A reader writes:

While Ms. Laudan's thesis and historical discussion is interesting and in some ways instructive, the conclusion you cited is unfounded.  How does my demand for hand-pressed olive oil force an Italian farmer into servitude or a backward lifestyle?  To the contrary, my (and our) increased demand for certain products presents choices to farmers.  If the Italian farmer wants to make olive oil the old fashioned way, the increased demand for such products increases the price those products will bear, and thus make it worthwhile to farm that way.  If it is not worth her time to make oil the old way, she does not have to do so.

To the extent that we have assumed the mantle of the "aristocrats of old", that has little to do with the food choices we make, and everything to do with the relative economic status of us versus the people who make our food.  Following Mw. Laudan's logic, do I oppress a Mexican laborer by valuing the hand-made tortillas he makes?  If I choose instead not to buy his tortillas, then what is his choice?  I suspect it is to go work on an assembly line at a food processing factory. The way to give that farmer more choices and consequently (hopefully) more happiness is to decrease the economic disparity between us.  One way to do that is to pay him more for the fruits of his labor rather than paying less overall to my processed food providers.

A reader writes:

Despite the reasonable idea that

straight kin are far better off in terms of their own reproductive opportunities than they would be without a homosexual dangling so magnificently on their family trees.

Back in our ancestral hunter-gatherer past, were there celebrity homosexuals and lesbians whose fame got their siblings lucky?  As the bro of a famous homo, I kinda doubt it, though I suppose the artists at Lascaux and Altimira might've been the Neolithic equivalents of Michaelangelo or Rachel Maddow. What's really interesting is the cultural reversal created by contemporary gay families.  My gay brother is a parent, but I am not - by choice and surgical intervention.  Instead, I'm the Straight Uncle (vs "confirmed bachelor" uncle of the past) who takes his pre-teen nephew to pro football games. 

Dan Savage, who has a kid, addresses Robbie George, et al:

Until you start advocating for the denial of marriage licenses to the elderly, fertility tests for the young, and the nullification of the legal marriages of straight couples who are childless-by-choice, no one should take you seriously when you argue that children define marriage because it's clear that you don't believe that either. Otherwise you would promote a "seamless garment," if I may borrow a phrase, where marriage is concerned, i.e. no marriage licenses for oldies, inferties, vasectomies, etc.

A simple but clever spot from London-based filmmaker Temujin Doran:

Build Anything from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

(Hat tip: TDW)

Beinart calls Palin the second coming of McGovern:

Between 2000 and 2008, George W. Bush pushed American politics sharply to the right: cutting taxes, appointing highly conservative judges, and shredding government regulation. But the Tea Partiers aren’t inclined toward gratitude. In their minds, Bush was an accomodationist, a big spender. Like the McGovernites in the Vietnam-era Democratic Party, the Tea Partiers are taking over the GOP, state by state. And in all likelihood, they will select a party nominee who runs substantially to the right of both Bush in 2000 and 2004 and John McCain in 2008.

That candidate, whether it be Palin herself or a Palin wannabe, will, I suspect, be crushed in the general election. The one major advantage today’s Republicans have over the Democrats of the early 1970s is the economy: If it is actually worse in 2012 than it is today, all bets are off. But if it improves, even modestly, Republicans are likely in for the kind of rude awakening that Democrats experienced in 1972.

The star of Eastbound and Down displays all his best moves.

Bradford Plumer focuses on the counterintuitive effects of climate change:

More warming could bring more snowstorms and the occasional extra-bitter cold snap in January. At which point Matt Drudge seizes on the heavy snowfalls to imply that "global warming" is all a hoax and we don't need to do anything about it. (He'll then go strangely silent when, say, we start breaking summer temperature records, as has been happening this year.) And big snowpocalypse-type winters do seem to convince the public that greenhouse-gas emissions might not be anything to worry about after all.

A reader writes:

I suppose I can't speak for the entire internet, but I certainly never felt like I was laughing *at* Antoine. I know he wasn't laughing, but "laughing with" and "laughing at" aren't the only ways to laugh in the world. How about laughing with incredulity and admiration?

I seriously laugh with joy when Antoine says, "You don't have to come and confess, we're lookin' for you!" Because, yeah! Fuck yeah! And I don't just laugh; I sing along with him and dance in my office because it's such a great song!

And he's got plenty of genuine fans. Money quote from this Antoine interview:

We're not gonna cry and play victim if that's what everybody wants us to do right now.

