How can we tell Shabbos is sacred?  

We get 24 hours without the press quoting Mindy Meyer.   

Can we declare her 15 over and move on?

Justin Brannan: Since it’s August and news is slow - she'll probably squeeze another 5 minutes - give or take.

GATE: Why can't someone announce a new mosque or something? Mindy Meyer Claims ‘Very Big Gay Following … From the Streets’ politicker.com    

While Chris Bragg is correct that Hikind's losing the GOP (and maybe the Conservative ) line won't help Mo Tischler's beat him in the Dem primary, Tischler has a two-fold delusional fantasy why this is important:
 
1) When Tischler beats Hikind in the primary, Hikind won't be able to come after him in the general, and

2) In the unlikely event Tischler loses the primary to Hikind, it is better for Tischler if Hikind has fewer lines, when Mo comes back at him on the "School Choice" ticket.

The real winner here: Simcha Felder, who loses Hikind as a GOP running mate to David Storobin (if Storobin even the keeps the line himself).

Quibble with Bragg: To be fair to Hikind, I most note that the places his surprisingly strong 2010 GOP opponent ran the best are no longer in the district. Twenty-year-old Likely To Knock Hikind Off Republican Line | City & State www.cityandstateny.com    

Klein on Palestinian political culture:

"...the relative poverty in the Palestinian territories has an awful lot to do with the Israeli occupation and the diseased Palestinian political culture, obsessed and divided over how to deal with ...the Israeli reality, that has resulted....It is certainly true that Palestinian political culture has been a disaster; the Palestinian leadership, especially Arafat, deserves the lion’s share of blame for the failure of the peace process over the past 40 years."

Contrasted with Klein on Palestinian economic culture:  

"But it’s important to distinguish Palestinian political culture from its business and professional culture.

Indeed, Palestinians are widely known, and often disliked, by their Arab brethren for their entrepreneurial ability–as well as for the disproportionate number of professionals, especially doctors and lawyers, in their ranks. Palestinians...owned the construction companies that built the Gulf States. They dominate the business class in Jordan. And there is good cultural reason for that: Like the Jews, the Palestinians have been a displaced people. Business and, especially, professional skills are portable. They don’t depend so much on land as farming and ranching does.

If...the neocon cohort weren’t so blinded by hate and pride, they would recognize the ironic similarities between Jews and their Semitic cousins, the Palestinians..." Senority | Swampland | TIME.com swampland.time.com  

Are these people really lining up at Chick-Fil-A to celebrate free speech? I myself have my doubts, given the number of articles I found on the web where the same sort of folks boycotted companies for having Domestic Partner benefits.

In other news, Joe Hayon today announced the formation of “Schtick Fil-A” the same food, and the same politics, but at twice the price, and closed on Saturday instead of Sunday. Masses line up to stick with Chick www.nypost.com  

"The most telling passages in “Pink Triangle and Yellow Star” are those which refer to ‘New York Jewish publicists’ as “new-class persons” who find it hard to realise that “Manhattan is not the world”. “No matter how crowded and noisy a room,” Vidal notes at one stage, “one can always detect the new-class person’s nasal whine”. Good grief."  

Revelation: Even Cockburn complained about the Jew hatred in Vidal’s essays.  

Cockburn?!? Gore Vidal and the Jewish Question youngcontrarian.tumblr.com  

"Vidal’s extreme late-in-life beliefs, however, weren't deviations from an otherwise noble record. They were the natural progression of thought in a man whose worldview was fundamentally racist and elitist, motivated by the fear that the reign of his own caste was ending as the walls of aristocratic privilege crumbled in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. Vidal was a paradigmatic, almost stereotypical representative of the traditional American elite—WASP lineage, prep schools, money, connections. Fashioning himself a latter-day Henry Adams, a valiant upholder of a civilization under siege—he compared America to Rome in its decadence—he repeatedly denigrated those arriviste groups he considered less than fully American." Gore Vidal: Don’t believe the rosy obituaries—he was a racist and an elitist. www.slate.com    

Myungsuk Lee: "If you see my newspaper’s back pages, there are a lot of massage businesses on Northern Boulevard and Union Street. They’re all legal businesses. … I acknowledged it at the time because I trusted the New York Post reporter...But I called the massage business the New York Post visited and they said they are just a regular massage business.”

As Rabbi Hillel liked to say, "all the rest is commentary. Myungsuk Lee Won’t Sue the New York Post After All politicker.com    

Ravi Batra makes a Star Trek reference.  

I always thought Ravi was a bit of a Klingon himself--or do I mean a Dingelberry? Pushing For Changes To Disclosure, Batra Threatens Resignation capitaltonightny.ynn.com    

Freedlander: "Why exactly is Barack Obama holding a baseball bat when he is on the phone with the prime minister of Turkey?"

My first thought was; "he's from Chicago," thinking of the scene from "The Untouchables."

So, thinking how clever I was, I clicked the link, and found Chait had beaten me to the joke. Obama’s Chicago-Style Politics Revealed! nymag.com     

Chait: ...for affluent people, there is essentially no recession. Unemployment for workers with a bachelors degree is 4 percent — boom times....

I live in a...neighborhood almost entirely filled with college-educated professionals, and it occurred to me not long ago that, when my children grow up, they’ll have no personal memory of having lived through the greatest economic crisis in eighty years. It is more akin to a famine in Africa. For millions and millions of Americans, the economic crisis is the worst event of their lives. They have lost jobs, homes, health insurance, opportunities for their children, seen their skills deteriorate, and lost their sense of self-worth. But from the perspective of those in a position to alleviate their suffering, the crisis is merely a sad and distant tragedy. Why Washington Accepts Mass Unemployment nymag.com  

Kinsley asks and answers the musical question "What is the Secret of Your Success?" Romney’s Zero Tolerance Approach to the Unsuccessful www.bloomberg.com  

Romney's tax plans remind me of the punch line of that old joke about the economist shipwrecked on a desert island trying to find food among the ship's salvage: "Assume a can opener" Romney Tax Promises Mathematically Impossible nymag.com  

Gatemouth endorses (gack!) Bob Corker--and instant runoff voting. Dems Nominate Anti-Gay Conspiracy Theorist for Senate www.motherjones.com