Learning By Osmosis

It took University of Nevada researchers 20 years to figure out that kids who live in homes where they own books — as few as 20 books — have higher academic achievement. The shocking realization was apparently that it had little to do with the parents’ educational level: “Books in the homes of even the barely literate were found to further a child’s education by an average of 3.2 years. In fact, children of parents with less education had more to gain by having books in their homes.”

Well gee whiz.

You don’t suppose it could be that when parents own books, they are showing that reading is a valid activity and education is a valuable thing? Even if those books are all picture books, even if they are all religious books, even if they are all trashy romance novels, the precedent that they are worth having around influences what the kids will think is important by the time Kindergarten rolls around.

Sorry, sending a box of books to the families of “at risk” kids isn’t going to magically make their test scores better.

In closing: Tropical disease hits Sub-Tropical Florida (but no, global climate change is a hoax! All that snow last winter proved it!); the Social Security system is at risk (remember, it has never ever been a savings program so anybody who talks about “returns” on it is an idiot or a thief); just a few miscellaneous oil spill items; miscellaneous medical items; some choice financial “reform” items (Banking index didn’t crash? We’re still screwed then); unemployment and mortgage delinquency (gee, whoda thought those were related??); why we can’t take true libertarians seriously; and help out an animal shelter.

A Fifth of Amendment

It’s been a long time since I talked about the Bill of Rights. Check out the previous installments: One, Two, Three, *crunch!* Four. Remember, all ten were written by guys who overthrew the legal government. Not that you’ll be learning that in Texas anymore.

The Fifth Amendment is probably the one people know the best, even if they aren’t aware of it. Thanks to almost a half century of police dramas like Dragnet and Law and Order, most people know this:

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

The actual words in the Fifth Amendment are a little more complicated:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

So let’s pick this apart just a little. First: unless it’s a military matter, you’ve got to have a Grand Jury indictment before you storm off towards a trial. Second: you can’t prosecute somebody for the same thing twice. Third: and this is where Mr. Miranda comes into play — you can’t be made to testify against yourself (hence, “I’m taking the 5th“) or make statements against yourself that will be used as evidence (if you are dumb enough to blather on about how you did it while you are in police custody, it “can and will be used against you”), and moreover they can’t just arrest you or confiscate your stuff just because they feel like it. Finally, they can’t take your stuff “for public use” without paying you.

Asset forfeiture would appear to be pretty clearly not legal under the Fifth Amendment, but some judges said it was just dandy. Somehow “Activist judges” who “legislate from the bench” are only a problem when they do things ultra-conservatives don’t like.

So some very “conservative” people don’t think we should tell certain criminals that they have the right to shut up. That’s because — today at least — the “certain criminals” are terrorists, who under their definition are brown. After all, their logic goes, you never know when they might know about a threat that must be neutralized right away. Lives are at stake every moment they don’t talk! Therefore it is critically important to go all Jack Bauer on their asses immediately if not sooner.*

One must wonder if they would say the same thing if we were talking about nice white Christian terrorists like Tim McVeigh or William Krar.

As I see it, there are two huge problems with changing Miranda. First is the old “slippery slope.” Today it’s terrorists. Tomorrow it’s suspected serial killers. The next day it’s kidnappers or rapists. Pretty soon nobody’s got any rights once they’ve been accused of a felony. And don’t kid yourself, women and minorities would be less likely to be informed that maybe they should shut up and ask for a lawyer. It’s obvious that white boys never break the law, they only have “youthful indiscretions.”

The second problem is that the system we have actually works! The last two terrorists we caught were read their rights, and they were willing to talk to law enforcement anyway! A lot of people choose to give up their right to remain silent for reasons that are their own. There is no need to torture anybody, nor even a need to just shut up about their rights. Since one of the recent terrorists was a naturalized citizen, he might know his Constitutional rights better than some cops.

Seriously. The Fifth Amendment was good enough for guys like Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Madison, and a host of others. It’s good enough for me.

In Closing: Take Your Kids to the Park and Leave Them Day is Saturday; Volcanic Ash Maps; better get used to warmer temperatures (no more laughing about snowstorms “proving” global climate change is a hoax); reaping the whirlwind of Reaganomics; racial wealth gap quadrupled — yes quadrupled — since the 80s (don’t suppose that has anything to do with Reagan?); how important are small businesses to the economy?; Duhpartment of Research finds that reading skills in early grades are critical to academic success later; I could have told them that creative people tend to be a little crazy; oil in the water (and nothing BP does to try and cover up how much there is will change reality); and crazy architecture.

