Shakesville

An Ill-Conceived Law

The Florida Legislature is considering a bill that defines life as beginning at conception.

Republican legislators on the committee pushed through the effort to define an "unborn child" as a fetus at any stage of development in the womb. Under current law, an unborn child is defined as a "viable fetus" that is "capable of meaningful life outside the womb through standard medical measures."

My first question with this bill -- or any argument that a right-to-lifer brings up about life beginning at conception -- is how do they know when conception occurs? Does a bell go off, or is it sometime between "Ooooohhhhhhh!" and "Have you seen my underwear?" I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure one of the basic concepts of determining that something has happened is that you can actually prove within reason when the event actually occurred. So unless the state is going to send pregnancy patrols monitoring every uterus in the state with microscopes and such, there's no way to determine the exact moment when a woman gets pregnant.

Rep. Ralph Poppell, R-Vero Beach, said the bill is needed to make sure that people who murder pregnant women are charged not just for the violent act against the woman, but also her fetus.

"It just says that, 'Look, if you commit this crime and it's against a pregnant lady and the baby dies, you'll be charged twice,'" Poppell said of his bill that passed the House Committee on Home Security & Public Safety today.

Nice try, but it's not about that at all. It's about controlling other people and making their private lives public business. And the Republicans accuse the Democrats of being in favor of the nanny-state. Such chutzpah.

Given that the state of Florida is facing massive budget deficits and the legislature is cutting funding to public education to the point that school districts are having to lay people off, you would think that their energies would be better directed toward taking care of real issues such as how to pay for the things that really matter. But no; nothing is more important to these fanatics than taking care of microscopic blastocysts at the cost of the kids who are already here.

(Cross-posted.)

Clinton Tries to Make Amends

Speaking last night before the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which represents 200+ black community newspapers nationally, Hillary Clinton offered an apology for offense caused by Bill's statements re: South Carolina, and said of Ferraro's comments "I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn't speak for the campaign, she doesn't speak for any of my positions."

But I believe this is the more important statement, which will probably get even less coverage:

"Once one of us has the nomination there will be a great effort to unify the Democratic party and we will do so, because, remember I have a lot of supporters who have voted for me in very large numbers and I would expect them to support Senator Obama if he were the nominee," she said.

I know it's popular to call Clinton a monster, and pretend she's as bad as a Republican, and talk about her like she's the only one who plays dirty or uses rightwing frames, and refer to her with hyperbole suggesting she will single-handedly destroy the Democratic Party, but, amidst this outrageously contentious primary, in which lots of supporters of both remaining candidates are swearing they'll never vote for the other, Hillary Clinton made it clear she expects her supporters to unite behind Obama if he's the nominee.

Maybe, just maybe, she isn't pure evil. Ya think?

[And before anyone goes off on how I'm in the bag for Hillary, don't bother. I'm still not supporting either candidate over the other; I get seriously pissed if I think either of them is being treated unfairly—and, to date, my most exasperated rant still remains on Obama's behalf. So I don't want to hear it.]

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Wonderbug

Keith Olbermann Takes on Hillary Clinton

Here's a link to his special comment on Hillary Clinton's campaign tactics via Crooks and Liars.

The money quote:

Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant, and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro… your own advisers are slowly killing your chances to become President.

Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become President.

In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama.

You may think the matter has closed with Representative Ferraro’s bitter, almost threatening resignation.

But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican.

(Cross-posted.)

Top Chef Open Thread

Chef Tom Colicchio will drink. your. milkshake!!!
He will also eat your delectable-looking Quickfire amuse-bouche made from the contents of a Lunchables package and tell you that it is far too salty, lacks color, and could have a better texture.

Woman Left in Cell for 4 Days Without Water, Food, Toilet, Bed

I would say it's unbelievable, but, of course, it's totally, depressingly believable. For four days, Adriana Torres-Flores, a 38-year-old undocumented immigrant who has been in the US for 19 years, was locked in a 9x10 holding cell in Arkansas, where she had no sustenance but her own urine and slept on the floor using her shoe as a pillow.