Bruce Bartlett compares California's marijuana legalization bill to past prohbitions:

During the 1890s and the early part of the 20th century, there was a powerful national campaign to abolish smoking that was no less intense than the drive for Prohibition. A key reason the campaign ultimately fizzled out in the 1920s was the government's need for tobacco tax revenues, especially after alcohol tax revenues dried up. The Republicans' cuts in income taxes in the 1920s also increased the federal government's dependence on tobacco tax revenues, which rose from 4 percent of federal receipts in 1920 to 11.2 percent in 1929. The onset of the Great Depression, the concomitant fall in income tax revenues, and the inelasticity of demand for cigarettes caused tobacco revenues to rise to 20.7 percent of all federal receipts by 1932.

In the end, revenue needs trumped sumptuary considerations in the cases of both alcohol and tobacco. This raises the interesting question of whether revenue considerations will drive reform of the laws against illegal drugs.

A reader writes:

Could it be Northern India?  Or Central America?  Or the Pacific Northwest?  The modern stadium lights, lush green vegetation, and (possible) geothermal hotspot in the background make me think it's the latter.  Or is it Iceland?  Nah, too many trees.  And that awning would be destroyed in the wind. I'll go with La Fortuna, Costa Rica.  (Actual Google searches included "powerlines Costa Rica", "stadiums near powerlines",  and "plants".  Nothing was fruitful.)

Another writes:

Unless I'm missing something here, this is a tough one. The rounded mountains, high ground, low clouds, and manicured fields all tell me South Africa, although I admit my image of the nation is being distorted by this summer's World Cup. If I'm right, though, it's pretty clear to me it's the Western Cape, and likely the Misty Mountains. I'm going to go with north of Worcester, South Africa.

Another:

Well I'm sure you have plenty of winners on this one (the mountains with the flatirons are a DEAD giveaway).  I know it's very close to Boulder, Colorado. The question really is, exactly where.  Slightly northeast?  Ah hell, it might even be Boulder, but my guess is Niwot.

Many guesses were in the Boulder area. Another:

This one doesn't seem too bad.  Probably Pacific, possibly an island (of volcanic origin).  Also, it appears to be somewhere a school and tree farm are adjacent.  I'm guessing they might be Macadamia nut trees, and while not indigenous to the island, would point to Hawaii.  I glanced quickly at the islands for Macadamia/School co-existence and will go with the Honaunau School in Captain Cook, Hawaii.

Another:

Waipio, HI? Couldn't get an address for this one, which makes me uncertain as to whether I'm even on the right continent. If forced to give a place (for proximity's sake), I'd say somewhere near Ka Uka Boulevard. The baseball diamond with the floodlights is one of very few on the island of Oahu.  I've scoured private schools in Hawaii, floodlight manufacturers, power line grids, and still can't find the buildings (hoping Google Maps satellite is out of date), so I'm not sure this isn't Kyoto or something.

Another:

I'm a purist on these things - no Google satellite for this Van Winkle. Somewhere in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan?  The baseball field, the Japanese-style roof beams, and what look like a couple Japanese schoolgirls. Plus some ugly houses and a Quonset hut in the background - maybe a U.S. base?

Several readers guessed military installations. Another:

I'm gonna guess Daegu, South Korea. The picture has an Asian feel, especially the fog-shrouded green mountains. There are two school girls in uniform. That, plus the volleyball net, suggest Japan or Korea. The building in the foreground (assuming it's a school) is not nice enough for Japan, so I'm going with Korea. Daegu is the biggest city in South Korea that sits in or near mountains. So Daegu it is.

 Another:

This one has tropical vegetation, the construction is simple and does not reflect great wealth.  The mountains appear to have a wet climate. My pulled-out-of-my-ass guess is Honduras.  Since the picture was taken a plain looking to the mountains, and looking at a topographical map of Honduras on wikipedia, the candidates are in the region of Choluteca or Gracias a Dios.  Since I'm guessing anyway I'll say:  Honduras:  Choluteca:  El Triunfo  (I've attached what I believe is a picture from the Choluteca region)

Oh, and I deserve a few points for spotting Andrew at the Dina Martina show on Saturday in Provincetown.  My husband passed him in the men's room.

Another:

I look forward to this contest every Saturday morning, and more often than not, by 2:00pm, I find myself hopelessly frustrated. And here we are again ...

