QUESTION: ... [the] Arizona governor said in a written release, "To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorian interview with the Secretary of State is just outrageous. There's no way to treat - this no way to treat the people of Arizona." Is there an apology here?

MR. TONER: The Secretary responded to a question she was asked in an interview. This is obviously an issue of great concern and resonance domestically, but it is as well in the hemisphere. ... Her words speak for themselves. And I would just defer you to the Justice Department ...

QUESTION: So you're saying she did not misspeak?

MR. TONER: I'm saying her words stand for themselves. ...

QUESTION: You say that her words stand for themselves, but that doesn't answer the question of whether she misspoke or spoke too early. Can you answer that? ...

MR. TONER: - I'd defer you to the Department of Justice.

QUESTION: I think you would want to refer me, not defer me.

MR. TONER: I said refer you. ...

QUESTION: But the question is ... about what the Secretary said.

MR. TONER: And I will say for the third time that her words speak for themselves.

QUESTION: In other words, that you don't -

MR. TONER: Not in other words.

QUESTION: You don't want to -

MR. TONER: Not in other words. And I would also say, as I just spoke, is that the President, the Secretary, others in this Administration have said the long-term solution to this is comprehensive immigration reform.

QUESTION: All right. Well, let's [talk] about the short-term solution to the Arizona situation, not the long-term solution. Let's talk about what she actually said in the interview. Did she misspeak?

MR. TONER: Her words speak for themselves.

QUESTION: That doesn't answer the question.

MR. TONER: No. She - her words speak for themselves.

QUESTION: She did not misspeak, so the Administration is intending to sue Arizona?

MR. TONER: Her words speak for themselves.

QUESTION: Is the Administration intending to sue Arizona?

MR. TONER: Defer you to the Justice Department on -

QUESTION: Refer.

MR. TONER: - the next steps legally. I said refer.

QUESTION: You're saying defer.

MR. TONER: Am I saying defer? Well, anyway, go ahead.

QUESTION: ... You know, State sends us to Justice, Justice goes back to State, and so on and so on. Was she - did she mean to say maybe that the Justice Department was studying this lawsuit or -

MR. TONER: Look, I'm not going to parse the Secretary's words....

QUESTION: So it's no misstatement in any way. What she said -

MR. TONER: They stand -

QUESTION: - she stands by it.

MR. TONER: They stand for themselves ...

QUESTION: Okay, well then, you know, this is a daily briefing. So is the Administration intending to sue Arizona over this -

MR. TONER: That's a matter for the Department of Justice.

QUESTION: Is that perhaps not the answer that she should have given when she was asked the question?

MR. TONER: Matt, her words speak for themselves, okay?

How does her sister-in-law's behavior or the behavior of the mother of the boyfriend of Mrs. Palin's daughter reflect on Sarah Palin's values [?]  [snip]

Many girls get knocked up at 18.

Obama's mother was one.

She married the father (although the father already was married in Kenya) and 7 months later Barack Jr. came along in Hawaii.

President Obama is no more responsible for the situation than Governor Palin is.

If premarital sex by a family member bounces you out of family values then there are not many people left.

But I do agree with Colbert King. Obama is a better father than Mrs. Palin is.

The Israeli ship arrived only at 6 PM, more than 12 hours after the protestors, but by that time most of the latter had left. The local union decided not to order night shift workers to unload the Israeli ship, and it will be unloaded sometime on Monday. A Foreign Ministry official told Israel National News that the general practice is that ships that arrive towards evening are unloaded the next day, "such that the protestors did not actually accomplish much other than to block a Chinese ship... The police are planning to be on hand on Monday to ensure that all goes smoothly."

The Picture, Not the Facts Asked about the fact that the anti-Israel protestors actually blocked a Chinese ship and not an Israeli ship, Israel's Consul-General in San Francisco, Akiva Tor, said, "The protestors were basically interested in painting a certain picture, and they don't generally get down to the exact facts..."

Proving the extent of this phenomenon, protest organizer Richard Becker actually said, "This is the first time [that] an Israeli ship was blocked from unloading in a U.S. port... We consider this to be a huge victory and a historic moment."

At Alternet, Michele Simon, a public health lawyer and author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, calls this an "especially disgusting news item" about which "writing about it is the only way I know to release my outrage. My version of screaming from the rooftop."

Her post was tweeted approvingly by food luminaries like the New York Times' Mark Bittman and (the late) Gourmet's Ruth Reichl, who suggested that reading it would be a good way to bring one's blood to a rolling boil. Simon writes:

If there are people out there so backwards to still be subsisting on food found in nature, Big Food will find them, by land or by sea, and set them straight.

Life without powered milk and snacks--even if they are appropriately low priced and nutritionally enhanced, as many of the products on the boat are--would somehow be better, purer, simpler, Simon suggests: "They probably don't even realize they are missing out on Toll House, Raisinets, and Sno-Caps," and Nestle should leave it that way. Her reaction is pretty much the opposite of "whatever floats your boat"--something more along the lines of "that boat had better be powered by locally-grown leafy greens, mister!" 

As you know, some years back, global-warming campaigners hit on the idea of calling their opponents - global-warming skeptics (many of them top-flight scientists) - "deniers." That was meant to be parallel with Holocaust deniers. Al Gore is only one of many who use this term "denier." (I once asked Václav Klaus about this. And he said, in essence, "Well, then, I'm denier-in-chief.")  Okay, here's McCartney, saying that the oil spill in the Gulf could have a positive effect, because it would wake people up to the badness of oil: "Sadly we need disasters like this to show people. Some people don't believe in climate warming - like those who don't believe there was a Holocaust."