or hunting show and meet hunters, or simply to read a hunting magazine. If they do they'll find that hunters care deeply about our natural resources. I'm a bird-watcher, hiker, kayaker, wildlife photographer, and yes, hunter.

Another underlying myth about hunting is that if you don't hunt, eat meat, or wear leather products you are somehow beyond reproach. This myth falls apart when you realize that every farmer-and this goes double for small organic farms-has to control wildlife populations lethally in order to have crops left to harvest. If farmers don't use hunting to control deer, elk, geese, and other wildlife populations then those species propagate to the point and eat their crops. When you step back and look at the big picture you realize wildlife and humans are living in the same ecosystems. We're all competing for the same resources. We have to balance our needs with those of the wildlife around us. This is why farmers need hunters and why even vegetarians owe hunters.

01 Dec 2007 10:43 am

The View From Your Window

Dubuque, Iowa, 8.57 am.

01 Dec 2007 10:24 am

Huckabee's Call From God

A rip-off, of course. And the original was funnier and less inappopriate. And by a lesbian!

01 Dec 2007 09:22 am

All Over The Place

, Conservatism"> , Debate"> , Politics"> , Republicans">

James Poulos looks at various blog-responses to this week's GOP debate and sees nothing but wild incoherence and continuing conflict:

Fascinating, that is, because on the basis of these observations some possible facts emerge:

(1) McCain isn't fading anytime soon, though he'll only win if the others kill each other off;

(2) Huckabee is for real because he has a real constituency -- Fred Thompson's plus Gersonites;

(3) The Ron Paul wing(s) of the Republican Party are now irreversibly present in GOP politics;

(4) Mitt and Rudy maintain their death grips on one another at their peril.

…it's the Huck-Paul exchange on honor that really captures the major fissure in this race, in the GOP, and probably in the country -- and it runs right through both parties...

The big question to me now seems to be who's the anti-Huckabee, other than Ron Paul?

I think it's clear that the Republicans will run on staying in Iraq indefinitely. And that could well be their undoing.

01 Dec 2007 08:46 am

Banksy Does New York

A London hipster opens in Chelsea next week. One critic laments:

It’s hard to know which celebrity artist to dislike more, sculptor Damien Hirst and his jackass affinity for labeling every new work, “his most mature yet”, or graffiti artist Banksy and his seemingly endless juvenile commentary on art. In a head to head match, it’s unclear who would win, though Banksy’s splash page directed at the collectors who recently purchased he work at record breaking prices reading “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.” certainly gives Hirst a run for his money.

But Brad Pitt loves him!

(Image from Vanina Holasek Gallery.)

01 Dec 2007 07:15 am

Monopoly and WWII

, Pop Culture">

For all you war-history buffs, a classic tale:

During World War II, the British secret service hatched a master plan to smuggle escape gear to captured Allied soldiers inside Germany. Their secret weapon? Monopoly boxes. The original notion was simple enough: Find a way to sneak useful items into prison camps in an unassuming form. But the idea to use Monopoly came from a series of happy coincidences, all of which started with maps.

Friday, November 30, 2007

30 Nov 2007 08:03 pm

Rudy's Thugs

The small man in search of a balcony, like all two-bit bullies, has the usual thuggish security detail. And he doesn't like being forced to respond to allegations about his shady past:

“We’ve already explained it,” he said, walking past reporters after a town hall meeting. Giuliani, who is normally friendly to reporters, bristled past them, and campaign staffers were unusually physical in keeping the press away. Several campaign aides told campaign reporters to return to the press area, and some of his security detail manhandled reporters.

If his goons act like this on a minor issue in a primary campaign, can you imagine how he'd handle his police powers as president?

30 Nov 2007 07:53 pm

And So The Zeitgeist Shifts

My Atlantic essay on the transformational potential of Obama can be read here.

30 Nov 2007 07:19 pm

Tom Toles Skewers His Employer

Makes me love him all the more.

30 Nov 2007 06:49 pm

National Review's Fabulist?

Read these two items, dropped into the blogosphere late on a Friday afternoon: Smith's defense and Lopez's editorial note. It's somewhat shady that Smith does not provide links in his apology to his original disputed stories, doesn't name or link to his critics, and appears, by his own account, to have reported events and facts that were actually relayed to him by anonymous sources as if he had seen them himself. Here's a flavor of the kind of issue involved:

Did I physically see and count 200 men carrying weapons? No. If I mistakenly conveyed that impression to my readers, I apologize...