* Did you know that in 2007, an American General personally flew out to Hollywood to ask the producers of 24 to cut the torture and other illegal crap out?

The Day the Mountain Blew Up

It was 30 years ago today.

A huge ash cloud moved across the country over the following days, reminding anyone who cared to look up what had happened.

Many considered it a disaster. People had died. Property was just plain gone. After all, a forest had been destroyed. Surely life would never get back to normal with the ecosystem blown up. Those experts were wrong; the aftermath offered a tremendous opportunity to study life returning to the area, cleansed of what had come before.

And now, 30 years later, Mount St. Helens is still clearly an active volcano, still part of a chain of volcanoes that includes Mount Hood overlooking Portland and Mount Rainier sandwiched between Seattle and Tacoma. Rainier is considered by the Federal government to be “one of the Most Hazardous Volcanoes in the United States”. The last time it erupted, a tsunami raced across the Pacific Ocean, immortalized in this famous painting.

Comparisons between America’s biggest volcanic disaster at Mount St. Helens and the current volcanic eruptions in Iceland are irresistible. And while Eyjafjallajökull is likely to be full of sound and fury for months to come, today we remember the events of 30 years ago, when a mountain blew up.

Cross-posted on The Moderate Voice.

In Closing: Damn you, Karate Kid!; at least this family in Detroit whose home was raided in the middle of the night by cops who, seeking a murderer, lit their grandchild on fire before fatally shooting her will get something like justice, because Geoff Feiger is on the case and cameras were rolling for a reality TV show; “Airline fees are only bad when the government imposes them”; Mexico’s President wants to talk seriously about immigration; Homeowners (or is that home”owners”) need an advocate with the banks; apparently an Arizona drivers license is proof of citizenship, but the rest of us need passports and birth certificates (BTW this means that you have lots of unlicensed drivers in AZ who don’t want any trouble about their papers, so that should make you feel really safe); “Fetuses are more important than their mothers” says Bishop (and the Church wonders about their decreasing relevancy); 15 companies with biggest job cuts; and fewer people, thankfully, are falling behind on paying their debts.

Left Behind: The Jobpocalypse

Even though officially, the Great Recession is over and the economy is no longer contracting, most people believe the recession is still ongoing. They believe this because as the saying goes, “Things are tough all over.”

The sad truth is that many of the jobs that were lost in the first decade of this century are not coming back. Ever. They’ve been replaced by computers and cheap overseas labor. Some of them did what they were told is the “smart thing” and trained for other jobs in the “new economy.” And while a few of them have been fortunate, many of them merely end up with a pile of student loan debt and not nearly enough experience to get a job. The only “good news” — if it can be called that — is that while they were students, they did not actually count as unemployed. And some of them have discovered that regardless of the law, many employers consider them too old to bother hiring. It isn’t that they did anything wrong. They’ve just not been fortunate. No wonder there’s been a sharp rise in Social Security disability claims!

So in the middle of this truth, FactCheck.org insists that immigration doesn’t cost American jobs. In fact, the economic papers they cite tell us, their existence creates jobs and raises wages for “native” workers. They admit that illegal immigrants performing unskilled labor do drive wages (and opportunities) down for those at the very lowest end of the employment scale. Otherwise, the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants is largely glossed over.

Now let me make one thing perfectly clear. I have no problem whatsoever with the fact that people continue to come to the United States to create a better life for themselves and their families. My son has ancestors who arrived in this nation in the last hundred years; some of them did not speak English and some were fluent in multiple languages when they arrived. But you know what they all did? They followed the law. They did what was necessary to stay legal and become citizens.

Everyone benefits when the playing field is level: immigrants benefit when there is a clear and possible path to citizenship, and they benefit when they get minimum wage and a safe work environment; law abiding businesses benefit when unscrupulous employers are not allowed to undercut them with illegal laborers; communities benefit when there is not a group of people who are trying to be invisible to authorities, and when human trafficking is not tolerated (yeah that’s right, not all the illegals pick veggies and clean toilets); families benefit when a living wage and reasonable hours are the standard; everyone’s health benefits when agricultural workers have proper sanitary conditions; everyone’s safety benefits when construction workers are paying attention to their work instead of looking out for La Migra.

But the flipside of a level playing field is that the companies that employ us must be made to follow existing law, and they must respect that their profit depends on Americans having money to purchase their goods and services. We can only run our economy so long on selling cheap foreign made goods to one other. We have got to produce something of more lasting value than a cappuccino.

