Oops!

A DVD that was supposed to contain school memories was sent to the children of Isabelle Jackson Elementary. Unfortunately, a 5th grade teacher accidentally spliced her sex tape into it. When the kids clicked on one of the school trips, they got a view of Ms. Defanti on the couch. Oopsies!!!

Check for Meth Before You Buy!!

Apparently there are a growing number of homeowners who unwittingly buy homes that were former meth labs. The meth contaminates the walls and air ducts and can cost $5,000 to $100,000 to have cleaned. The contamination can cause seizures, breathing problems, migraines, and kidney issues among others. So, do your homework!

Ginsburg a Eugenicist?

Here is a great interview with Justice Ginsburg by Emily Bazelon for the New York Times Magazine. The entire interview is quite fascinating, as Ginsburg discuss her view of women on the court, as well as touching on her views of affirmative actions and equal rights for women. The quote that is getting attention on the blogosphere is:

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.

Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

Q: When you say that reproductive rights need to be straightened out, what do you mean?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman.

Some are claiming that Ginsburg is making a eugenic argument. Specifically, that she believed the purpose of Roe v Wade was to rid of us the population growth "in populations that we don’t want to have too many of." It is not at all clear here what she means, but I suspect it was much clearer live, when her inflection could be heard. There are two possible readings of the quotation. The first is that Ginsburg herself believed and supported the eugenic argument. That is, that abortions for poor people are good, because then we have fewer "undesirables." That other reading is that Ginsburg thought the court was making a eugenic argument--not one that she agreed with--but realized later that she was mistaken about that.

Blasphemers!

Ireland has passed an anti-blasphemy law, which states that it is illegal say things that offend "a substantial number of the adherents of a religion." The penalty is up to €25,000. Goodness gracious.

Church & Politics

The Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great Britain prevent their members from joining the right-wing British National Party. The BNP allows only whites into its ranks and seeks to defend "Britain's Christian culture." Although BNP members can enter these churches, they are not welcome to become full members. Now, this sounds like a foul political party, but if religions want separation of church and state, they have to keep their noses out of the government. It's not the role of the church to tell its members how to vote.

Red Tape

Americans spend 10 BILLION hours filling out government forms each year, up from 1 billion in 1981. Yikes. That's about 33 hours per year per person in the US. I doubt infants fill out a lot of government forms, so the rate is actually higher. That's more than a day--spent filling out forms. That compares to about 4.5 hours per year per person in 1981, based on 1981 population numbers.

The Road to Resignaton

The New York Times follows the path to Palin's resignation. She clearly wasn't ready for national politics and got worn out. It's as much her fault as McCain's and the national Republican party.

Ha

Singin the news.

Who Quits?

Almost no one, at least not the way Palin did it. A number cruncher spent a few hours with a list of every governor of every state since 1900 and found Palin's pretty much the only quitter who didn't have a decent reason.

On a hunch, I reviewed online lists of all the men and women who’ve been elected governor of their state since the year 1900. Pored over them for a few hours. Over 1200 politicians have taken that first-term oath of office. Some soon died in office. Many resigned to accept other positions in government, including Spiro Agnew who was “tapped” by Nixon after being the Governor of Maryland for about five minutes. On a handful of occasions, a first-termer was dragged off to the slammer or impeached. One was incapacitated by a nervous breakdown and one left just as impeachment came knocking on his door. So—how many out of over 1200 just up and quit before the end of their term?

Three: Jim McGreevy, Eliot Spitzer and Sarah Palin.

That's right. Three out of 1200 (that's a quarter of one percent) quit without being forced or essentially transferring, and two of them quit amidst a sex scandal. Only one is truly a quitter. Way to lead Gov. Palin!

Perez Hilton & the Gay Rights Movement

A thoughtful piece on Advocate.com that begins about "Putrid Perez," and what a hateful waste of space he is. The meat of the article, however, is the writer's argument that it is unfair and counter-productive to label all opponents of same-sex marriage as hateful homophobes. Moreover, he defends Carrie Prejean's (Miss California) statement, which was not actually all that offensive. (Although he recognizes she's kind of a famewhore too, but argues that it doesn't excuse Perez Hilton's treatment of her--he called her a "dumb bitch.")

PETA would be so proud

OK, I don't want to say this is totally nuts--these vegans are dedicated to maintaining their vegan lifestyle and seem to be using an evidenced-based system to determine whether vegan restaurants are really all that vegan. But, it's a little nuts. They spent at least $1000 of their own money (I'm really surprised it's not more), using medical equipment to ensure their samples were not contaminated & used a pregnancy-like test on food samples to determine whether egg, milk, or fish products were in the food.

Conflict between LDS security & gay couple

Blue in Red Zion has an account of two men who were roughed up and detained by LDS security in Salt Lake City. It appears that the security guard were in their rights, as it was private property (unknown to the couple), but they are still obnoxious.

Sarah Palin's Metaphor

From Tommy Scraggs via Sullivan:

Iraqi Gays Safer Under Saddam?

BBC News has a story today that gay Iraqis have faced more violence since Saddam was overthrown. The last few months have seen an increase in violence against gays, but there have been reports that there has been a steady increase since 2003. Murders have involved castrations and other terrible tortures aimed specifically at gay men.

Sarah Palin is Weird; Anderson Cooper is Adorable

Oh my. Palin's spokesperson Meg Stapleton is just as rambling as Palin herself, although that could be because she didn't really seem to know this was going down. (She says she knew, of course, but that being in New York just seemed like a good idea when Palin announced she was a big fat quitter, or something.) The 4:00 minute mark and on is the good stuff. When Stapleton tries to explain Palin's nutty point guard analogy (which is flawed on so many levels), Cooper responds with, "Honestly, I know nothing about basketball. All I know about is politics." Later, around the 4:40 mark, he pulls the "lady you are a NUTBAG" face and says, "I don't know who the hoop is. I don't know who the ball is. I'm confused by the analogy, but I'll let it go."

The Global Domination of Argentine Ants

Apparently ants--normally territorial--form super colonies that may stretch hundreds of miles. Members of the super colonies refuse to fight one another. Well, there is a mega-colony from Argentina that has spread throughout the world, and regardless of which country they live in, the Argentine ants seem to be part of the same colony and tolerate each other, refusing to fight. Weird.

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.

Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

Here is a short NPR piece on ants burying & stacking their dead.