On another matter:

This is a case where I should have caveated the reporting by saying that I only witnessed a fraction of what happened (from a moving car) ...

Hmmm.

I'll leave the follow-up to others. I'm not an expert in the area, and have only read the two posts linked above. As Smith and Lopez assumed, I'm headed home now for the weekend. But let's see if these reportorial exaggerations and alleged fictions get as much scrutiny in the right-wing blogosphere as the TNR Beauchamp contretemps. I'll be especially curious to see what Howie Kurtz and Glenn Reynolds do with the story. How many posts did the Corner have on two minor factual issues - still unresolved - in a TNR Diarist? How much preening and posturing has Reynolds done with respect to Beauchamp? And this is on a blog by a reporter still employed by NRO, with a long history of writing for the publication. For those interested in examining Smith's archive, it's probably a good place to start some more fact-checking. What goes around ... Or as Drudge would put it, developing ...

30 Nov 2007 06:06 pm

The Mechanical Natural

NotCot raves about the art of Eric Feng, aka Feric:

His work is gorgeous - a mixture of real and imagined and of natural and mechanical. I love the fantastical, mechanical anatomies of his characters, and how you are given a peek at what is beneath through transparent layering.

The very cool online gallery is here.

30 Nov 2007 05:29 pm

How Green Is Marijuana?

, Drugs"> , Environmentalism">

Not as eco-friendly as you might think. More reason to bring California's biggest cash-crop into the legal economy. (Hat tip: Utne.)

30 Nov 2007 05:16 pm

Huckabee Talks To God

, Huckabee"> , Politics"> , Religion">

By cell-phone, of course. Anyone else would make this seem horrifying. And it is, of course. But somehow he gets away with it. Which is why he's the most formidable Christianist in the country right now, asking merely to lead a Christianist party:

30 Nov 2007 05:07 pm

Busting Rudy

, Giuliani"> , Media"> , Politics">

The press is getting its act together. But why were we so negligent with Bush's factual errors? Brendan Nyhan suggests:

(a) Rudy's bluster invites more critical coverage -- he _seems_ like more of a dissembler than the supposedly straight-talking Bush;
(b) Bush's statistics were carefully parsed to be half-true, making them harder to debunk within the framework of supposedly "objective" journalism (this is the argument we make in ATPS), while Rudy's are often just wrong;
(c) Reporters are becoming more skeptical about the use of statistics of the Bush administration;
(d) The political environment is pushing reporters toward more critical coverage of Republicans;
(e) All of the above.

30 Nov 2007 05:00 pm

Clinton Dirty Tricks Watch

The evidence is accumulating that she has tried to rig the Black and Brown event in Iowa tomorrow night - by packing the crowd with her supporters. This isn't just unethical; it's illegal.

30 Nov 2007 04:40 pm

Yglesias Award Nominee

, Politics"> , Religion">

"I know the conservatives who can't stand Hillary have their reasons and their minds will never be changed. But does this woman have to be demonized so much? Listen; let's not get caught up in all this biblical talk coming from all the candidates. A relationship with God is a personal one and it should be left there. From a public policy perspective she clearly sees an intersection of the way she views her faith as it relates to fighting AIDS and many other causes. The pro-life community sees faith and the abortion issue intersecting on the other side. It's a different perspective. But when those Evangelicals rose to their feet at Rick Warren's Church, it wasn't just a sign of respect for a woman who has made it this far. It was an appreciation for her commitment to fighting AIDS. Is there anything wrong with that?" - David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network.

Is this the 2007 Yglesias Award winner? Don't Forget To Vote Here!

30 Nov 2007 04:18 pm

The Feminist Robert Fisk

From the annals of self-hatred:

"I cannot escape a simple conclusion: If men are going to be full human beings, we first have to stop being men."

You first, buddy. I'm still grieving for my foreskin.

30 Nov 2007 04:05 pm

Face Of The Day

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) pauses in a speech during a 'A Night at the Apollo' fundraiser event at the Apollo Theater November 29, 2007 in the Harlem neighborhood in New York City. This was Obama's first campaign visit to Harlem. By Hiroko Masuike/Getty Images.

30 Nov 2007 03:46 pm

I-35: Highway To Heaven

, Homosexuality"> , News and Commentary">

Pat Robertson puts his weight behind the notion that a highway running through the US

"is the highway spoken of in Isaiah 35:8 - 'And a highway will be there; it will be called the way of holiness.'"

They have begun purity sieges around the road. Their targets? Gay bars, among other places.