If you are so inclined, here are two bloggers who could use some monetary help, both long term unemployed. Just hit the “Donate” button.

In Closing: Doesn’t this look peaceful?; Doesn’t this look suspicious?; Government says there’s only a risk of “price pressure” (not inflation!) but Gold prices say **** that!; the truth about offshore drilling; Congress looking into whether it’s fair to use credit history for employment and insurance purposes (gee, I can’t imagine why somebody with no job might have lousy credit!!); Fannie and Freddie, too big to reform; Shinkansen; GOP to hold convention in Florida during hurricane season; Common Ancestor; next time some asshat talks about “tort reform” when they mean “damage caps,” just remind them of the Gulf Oil Spill; last word (I hope) on the aptly named TARP; the Maine idea; car dealers want to be exempted from proposed financial rules (waaah); duh, insurers stand to make a lot of money on health insurance reform; and history of the slider.

The Shorties Centipede

Ok, for the record, I didn’t make it up, this is a real movie. No, not planning on watching it.

Quickie Economic Stuff: Technically we are out of the Great Recession (assuming you can believe the numbers put out by the government but that’s another story). Nevertheless we are not in a recovery. Bankruptcies are still way too high and jobs are still way too few. We’ve still got too many people who have been unemployed over half a year and too many people who are stuck in part time jobs because a full time job just isn’t available to them no matter how hard they try. Oh, and we haven’t fixed the underlying real estate problem.

Obligatory Oil Spill Stuff: Some meteorologists think the spill might be 5 times worse than reported. Oh, and there might be a lot of unexploded ordinance to complicate the mess. So since the containment dome worked about as well as Jon Stewart predicted (starts around minute 5), now they want to try plugging it up with random junk. Hey, it worked in Futurama. But whatever you do, don’t cry for BP; about 4 days’ profits can cover cleanup.

Really cool computer accessories: Laquered wood mouse starts around $300 American.

No Point Reasoning With Some People: Complain about high taxes all you like, they haven’t been this low since 1950.

Closer than you think: The outrageous thing is that cops are busting down doors and killing pets every day across the nation. It’s just that this one time there’s a videotape.

I don’t get it: So it’s better that violent mental patients should rape a female mental patient than they should assault each other?

Must Read: Prohibition Then and Now.

Dear Fed: Sure, the Senate unanimously voted to have a one time audit of the Fed. However, it’s a watered down thing.

Core Requirements: Susie’s must-have course may be Johnie’s fluff class. How important is it to be a well-rounded student?

Blackbird Flyin’ in the Dead of Night: Take these discarded manuals and learn to fly. All your life, you’ve been waiting for this moment to arrive.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?: More like “Don’t put out and I’ll tell.” We already have an unconscionably high rate of rape in our armed forces. This makes me wonder how many people who are discharged are forced into this, and how many are rape victims with the temerity to stand up to their attackers.

And finally: this lawsuit ain’t over ’till it’s over.

Why Your Medical Bills Go Up Next Year

And, Why Your Doctor Won’t Get a Penny of That Money

Maybe some of you recall my posting a picture taken from the 3rd floor of the Clark County Courthouse. Perhaps you wondered why I was there. I had been called to jury duty. Now that the trial that I was in the jury pool for is over — except for appeals, of course — I think I can safely comment on the case.

There were 150 of us asked to fill out a 30+ page juror questionnaire, and when I saw it I immediately thought “Oh no, they do not want me on that jury!” When I got out and called my partner to let him know I was on the way home, he asked me about what had happened. I said “I can’t comment on the case, but I think I can safely say there’s a doctor who’s a witness, it involves propofol, and it doesn’t involve Michael Jackson.” He replied “Oh no, they do not want you on that jury!”

Sure enough I was called by the court and asked not to return.

Here are the facts of the story. Dipak Desai was a doctor who came to Vegas and built an “empire” on quickie colonoscopies. It all came tumbling down a couple of years ago when a cluster of Hepatitis cases was traced to his clinic. While hepatitis is a known possible complication of colonoscopy, this was an unusual number of cases. Six cases rapidly expanded to 114 cases (and counting), with tens of thousands of people needlessly exposed to disease while getting a screening exam in the name of staying healthy. Desai himself eventually declared bankruptcy, but not before a stroke, trying to flee the country (thwarted by the local Mercedes dealership!), and much handwringing over Nevada’s malpractice insurance “reform” and the fact that he only carried the $1,000,000 per incident and $3,000,000 per year coverage required by law. A small number of cases have been settled, but there are many more cases and not enough money to go around.

Now make no mistake: there are a lot of people who are very sick because of the actions of Dr. Desai, his colleagues, and his staff. But sometimes it is just not possible to make things right. So since you can’t get blood form a turnip, some very sick people and their lawyers started looking for the deepest available pockets.

The media has made much of the fact that the clinics used “single use vials” of medication more than once and may have re-used some syringes. If that’s how the Hepatitis was transmitted, then USA Today and the CDC are right that it’s the tip of the iceberg. Except that’s not how it happened; if it were, there would be clusters of blood-borne disease around every surgical center, vaccine clinic, and med-spa in the nation.

Enter the sad but true case of Henry Chanin, who at the time he was infected worked for the Mayor’s wife at the posh Meadows School. It’s the kind of place with multi-million dollar facilities, a waiting list as long as your arm, and a near 100% college admissions rate. His lawyers alleged that it was the fault of the drug companies that made the medication in the single use vials that was to blame for his hepatitis. And, since the drug companies were specifically not allowed to blame the doctors for “misusing” the product, the jury I narrowly missed being on found in Mr. Chanin’s favor and awarded him and his wife over $5,000,000.

Here’s the problem; it wasn’t the meds. My partner put it very well back in 2008 when this was a new story:

Consider that if a clinic’s management is so cheap and careless as to cut corners over a $.05 syringe which is essentially the accusation leveled at this clinic, how much risk are they willing to put patients at? Endoscopes require cleaning and disinfection. That takes time. In a busy center, there have to be enough scopes to do the procedures and still have the downtime for the devices to allow them to be properly cleaned and disinfected.

The scopes cost thousands of dollars which is a very likely place to cut corners if it’s all about the bottom line and patient care never really enters the equation. Couple that with a high volume clinic and violations of the cleaning guidelines for the endoscopes are certain to happen.

It was very likely the endoscope, not contaminated propofol.

Using “single use vials” multiple times is almost standard for many medications, and research has been done to clear a number of drugs for use in this manner. You could clog journals with thousands of studies like this and that. Re-using the syringe is not a good idea, but the drug companies didn’t tell clinic staff to do that. I think the one biggest thing in my questionnaire that got me off that jury was the fact that Allergan send representatives to my office to teach me how to sell Botox from vials that should theoretically have been single use. Well guess what, for what those vials cost, nobody is only using them only once. And strangely enough, not a single case of hepatitis or AIDS has ever been traced to a Botox party. Disclaimer: my partner used to work for the guy who filed this suit, who also happens to be quoted extensively in the link on Dipak Desai above. Yeah, sometimes it feels like the medical community in Vegas traces back to a very small number of people who all know each other.

While nobody can give Mr. Chanin his health back, blaming a drug company for a clinic that didn’t follow the instructions and according to many sources didn’t even properly clean the apparatus they put up people’s butts will only drive up everybody’s costs: drugmaker’s costs, malpractice insurance costs, liability insurance costs, doctor’s costs for drugs and insurance both. Your insurance company? They will raise your premiums. And your doctor? His costs will go up but he won’t make an extra dime.

In Closing: Natazia?; the tax revenue case for marijuana legalization; no more French Foreign Legion for American Boys if Senator LIEberman gets his blatantly unconstitutional citizenship forfeiture bill passed but you’re still clear to join Israel’s army; corporate America passing the expensive part of health insurance reform on to you (and I said something similar when??); educators can’t count; letting states protect citizens from banks must be part of financial reform along with “too big to fail = too big to exist“; on Social Security; deregulation disaster; all just a little bit of history repeating; 30 photos that that changed the world; employment is increasing, just not nearly enough; on terrorist attacks; Yoko Ono; and Happy I Suck Less Than Yesterday Day.

Happy Greenery Day!

Today is Midori No Hi, or Greenery Day. Originally celebrated in late April as the [previous] Emperor’s Birthday, Hirohito-sama’s love of nature prompted the current Emperor Akihito-sama to make it a permanent holiday celebrating the great outdoors. It is part of a “Golden Week” of holidays, so don’t plan on getting anything done with business associates in Japan this week.

Picture taken by the ShortWoman in April of 2007. It’s an Asian pear tree in blossom.

In Closing: Stuff you thought you would never hear the President say; the economy is a very different place depending on whether you are an American family or an American auto manufacturer; Tony Horton is the man (except when Henry Rollins is); the hole this school district is in keeps getting deeper; Would Jesus Be Accepted by the Conservatives?; Airline fees are out of hand; Just a few choice words about BP and the oil disaster in the Gulf; Porn Star saves man from prison; unHappy Mothers Day; look, it’s called the 5th Amendment and it applies to all Americans; Baseball players against racial profiling; Audit the Fed!; and two amusing items, I Shot the Serif and Nunderwear.

Oklahoma Shitbowl

I do try to avoid unnecessary profanity, but what Oklahoma is doing is profane.

Maybe by now you have heard that any woman unfortunate enough to be pregnant in Oklahoma will find great obstacles to her care. For one thing, her doctor is allowed to lie to her about whether he has reason to believe there are fetal anomalies that will become birth defects. After all, she may decide that carrying a baby who will die soon after birth or require expensive, time monopolizing care is not something she wants to do. To some people, that makes her a “selfish slut,” but to most people that makes her “normal.”

Moreover, any woman seeking an abortion in Oklahoma will have to get an ultrasound, look at the pictures, and listen to a description of the embryo or fetus. And fill out a privacy-invading questionnaire. No exceptions for victims of rape, incest, or women who already know there is something seriously wrong with the embryo/fetus.

The ever brilliant (and very sarcastic) Digby points out how this bill will fail:

Sure the dumb bitches can’t be allowed to make their own decisions about taking on a lifetime of care or consider implications for their own health and well being. What the silly little twits don’t know won’t hurt them, right? But you’d think that the important members of society like insurance companies and employers would have a stake in something like this.

Here’s the thing. Failing to note fetal abnormalities on the ultrasound and still billing the insurance company is called fraud. Fraud, unlike medical malpractice, is a criminal offense. Do that to a patient whose care is paid for under a Federal program and it’s a federal crime with federal time. Fine, Doc can’t be sued for malpractice; he can go to prison instead.

Doc is also subject to ethics rules, and those would include telling patients the truth. Doc can lose his license if someone makes an ethics complaint with the state board of medical examiners.

If enough big employers lose enough Edna Employees to the care of severely disabled babies, they will find a way to sue doctors who hid those conditions. After all, big employers often have an entire legal department. And that would fall under general liability rather than med-mal.

So believe it or not, I think the insurance companies will provide the work-around for this. Remember that under the health insurance reform that was just passed, they can’t exclude children with pre-existing conditions. They have a vested interest in preventing severely disabled babies from being in their pool of insureds. What they will do is insist that ultrasounds be done in an independent imaging facility — not the doctor’s office or an affiliated facility — and insist that a full copy of the report be provided both to them and the mother-to-be. This will outrage obstetricians because they make good money on ultrasounds and the equipment is not cheap.

Oh well, maybe they should have objected to this bill before it became law.

In Closing Arizona Update: the smartest thing you are likely to read about illegal immigration this week; let the lawsuits begin; polls, demographics, and the future; boycotts are already underway; even some prominent Republicans think Arizona has gone too far; gee, who could have seen harassment of day laborers coming??; Hispanics vow to fight this law.

In Closing For Real This Time: Tell us what you really think about Goldman Sachs, Barry! (And why doesn’t your blog read like this? Maybe you should dictate your posts); high school graduates going to college rather than competing in the dismal job market, but does anybody really believe that 70% of the jobs that will be available in 4 years needs a college degree?; a security expert from one of the most secure airports in the world calls full-body scanners a waste of money; The Vaccine War; America doesn’t rule the world and shouldn’t be allowed to say what other nation’s product labels can include; reduce the deficit by expanding Medicare; get rid of “too big to fail”; and finally, if you are in a position to do something nice for J.P., please do.

Arizona Follies

I hate to put up a “me too” post of “Arizona’s Papers Pleez Law is Bad mmkay,” so I prefer to consider this a roundup post of things others have said. I’ll start by reminding you that just last week I said “By the way, ‘reasonable suspicion’ means the cop doesn’t like you and/or you’re brown. I don’t think most people appreciate that most people don’t carry proof of citizenship in their pockets….”

So I can’t express any real shock that before the Arizona bill even hit the Governor’s desk, an Arizona trucker was asked to present proof of citizenship at a routine weight stop. Hell, I predicted such things would happen, I just didn’t think it would be a matter of days.