A bailiff had apparently forgotten that he placed Ms. Torres-Flores, a mother of three, in the cell last Thursday, and simply left her in the empty courthouse, in Fayetteville, over the weekend, said the chief deputy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, Jay Cantrell. A snowstorm meant that there were far fewer people than usual working at the courthouse on Friday.

"He just flat forgot about her," Mr. Cantrell said, adding that the bailiff, Jarrod Hankins, had been placed on administrative leave, having been on the job a few months. "It was just a horrible mistake," Mr. Cantrell said.

Gee, ya think? I don't know if Mr. Hankins will have enough time to ponder his "mistake" while he's on administrative leave. I'm pretty sure firing him would give him enough time to reflect on the precise scope of his "mistake," though. But I guess that's just crazytalk when he didn't leave a real person in that cell for four days—just an undocumented brown woman.

Torres-Flores was taken to the hospital after she was found lying on the floor of the cell and is now at home recovering. Cantrell says that there will be an investigation, but assures "there was no malicious intent. The whole thing is terrible." Why, yes. It really, really is. But not so terrible that anyone should be jumping to crazy conclusions like his gross negligence makes Hankins unfit for his job, I guess. That needs to be determined by an investigation.

"Everybody is backing away from it as fast as they can," [Torres-Flores' immigration lawyer Roy Petty] said. "Frankly, that's how they treat Hispanics down here. They treat Hispanics like cattle, like less than human."

…In Little Rock, Rita Sklar, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Arkansas, said the organization was very concerned.

"There certainly have been a lot of problems in that corner of the state, in terms of police treatment of Latinos and bigoted statements by government officials," Ms. Sklar said. "We're looking into the general problem in northwest Arkansas of racial profiling and abuse of power."

And of dumb shits who totally forget they've left a woman in a fucking holding cell for four goddamned days and the callous wankers who make excuses for them, like he didn't mean to do it; it's not like he hated her—he was just totally indifferent to her existence!

Grr.

Fish Globes, Fish Globes, Roly-Poly Fish Globes

WANT.
Octopus Studios' Silverfish Aquarium is a complete tropical aquarium system that comes with everything but "gravel and fish." It's like a megacool fishy habitrail—Fish City of the Future!

I don't even have fish and I totally want one.

O'Reilly Asks the Hard Questions

Like: "What is the downside of having a woman become the president of the United States?"

Even better, he has as his guest professional douchebag and author of The Man's No-Nonsense Guide to Women and Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables (really; I couldn't make that up), Mark Rudov, to help answer that searing question.

And Rudov—who has previously appeared on Fox to helpfully explain that women are "untruthful, unfaithful, and unabashedly mercenary" and remind married bitchez that "sex is a requirement, not a reward"—performed splendidly in his role as sex and gender expert for The O'Reilly Factor.

O'REILLY: Tonight, we begin a brand new segment called, "He Said, She Said," where we'll deal with issues from a gender-based point of view. The segment will run every Friday, but we wanted to debut it tonight with a very provocative question: What is the downside of having a woman become president of the United States? […]

RUDOV: You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings, right?

…Well, you know, I'm joking. Of course, the main problem I have is if a woman has a female agenda. If she doesn't have a female agenda, if she just wants to be an executive for all the people, then all I care about is if she's qualified. And I have no qualms about having a female president. But if we take Hillary Clinton, she specifically does have a female agenda.

If you're like me, you're probably wondering WTF a "female agenda" is. Well, fear not. Rudov is happy to edify us.

Hillary embodies the female agenda. She wants to be the feminist in chief. She represents women. It says so on her website. And a lot of women are voting for her because she's a woman.

ZOMG!!!11!!!eleventy-one!!!111!!! She represents women?! And it says so right on her website?! Jebus H. Grumbles! SOMEBODY STOP HER!!!

I eagerly await O'Reilly and Mark Rudov exploring the downside of having a man become the president of the United States, and whether the men currently in the running, especially John McCain, have a male agenda.