30 Nov 2007 03:26 pm

Capitalists Against Climate Change

, Economy">

Companies with net worth of over $4 trillion sign the Bali Communique:

We believe that tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy. Ignoring it will ultimately undermine economic growth.

Meanwhile, a new draft of the Warner-Lieberman climate change bill butches it up.

30 Nov 2007 03:13 pm

McCain-Huckabee 08!

, Huckabee"> , McCain"> , Politics"> , Republicans">

Ross dreams. The logic is strong. The politics not so much, alas. But surely the profound weaknesses of Romney and Giuliani are beginning to sink in.

30 Nov 2007 02:58 pm

Romney vs Huckabee II

, Politics"> , Polls"> , Republicans">

Some interesting new ARG data in Iowa:

56% of those saying they support Romney say their support is definite. 89% of those saying they support Huckabee say their support is definite.

Then this:

Among men, Huckabee is at 34%, Romney 15%, and Thompson 17%.
Among women, Huckabee is at 19%, Romney 43%, and Thompson 11%.

In South Carolina, Huckabee has gone from 5 percent to 18 percent in a month. Romney has gone from 29 to 21 percent in the same period. New Hampshire is critical to Romney now. But one gets the feeling that he is sitting atop a souffle. If he loses Iowa, it could drop suddenly. And the South will never vote for a Mormon. That's awful; but it's true.

30 Nov 2007 02:54 pm

Twists On Trysts

, Giuliani"> , Politics">

Dick Polman gives a run-down of Giuliani's explanations for mistress-security-money. All five of them, at last count.

30 Nov 2007 02:50 pm

Romney vs Huckabee

Romney has spent more than twenty times the money that Huckabee has in Iowa - to break even with him.

30 Nov 2007 02:24 pm

The View From Your Window

Champaign, Illinois, 5.05 pm.

30 Nov 2007 02:18 pm

Obama Rising

, Democrats"> , Obama"> , Politics"> , Polls">

The trend is pretty clear, even from a statistically conservative graph:

The Foul Core Of The GOP

, Conservatism"> , Debate"> , Politics"> , Republicans">

If you want to know why many of us have come to feel that the current Republican party is not our cup of tea, consider this anecdote from Joe Klein, sitting in on a focus group of Republicans during last Wednesday night's debate:

In the next segment--the debate between Romney and Mike Huckabee over Huckabee's college scholarships for the deserving children of illegal immigrants--I noticed something really distressing: When Huckabee said, "After all, these are children of God," the dials plummeted. And that happened time and again through the evening: Any time any candidate proposed doing anything nice for anyone poor, the dials plummeted (30s). These Republicans were hard.

But there was worse to come: When John McCain started talking about torture--specifically, about waterboarding--the dials plummeted again. Lower even than for the illegal Children of God. Down to the low 20s, which, given the natural averaging of a focus group, is about as low as you can go. Afterwards, Luntz asked the group why they seemed to be in favor of torture. "I don't have any problem pouring water on the face of a man who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11," said John Shevlin, a retired federal law enforcement officer. The group applauded, appallingly.

As Kevin says, "Ladies and gentlemen, your Republican base." They loved Romney, apparently. He can give them their torture without any sense that he might be soft on the gays.

30 Nov 2007 01:17 pm

Real Reporting

Glenn Greenwald compares the NYT's simple factual rebuttal of various Giuliani statistical inexactitudes with the Washington Post's pathetic recycling of anti-Muslim attempted smears of Barack Obama. It really was a low-point for the Downie Post.

30 Nov 2007 12:40 pm

Jesse Helms Lives!

, Foreign Affairs"> , Health"> , HIV/AIDS"> , Politics"> , US">

Mark Dybul is the Bush administration's Global AIDS Coordinator, and an openly gay man, much liked and respected, not least by Laura Bush and Condi Rice. He is also, alas, required to enforce the policies created by Jesse Helms almost two decades ago to hound, stigmatize and discriminate against anyone with HIV who is not an American and wants to visit, travel or immigrate to the US. Unlike every other civilized country, unlike even China, the US still retains 1980s-era policies that treat tourists and visitors with HIV as if they have malaria, barring them from ever coming in the country, or getting waivers that require them to provide invasive details on their health, be monitored by the government, be subject to deportation, and treated more brutally than anyone with any other medical condition. The other countries with the same policy: Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. Is that the company America really wants to keep? Is that part of the AIDS legacy the Bush administration wants to leave?