So frankly, it seems obvious for conventions to want to meet someplace other than Arizona, particularly if they have a lot of “brown” people who are planning to attend. After all, the last thing you want is for your attendees or speakers to be detained and possibly deported to unknown places for the “crime” of not slipping a birth certificate in their luggage! Boycotts are already underway, and an interesting array of figures have come out against the bill. Even Mexico is warning its citizens against travel to Arizona, despite the fact that surely Mexican tourists would come armed with legitimate passports.

Arizona authorities even have the unmitigated audacity to ask Federal officials for help training cops to harass Americans suspected of being non-Americans. But then again, this is the land of Bully-in-Chief and perennial civil rights defendant Sheriff Arpaio.

Just the same, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that this whole exercise boils down to race. Specifically, they want to discourage “brown” people from showing up to vote in November. Notice that all this came down right after those Census forms went back? Arizona cronies want the Congressional seats and other goodies that come from having all those Hispanic votes with no risk that those Hispanics will show up and vote… Democratic.

In closing: I am embarrassed for my local paper that they printed this “proof” that women prefer Democrats not because of say, policies that support women’s rights and needs but rather because they are “fickle“; speaking of local issues with national implications, don’t lose track of this lawsuit!; more local-is-national news, Harry Reid gets real; Japanfilter comes to you from the continuing controversy of American troops at Okinawa; loopholes in the health insurance reform bill; Haven’t I been telling you for 7 years that we never really had a recovery from the 2001 recession?; after all these years, rubella is a serious but preventable disease; stricter financial reform now; don’t let political adversaries define the problem you are trying to solve!; 30 years of sticky-notes; PowerPoint has its place, just not on the battlefield; I’m not sure I agree with the idea of a top tax bracket at 90% (which it was pre-Reagan), but it’s an interesting argument; and 6 important things humanity forgot.

Knitting Things

There was a witch who knitted things:
Elephants and playground swings.
She knitted rain,
She knitted night,
But nothing really came out right.
The elephants had just one tusk
And night looked more
Like dawn or dusk.

–Karla Kuskin

So much stupid has been committed by various Republicans in the last day that I thought about adding to yesterday’s post. But then I realized that things had merely come full circle.

Oh sure, it’s easy and fun to figure out how many chickens you should take with you to the doctor’s office for various services! Just punch it into the Lowden Plan Chicken Calculator! But please don’t forget to scroll all the way down. The amazing thing is that she’s not backing down one inch from her chicken-barter statement. She could have said she merely meant that we need to be flexible and think outside the box for solutions, anything other than suggesting it was really desirable to show up at Doc’s place with a truckload of chickens.

Of course it’s almost obligatory to point out that if the Democrats have a single functional brain cell, they will line up behind Senator Dodd and insist that every Republican choose to stand either with reform or with corruption on financial services reform (heck, we may have to make the Democrats do it too).

I suppose I did gloss over GOP Chairman and token “black man” Michael Steele admitting that African Americans really have no reason to vote for the Grand Old Party today. Why did I put “black man” in quotes? Because if he were either one he would have told *ahem* people like these where to shove their signs.

Right there is where we start knitting. We’re in the process of transcending mere Stupid Republican Tricks and tying them back to the racist, sexist claptrap that I railed about — with some resistance I might add — a few weeks ago. Racism? Check! Sexism? Huh, let’s see… sexism, sexism….

Oh here! I personally think it’s pretty freaking objectionable to send out a newsletter to your base suggesting “Let’s take [Congresswoman] Betty Sutton out of the House and put her back in the kitchen.”

Yeah. Since her previous job was not as a chef, that is offensive as hell. Can she at least keep her shoes, or would they like to see her barefoot and pregnant too? And [expletive] them for trying to make it somehow acceptable to say this. Oh, says the local official who approved the mailing, we haven’t gotten any complaints! And so, then, the donations are rolling in on that crap? What do his wife and daughters think of that rhetoric? Are they proud of what Daddy said?

Obviously this man doesn’t speak for the entire party. There are women Republicans. Former Secretary of State Condi Rice for example. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Senate Candidate Sue Lowden of Nevada.

Here’s some free advice to the Republican Party. You can’t continue to alienate the 51% of Americans who are women and the 12% of Americans who are black and actually keep winning free and fair elections. If they continue on their current path, they will more and more resemble a misshapen toy elephant made of yarn scraps, with only one tusk.

In Closing: on airlines; surely nobody expected the SEC to investigate anybody; I hope this movie doesn’t suck; speaking of movies, Food, Inc. streaming free for a limited time; Orcas are more than one species; what part of the Americans with Disabilities Act didn’t the school understand?; Japanese mechanical dolls; and Worst Person in the World, 33 AD.