David Boaz calls out social conservatives for lamenting the breakdown of the family, and then focusing on gay marriage far more than divorce:

Why all the focus on issues that would do nothing to solve the problems of “breakdown of the basic family structure” and “the high cost of a dysfunctional society”? Well, solving the problems of divorce and unwed motherhood is hard. And lots of Republican and conservative voters have been divorced. A constitutional amendment to ban divorce wouldn’t go over very well with even the social-conservative constituency. Far better to pick on a small group, a group not perceived to be part of the Republican constituency, and blame them for social breakdown and its associated costs.

Rauch fights along the same lines.

Daniel McCarthy explains how the Tea Party will be co-opted even if it succeeds in sending the candidates it favors to Washington DC:

Not only are Fox News, the Weekly Standard, and AEI going to be defining the program for whatever Republicans get elected in November, but successful Tea Party candidates will for the most part have to draw upon the same pool of staffing talent that all the other Republicans draw upon, a reservoir composed of cadres of political professionals who live to build careers and sidle up to power, not to shake things up in Washington. Not all staffers will be of that ilk, but even those of a better sort may quickly find themselves dependent upon studies carried out by the establishment’s think tanks and vulnerable to attacks from the establishment’s media organs.

Oprah's past picks include Anna Karenina and East of Eden. To what title's cover has Sarah Palin lent her endorsement? You guessed it.

Tyler Cowen isn't ready to declare the recession over:

Many countries, including the United States, are making plans on the basis that China will continue to grow robustly and that the European Monetary Union will hold together. In reality, China has had 30 years of rapid growth; historically, developing countries tend to have periodic booms and busts and so China is overdue for a slowdown. The country also has a real estate bubble and lots of excess capacity. A partial break-up of the eurozone would bring considerable economic and financial volatility, with potential fallout for the United States.

None of these problems is behind us and in the meantime we are suffering under uncertainty. That’s part of the reason why the recovery has been so unspectacular. In part it looks like a recovery only because things were, for a while, so extremely bad. I don’t yet think of us as being in a true recovery mode at all.

Bob Wright explores an instance when the human tendency "to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence" has an upside:

It means that the regrettable parts of the Koran — the regrettable parts of any religious scripture — don’t have to matter. After all, the adherents of a given religion, like everyone else, focus on things that confirm their attitudes and ignore things that don’t. And they carry that tunnel vision into their own scripture; if there is hatred in their hearts, they’ll fasten onto the hateful parts of scripture, but if there’s not, they won’t. That’s why American Muslims of good will can describe Islam simply as a religion of love. They see the good parts of scripture, and either don’t see the bad or have ways of minimizing it.

So too with people who see in the Bible a loving and infinitely good God. They can maintain that view only by ignoring or downplaying parts of their scripture.

His exegesis of a particularly controversial Koranic passage is here.

Steinglass thinks that the American public has grown cold-hearted:

In 2004, Americans reacted with shock and horror to the news that soldiers were torturing and killing captives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The stories dominated the headlines for months, and engendered a dismally predictable and virulent reaction seeking to justify or explain away the torture and murders. Six years later, the Bravo Company death squad story has scarcely been picked up by other media organs. Apart from Spencer Ackerman, the blogosphere has been largely silent. We've accepted the fact that American soldiers are committing atrocities, and we don't want to think about them anymore.

A reader writes:

“What the institution and policy of marriage aims to regulate is sex, not love or commitment.” - National Review

At the risk of awkwardness, clearly the editors of National Review have never spent an hour in a divorce court. There they would find judges mediating all-out wars in which sex and children are just two forms of ammunition, along with money, houses, jobs, travel rights, and every kind of material possession. Most of the parties are not there because of sex, per se; they are indeed driven by love, commitment, jealousy, envy, and emotions more dark or inscrutable.

Marriage is entirely about emotion and commitment. A marriage without children (or even sex) can survive, often quite beautifully. But a marriage without love or commitment is doomed. Here again, divorce court can be instructive.

By elevating biology above emotion or even values, the NR editors have advanced a strikingly adolescent view of marriage.

Another reader:

"This is virgin territory for you," - Dancing With the Stars judge Bruno Tonioli, addressing Bristol.

Implicit in this Mary Katharine Ham post is the realization that the conservative reaction to Sarah Palin is coming back to bite the movement:

O'Donnell is not exempt from this perfectly natural political process simply because she's a conservative woman in the mold of Sarah Palin, just as Mike Castle was not exempt from a conservative challenge from her simply because he was an incumbent. To suggest she is exempt comes close to conferring liberal "special rights" upon conservative women, who as Thompson and Palin and I all agree, are plenty strong enough to do without them.

That post was prompted by an American Spectator essay arguing that opposition to O'Donnell makes the GOP establishment look sexist.

Bret Stephens makes a powerful case in the WSJ today. And if you have a minute this morning, please call your Senator (202) 224-3121. The vote to break the filibuster is at 2.15 pm. Money quote from Bret:

“…In the meantime, it's worth noting that there are an estimated 48,000 homosexuals on active duty or the reserves, many of them in critical occupations, many with distinguished service records. If they pose any risk at all to America's security, it is, paradoxically, because DADT institutionalizes dishonesty, puts them at risk of blackmail, and forces fellow warfighters who may know about their orientation to make an invidious choice between comradeship and the law. That's no way to run a military... Republican senators are now bellyaching that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to jam the repeal amendment into a bill they have no real choice but to vote for. They should be silently thanking him. He's giving them the chance to do the right thing while blaming the Democrats for it. It's a GOP twofer, plus a vote they'll someday be proud of.”

These servicemembers are risking their lives for you. Do something to support them.

The key senators on the fence are: --George Lemieux (R-FL); --Susan Collins (R-ME); --Olympia Snowe (R-ME); --Mark Pryor (D-Ark.); --Richard Lugar (R-IN); --Judd Gregg (R-NH); --Jim Webb (D-VA); --George Voinovich (R-OH); --Kit Bond (R-MO). More here.

Paterson, New Jersey, 3.30 pm

David Axe is itching for the US to wipe out Congo's Lord's Resistance Army, a group that "began in the 1980s as a Ugandan rebel movement with actual grievances [but] is now just a roving tribe of killers":

Serwer connects the shift to the tea parties:

[C]onservative traditionalists deploying "individual liberty" as an argument against Democratic policies now have to deal with the consequences of winning the argument. Hard to say you want the government out of your life and then argue that it should tell loving, consenting adults they're not allowed to marry.

From Chad Stone:

[T]he widespread decline in economic activity that defines a recession ended over a year ago, and the expansion of economic activity that defines a recovery began. But as [The Business Cycle Dating Committee] ... was quick to note, “economic activity is typically below normal in the early stages of an expansion, and it sometimes remains so well into the expansion.” That’s certainly true this time. We expect both unemployment and poverty rates to continue to rise in the next few years.

Lt. Col. John Nagl (US Army, ret.) tells the story of Jonathan Hopkins, a former student of Nagl's who was booted from the Army for being gay:

Jonathan is the third combat veteran I personally know who has left the Army under the terms of DADT. Collectively, they represent almost a decade of combat experience, a big handful of Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars, service as aide-de-camps to general officers and as platoon leaders and company commanders in combat, and the investment of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds. They have offered blood, sweat, and tears in defense of a nation that discriminates against them for no good reason.

This policy must end.

Nate Silver analyzes:

[O]ne fundamental Republican problem that the Tea Party has not resolved: the brand remains extremely unpopular among large segments of the public. In fact, the Tea Party is in some ways a reaction to this: particularly after Delaware, we should probably take the Tea Party at its word that stands in opposition to the Republican and Democratic establishments alike.

How loyal will voters who were inspired by the Tea Party remain to the Republican Party -– and how loyal will Republicans remain to the Tea Party?

Joel Wing points to a new Amnesty International report:

Amnesty’s September report is just the latest on abuses going on within Iraq. Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, and the State Department have all made similar findings. As soon as an interim government was created in Iraq in mid-2004 stories (1) of abuse and torture began to emerge. As ever, the main causes have been the drive for a confession, the isolation many prisoners are held in, and the absence of lawyers and judges. Amnesty International called for a number of reforms by the Iraqis, and for the United States to exert pressure on Baghdad to solve these problems. The on-going insurgency, which leads to a constant flow of prisoners being rounded up, the country’s history of abuse that dates back to the Saddam era, and the lack of interest by three Iraqi administrations since the 2003 invasion points to little progress being made on this issue.

A reader writes:

I go to a small, expensive liberal arts college in the Midwest. It was really interesting seeing the series about recruiting from Ivy schools and noting the significant differences between East Coast Ivies and the school I go to, which is one of the top schools in the Midwest.