Jesse Helms himself eventually disowned the stigma he once placed on people with HIV; and the Bush administration, to its great credit, has done a great deal to help those with AIDS and HIV in Africa and elsewhere. But that makes retaining the Helms discrimination against visitors and tourists and immigrants with HIV that much more egregious.

People living with HIV are not public enemies; we are not carrying the equivalent of malaria. And at a time when the crisis of HIV is growing among African-Americans especially, the government's maintenance of a bitter stigma against the HIV-positive - declaring them in effect a threat to society and worthy of government surveillance - does immense damage to public health efforts trying to persuade people with HIV to feel less shame and access more care. On the eve of World AIDS Day, the Bush administration has now made things even worse: burdening tourists and visitors with HIV with more scrutiny than the average terror suspect. It's a grotesque waste of resources, and cruel, irrational public policy.

It's World AIDS Day tomorrow. How depressing that the US should seek to commemmorate it by ratcheting up persecution of people with HIV. We desperately need a repeal of the Jesse Helms law. In the meantime, there is a way to send the government a comment on the new, more draconian regulations. Details of how to help after the jump.

Continue reading "Jesse Helms Lives!" »

30 Nov 2007 12:19 pm

Rudy vs Huckabee?

, Giuliani"> , Huckabee"> , Politics"> , Republicans">

It would be a fascinating race if that's what it turns out to be. A reader writes:

It is urban vs. rural, lapsed Catholic vs. fundamentalist Protestant, North East v. Deep South. On the issues, it breaks down along those lines. Look at how they stand on trade, taxes, guns, gays, abortion, healthcare. They both symbolize parts of the GOP that hate each other. After all do you really think guys who work on Wall Street want to hang out with the Values Voters, or vice versa? If it comes down to these two against each other and it gets nasty that could really divide the party for a long time.

But Huckabee represents the future of Rove's sectarian, big government party, and Giuliani the conservative past. The only thing keeping Rudy alive, I think, is his authoritarian appeal to the Jacksonian "bomb-em-round-em-up-and-torture-them" wing of the GOP. So the two natural developments of the Bush years - massive spending and untrammeled executive war-power - find their two representatives. And if you're a traditional conservative, you feel like slashing your wrists.

30 Nov 2007 11:58 am

How Others Live

Just a glimpse of a market in Bangkok:

30 Nov 2007 11:43 am

Christianism Watch

, Gay Rights"> , US">

"We love America, please protect it from suicide and self-destruction! ... Let a stone, without the assistance of a hand, come off the rock and hit this homosexual idol right on its legs! Let this idol come down to ashes! Let this stone become a mountain and fill the whole Earth... Today we proclaim the death of the culture of death! We proclaim the victory of life! ...

You, the Pharaoh of homosexualism - we will not give a hoof, a rusted nail to you! Our houses, our wives, our sons and daughters will go - and you will go bankrupt...

Homosexualism is a global problem and it is only the first wave. After that comes Islamization. If we won’t stop the first wave, then the second wave won’t wait for long," - Alexey Ledyaev, head of the New Generation Church movement, based in Riga, Latvia, with congregations throughout the former Soviet Union, Germany, Israel, Argentina and the U.S.) and one of the co-founders of Watchmen On the Walls, along with Scott Lively, Kenneth Hutcherson, and Vlad Kusakin.

30 Nov 2007 11:21 am

Is Black America Warming To Obama?

, Democrats"> , Obama"> , Politics"> , Race">

I don't know but here are two straws in the wind:

"I trust him. I think he is talking about a new kind of politics. It's courageous. Hillary is slick. Democrats are taking us for granted," - Angels Daws of Harlem.

And Juan Williams:

In a nation where a third of the population is now made up of people of color, Mr. Obama is in the vanguard of a new brand of multi-racial politics. He is asking voters to move with him beyond race and beyond the civil rights movement to a politics of shared values. If black and white voters alike react to Mr. Obama’s values, then he will really have taken the nation into post-racial politics.

Obama himself is counting on Iowa to do the job, even though it has a very small black population. Why? Because one of the biggest obstacles to black support is the widespread sense that a black man can't get elected in America. If a black man can win the Iowa caucuses, they might just begin to change their minds. And if they do, then South Carolina looks much more promising for the Illinois senator. If I were Clinton, relying - again! - on her husband to gain power, I'd be worried.

30 Nov 2007 10:56 am

Card vs Rove

A response to this.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Friday, November 30, 2007

Andrew Sullivan

Dish Prep