[H/T to Shaker Corrie.]

Operation Skull-Inflation

Petulant just sent me this hilarious quote from Rush Limbaugh:

Geraldine Ferraro also not backing down, despite onslaughts from across the political spec-- Well, I think the Republicans are staying quiet on this for the most part. This is another example of the chaos that has been created out there, ladies and gentlemen, by us, you and I working together to create chaos, Operation Chaos. It's even been in the Huffington Post today. It's been acknowledged. The Limbaugh Effect is working and will continue to work throughout the rest of these primaries and the Democrat campaign season.

He's gone nutz. Truly. If there's one thing I can tell Rush Limbaugh, it's that the Dems have been able to shoot themselves in the foot without any help from him for decades!

That said, I would like to note that the increasing number of male conservatives who like to have sex with gay men is, in fact, directly attributable to my blogging about LGBTQ rights since 2004. The McEwan Effect is working and will continue to work throughout ETERNITY!

A pro-choice reminder…

By now you’ve probably heard the news that one in four American teen girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

A new study from the CDC indicates that some 3 million American teen girls have at least one sexually transmitted disease, such as HPV or chlamydia.

But Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, blames comprehensive sex education for the STI epidemic.

"Current public health policies are clearly failing to reduce the spread of STDs among young women,” she told CitizenLink.com (and you'll just have to Google it because I ain't linking to that mess...mercy!) "Public health officials need to admit their failures that have led to kids paying the price. Funding irresponsible sex-ed programs, ones that encourage kids to be sexually active, 12 times higher than funding abstinence programs unsurprisingly results in more kids being sexually active."

Remember that quote the next time Planned Parenthood sends out a political action alert.

Remember it the next time you have a chance to stand up and give a voice to the truth.

Remember one in four the next time you have an opportunity to speak to young people.

Remember, get fired up and then do something about it.

One in four is what I am committed to change through pro-choice activism and why the struggle against anti-knowledge policy must continue…

Is that a light-saber in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

Via Vintage Ads.

Quote of the Day

"Not surprisingly, clients 1 through 8 were Charlie Sheen."—Conan O'Brien, referring to Eliot Spitzer's now-famous pseudonym "Client-9" in the complaint associated with his involvement in a prostitution ring.

Yay, Indiana 7!

In December, Indiana lost one of our finest members of Congress when 7th district's Julia Carson died.

Yesterday, there was a special election to fill her seat—and it was won by her own grandson, Andre Carson.

Democrat Andre Carson beat back a Republican challenge to win the Indiana House seat long held by his late grandmother, Julia Carson, in a special election on Tuesday.

…Carson, an Indianapolis City Councilman, said he would oppose the Iraq war and the privatization of Social Security, positions taken by his grandmother, who served in Congress for nearly 11 years.

Carson, at 33, will be the second youngest currently serving representative, and also becomes the second Muslim to serve in Congress, following in the footsteps of Minnesota's Keith Ellison, who will hopefully lend Carson the book on which he was sworn in.

Call to Action: Deadline March 14th

by Shaker Rachel. I'm an Americorps volunteer in Atlanta with Women's Resource Center to End Domestic Violence. I regularly contribute to their blog, The Big Picture. And I write for the Giving by Design blog, which is the blog portion of the internet based non-profit that I am starting with some friends.

President Bush's 2009 budget proposal will make devastating cuts (almost one-third of the funding or $120 million) to the Violence Against Women Act program.

Why should you care and what can you do?

"The Administration's budget for Violence Against Women Act programs is an outrage," said Sen. Joe Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act. "Domestic violence impacts one in every four women, yet the Administration proposes cutting spending by almost a third. If allowed to go forward, this Administration's disastrous budgeting priorities could roll back more than a decade of success in investigating, prosecuting and preventing domestic and sexual violence."

Stop Family Violence.org is mounting a campaign to prevent these budget cuts from becoming a reality. Recently, the House of Representatives has provided an opportunity for opposition to these cuts to be heard. