The Cultural Acceptance Domestic Abuse Around The World

This is a disturbing statistic.

It is also a really interesting way to design the graph.

Found at The Daily Dish Sphere: Related Content

The Daily Dish Follows Up On Maggie Gallagher Predictions O Fear

The Daily Dish's The Horrible Thing That Gay Marriage Will Do, Ctd

My reaction to Gallagher. Sphere: Related Content

The Daily Dish On Krauthammer

Conor Clarke writes:

"And I am further intrigued by Krauthammer's claim that his living will is 'more a literary than a legal document.' I've filled out some impressively boring legal documents, but they don't exactly hold a candle to Dickens."

My previous post on Charles Krauthammer's 'The Truth About Death Counseling'. Sphere: Related Content

Daily Dish Quotes Of The Day

Quotes: of the day from the Daily Dish

“I don’t believe terrorists are super human. They are no more dangerous than the Crips and the Bloods," - Michigan state Rep. Jeff Mayes (D).

"If anybody did escape, they'd have a surprise. We're a community of hunters. Just about everybody has guns," - Standish City Manager Mike Moran.

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Andrew Sullivan Asks Conservatives-- What Use Is Conservatism

Andrew Sullivan crafted a remarkably eloquent response to Robert P. George's essay on gay marriage. In contrast to my response to George or my response to Cooper , Sullivan's response is tempered and pleasant. It raises thoughtful questions that George should answer.

Sullivan's response was pleasant and friendly until it wasn't. Sullivan writes:

"Alas, having studied George's work for years, I can tell you his social policy toward me and my kind. It is that gay people should be celibate, and if not celibate, invisible. But this much we know: gays in free countries are neither going to be celibate nor invisible for the foreseeable future. So what is George's prescription except quixotic when it isn't demotic?
Beneath the elegant philosophical language is a blunter message to George's gay fellow human beings: be straight or go away. And since when is that a practical option in the 21st century?"

I enjoy reading Sullivan's blog for his thoughtful writing. He doesn't write responses this long very often, but when he does it is usually excellent.

George's essay has brought Sullivan to the question:

"I repeat to conservatives: we know what you're against, in healthcare, energy, counter-terrorism, taxation, gay rights, abortion. What are you actually for? How do you intend to actually address the questions of our time and place? And if conservatism cannot do that, what use is it?"

Good question. Sphere: Related Content

Andrew Sullivan is entering Lou Dobbs territory.

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish is one of my favorite places to get a broad spectrum of information. So this pains me. This afternoon he wrote at the Dish:

"On The Birthers"

"So many readers are furious that I have dared to ask the president to show the original copy of his birth certificate. The reason for demanding it is the same reason for demanding basic medical records proving Sarah Palin is the biological mother of Trig.

Because it would make it go away and it's easily done.

I'm tired of these public officials believing they have some right to privacy. They don't. It's the price of public office. If you don't like it, don't be president. And for goodness' sake, don't run for president on a platform of transparency."

I agree with Sullivan's overall premise that people who enter the arena to compete for public office are waving much of their right to privacy. But I depart from his opinion when the call for further information will not provide additional useful information. It has been widely accepted that the documents released and statements made by officials have proven Barack Obama to be a natural citizen of the Unites States. The release of any further documents will just be a repetition of previously released evidence.

I also disagree that this issue will go away. Sullivan will probably be satisfied but the lunatic fringe birthers will likely deny the information or mutate their complaint to fit the new facts.

If people don't accept the released information I can't but think that they believe that additional information would contradict the present evidence.

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Conor Friedersdorf at the Daily Dish On Dr. Gates Arrest

Benefits of Doubts

by Conor Friedersdorf

On Internet discussion boards I've been following, people are debating the altercation between black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department. A point of disagreement is whether police officers should be given "the benefit of the doubt" in these situations due to the difficulty of their jobs.

Lest anyone doubt that the job is difficult, let me share a brief story. On a ride along with the NYPD in Manhattan, the squad car I inhabited got a call that sent us speeding from Union Square to a destination maybe 10 blocks away, tires screeching, sires wailing. The dispatcher said merely that someone reported a street scuffle involving a dozen men, that one wielded a baseball bat, and that a street front window had already been shattered. As we pulled onto a small street in question, under cover of darkness, view of the altercation was obscured by a large truck parked illegally on the street. The effect was that after the squad car rounded its cab, we found ourselves on the edge of the melee.

It all happened damned quickly. The two officers in the front of the car jumped out immediately, pushed through the onlookers at the edges of the commotion, grabbed a guy and pinned him against the wall. As I watched from the backseat of the squad car, I couldn't figure out why they grabbed that particular guy, but it quickly became apparent that in a split second they'd somehow identified the only man on the scene with a weapon (a knife), separated him from everyone else, and disarmed him, without ever brandishing their own guns. I was impressed, and conscious of how easy it would've been to make a mistake in that situation: a violent altercation already underway, a crowd of men, one of them armed, and darkness. It gave me a better idea of how police officers are sometimes killed, and how they sometimes injure or kill the wrong person.

Given that kind of situation, where split second decisions are forced upon officers, adrenaline is pumping, and all the rest, I understand the impulse to give them the benefit of some doubts. But why should police officers require the benefit of the doubt when they are confronted with a lone guy -- old, nonthreatening in appearance, apparently well-dressed -- who is pushing on the front door of a house in a nice neighborhood? Does that sound like a particularly dangerous situation? That isn't to make a judgment about what actually happened, or whether the officer misbehaved. It is merely to say that the matter should be decided on its merits, that it is irrational to give the officer any special "your job is hard" benefit of the doubt, especially in a circumstance significantly less difficult than many police face. Why privilege the story of the officer over a law-abiding citizen who turns out to have been outside his own house? If anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt in cases like this one, it is the citizen.

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