When I started attending this school, my parents had saved up enough money in a 529 to last me four years, approximately. Due to the market crash, those four years became three years, which itself was only possible by combining the 529 with federal loans. As a current senior, I was faced with a decision my parents never expected me to face. If I did my senior year with a full schedule, I would basically be more than tripling my loans. If I took only one semester and graduated a semester early, I would double my loans. So instead, I decided to finish up by taking only the couple classes I needed, which at the part-time tuition rate, I only added a little bit to my loans.

Graduating in just over three years was not something I planned on back in high school. Yet it's only possible because of the AP classes I took (I took ten of them) plus a couple transfer credits from a J-term class (when you take only one class during the entire month of January). I'm sure there are some students in high school who stock up on AP credits in order to graduate early, though I believe that's becoming more likely as the cost of tuition continues to increase at around 7% (depending on the school) while jobs and income are deflated. In my view, the recession is the catalyst for a growing number of students, including myself, to graduate early to save money.

Today on the Dish, O'Donnell was a bit of a flake; Palin urged CQ Politics to "print truth;" Tea Partiers weren't quite libertarians; and a review of the full O'Donnell files can be found here. A majority of Americans were for marriage equality , even if the National Review thought marriage was only for mating and we reiterated that DADT isn't just about parades.

Andrew fired back at the Krauthammer dissent, defending his Malkin award; and Newt was today's inductee for his Sebelius "in the spirit of Soviet tyranny" remarks. We mined history for the roots of Marty's mistakes; and while the American right was scary, it still didn't hold a candle to the Taliban. Graeme Wood wondered about the Medal of Honor; Ta-Nehisi grappled with compassion and the Civl War; and Buckley got real on the Boomers.

The Life Sack saved lives; hype trumped security in Haystack; and Fidel Castro helped create the gay rights movement in the U.S. Pope protestors created quite the signage; the killing continued in Iraq and even journalists weren't immune from PTSD. Weed got crowd-sourced; essay mills weren't worth the money; and Rachel Laudan wrote in defense of processed foods. Jeff McMahan wondered whether all meat-eaters on the planet could be evolved into herbivores; green jobs were made to move abroad; and the war on Christmas came early this year. You can find the VFYW here; MHB here; and FOTD here. Ira Glass read the New York Times; Livejournal remained timeless; we gazed at shrooms and capitalism killed Prep.

--Z.P.

Thoreau argues with liberal friends about legalizing pot:

If I say that the drug war enriches criminals, I am suggesting that without the drug war the criminals would make less money.  I have no illusion that organized crime would vanish, but at least they’d have fewer revenue streams, and riskier revenue streams.  If they get money by selling drugs, the people that they get their money from will not call the cops.  If they get their money by identity theft, somebody will most definitely call the cops.  Even if they get their money by trafficking sex slaves, at the very least there’s a person who wants to call the cops, and now and then somebody will get away and call the cops.  But nobody calls the cops to report “Officer, that guy just sold me a joint.”  (At least not before getting stoned.  Once he’s sufficiently stoned, well, I suppose anything’s possible.)

My friends, however, do not believe that legalization will have any effect on crime, or at least no significant effect in the long run.  I think it requires a great deal of cynicism to believe that organized crime will not be hurt at all if a major revenue stream is eliminated.

Bonus thoughts on the public health argument against legalization here. Pete Guither explains why Thoreau's friends are mistaken.

Afghan pupils attend class at a girls school in Kabul on September 20, 2010. The Taliban banned female education and work during their brutal 1996-2001 rule. Since their overthrow in a US-led invasion, millions of girls have returned to the classroom and many women now work outside the home. By Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images.

Christopher Buckley contributes a dash of realism:

Michael's idea is an admirable one, and my hat is off to him for trying to get us to focus, but let's get real: his dog ain't gonna hunt.  

So many bright people come forward with good ideas--and nothing ever happens.  And nothing will.  In a 24/7 news cycle, with all the shrieking, howling voices and rapid-response and instant spinning and Soviet-style disinformation-mongering, a good idea has a shelf life of about, um, six seconds.  

Meanwhile, we deficit bores will continue to go on ruining dinner parties.  Nothing will happen--until we actually drive off the cliff.  At which point we Boomers, or more likely, our successor Gens (X, Y, and Z?) will have their shot at becoming the Greatest Generation 2.0. 

Joanne McNeil considers the timelessness of Livejournal:

Without looking at the time stamp of some posts on that site, there’s no way to discern what year, what decade this is. So long as precocious teenagers discover things like Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and the Velvet Underground, there will be blogs like this.

She argues that anonymity is an important aspect of the platform:

It’s the same reason I blogged anonymously as a teenager, and still sometimes post in forums under fake names. Nineteen is a tender age, one is in constant discovery mode. Trying on different faces, making friends that might not feel right, figuring out the core of one’s identity. I took comfort in anonymity. Anyone who does not see the value in these communities misses out on a pretty essential experience.

The host of This American Life talked to New York Magazine:

NY MAG: Times, Post, or Daily News?

Ira Glass: Times. Please. I'm a cliché. Did I mention I work in public broadcasting?

Asked to describe what he does all day he says, "I try to make things fascinatinger." Last week's episode was a success: Act one is a story about how a bad experience at The Apple Store ended in a SWAT team invading a man's apartment, and Act two is a gripping look at illegal acts inside the NYPD. I never - and I mean never - listen to radio of any kind, but everyone I know and respect thinks he's a genius. And NPR sure has been on a ratings roll. For the most part, anyway.

Tim Lee applauds Yglesias:

Matt Yglesias has had a series of excellent posts about the anti-competitive effects of regulations on barbers, dental hygienists, tour guides, and various other industries. And each post has been greeted by a chorus of condemnation from his readers, who accuse him of being a libertarian sellout. Now obviously, as a libertarian I think Matt is right on the merits. But I also think Matt’s critics are wrong about the ideological valence of these issues...

A new tumblr.

Evgeny Morozov argues that Haystack, the anti-censorship tool created in response to the June 2009 Iranian uprising, did more harm than good.

In what has to be one of the weirdest thought-experiemnts, Jeff McMahan asks:

Suppose that we could arrange the gradual extinction of carnivorous species, replacing them with new herbivorous ones.  Or suppose that we could intervene genetically, so that currently carnivorous species would gradually evolve into herbivorous ones, thereby fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy.  If we could bring about the end of predation by one or the other of these means at little cost to ourselves, ought we to do it?

How about starting with ourselves?

Greenwald defends comparing the American right to the Taliban – at least when it comes to war and torture:

Unlike Serwer (apparently), I don't consider the Taliban "something utterly foreign, inhuman, and subject to entirely different drives than Us."  Therefore, I don't see the comparison of the American Right (as well as Democrats who support its radical policies) to the Taliban as a suggestion that "the GOP as a whole [is] 'something utterly foreign, inhuman, and subject to entirely different drives than Us'."  That's the whole point:  those who are so upset by this comparison (how dare you compare Americans to the Taliban) have ingested the tribalistic, propagandistic delusion that no matter what we do, We are always fundamentally different and better than Them.

I share Glenn's wariness of lazy American exceptionalism. We are not always fundamentally different and better than them. But in the case of al Qaeda and the Taliban, almost all of the time, we are. Even the craziest of religious righters in America are not stoning adulterers, hanging homosexuals or terrorizing whole communities to impose Biblical law. They did once. It is not inconceivable that some would do so again. But please. Not now. If that were true, I'd be buried under a pile of rocks, not married under the law of Massachusetts and Washington DC.

Via TDW, "Mural painter MWM makes walls dance in Marseille, Lyon, and Paris, to the tune of “Walls Are Dancing” by Monsieur Monsieur":

Fallows has an update of developments and commentary. This reader letter is not far off my own evolution in the past decade:

My father was one of the last British officials of the Raj. After partition, he worked for ten years as a district official for the new Pakistan government and I spent my early years in a tolerant Baluchistan, safe and happy. Decades passed and I found myself a US citizen and living in Florida on 9/11. Then, despite a generally liberal constitution, I spent several years loathing the name of Islam and the fact that moderate Muslims had seemingly failed to prevent the tragedy.

Now comes a further turn in my life: the latest upsurge in Islamophobia has brought me back to my philosophical roots. While not fully able to account for the phenomenon, I am appalled by its manifestation. My inclination is to blame a combination of a bad economy and demagoguery from the likes of Glenn Beck. When we so desperately need them, where are the moderate Republicans of stature to put a stop to this foul nonsense?

Walter Shapiro downgrades Palin's chances:

[T]he Republican National Committee recently voted to switch to proportional representation (the system that was used by the Democrats during the protracted Obama-versus-Hillary Clinton battle) for all primaries held during the first two months of the 2012 season. What that means is that it will very difficult for a divisive candidate like Palin to sweep the table before the party establishment (buffeted though it may have been recently) can regroup.

(Hat tip: Smith)

David Boaz argues that, on balance, they're a good thing:

The tea party is not a libertarian movement, but (at this point at least) it is a libertarian force in American politics. It’s organizing Americans to come out in the streets, confront politicians, and vote on the issues of spending, deficits, debt, the size and scope of government, and the constitutional limits on government. That’s a good thing. And if many of the tea partiers do hold socially conservative views (not all of them do), then it’s a good thing for the American political system and for American freedom to keep them focused on shrinking the size and cost of the federal government.

This might be a plausible argument if the Tea Party had offered any serious proposals to slash spending. But they haven't. Until they do, my skepticism that there is no fiscal there there - just partisan and cultural hatred of Obama and multicultural America - will remain. And even if they do help rein in spending, which I agree with David would be a good thing, at what cost in other areas? Especially if they help bring the neocons back to power? Or intensify the drug war? Or keep persecuting gay servicemembers? Or ratchet up the national security state still further? Or make Arizona's war on Hispanic illegal immigrants nationwide?

A reader writes:

I returned from Minsk last week, and I can report that the hosting of Junior Eurovision does not herald a new spirit of openness in Belarus. In fact, there are worrying signs that President Lukashenko is tightening the screw on his opponents ahead of the presidential elections in December.

On the day of my arrival, the journalist and opposition activist Oleg Bebeynin was found hanged in his dacha outside Minsk. Nobody suspects suicide.

A collection of 63 of the most unusual and beautiful mushrooms.

The Urbanophile exposes the lie:

In a very real way here, the shift to green technology has actually accelerated the move of industry offshore. So many people like to talk about “green jobs” saving the economy. But the reverse is likely to be the case. The faster we force a shift to new green tech, the faster our manufacturing base will get shipped offshore. It can be difficult to make the case to shutter a fully depreciated factory with skilled labor and fully understood operational and quality metrics in favor of a new offshore plant. But if you are starting from scratch in any case, China starts to look even more attractive. ...

This is not necessarily to disparage the shift to green tech. But sustainability advocates have to face up to the fact that there are real costs and tradeoffs to be made. Sometimes you can have it all, but much of the time you don’t get to have stricter environmental policies, lower costs and more jobs. There’s a real cost, financial, industrial, and human involved.

In a eulogy to preppy culture, Ben Schwarz compares Lisa Birnbach's 1980 classic The Official Preppy Handbook to her new sequel, True Prep:

Cracked heirlooms, threadbare antique rugs, sturdy L.L. Bean boots, duct-taped Blucher moccasins, and workhorse Volvo station wagons defined OPH’s aesthetic. True Prep’s preppies, armed with BlackBerrys and iPods, wear Verdura jewelry and Prada and vintage Gucci loafers, tote Goyard and Tory Burch bags, and adorn their desks with tchotchkes from Smythson (a firm whose success, Ian Jack notes in The Guardian, has been built “on selling baubles to the impressionable rich”). ... Rather than demonstrating a failure of the authors’ powers, True Prep’s imprecision actually reflects the erosion of the distinctiveness of the subculture it attempts to reveal—an erosion engendered by the progress of capitalism and the attendant triumphs of meritocracy and consumer culture.

Graeme Wood ponders the Medal of Honor and what it tells us about the nature of bravery.

Serwer explains the consequences of repealing birthright citizenship - more undocumented immigrants:

The Migration Policy Institute recently did a study that found without birthright citizenship repeal, the number of undocumented immigrants would remain relatively constant at 11 million--although there's reason to believe that number might be low, particularly in the case of an economic recovery.

They evaluated several different rubrics under which citizenship could be denied. If citizenship for a child born with either parent being undocumented is repealed, the undocumented population would rise to 24 million by 2050. If the rule applies to children born to undocumented mothers, the undocumented population rises to 19 million. If it only applies to children whose parents are both undocumented immigrants, the undocumented population rises to 16 million. But again, I think it's likely that all these estimates would be surpassed in the event of a strong economic recovery.

Lihue, Hawaii, 6.45 am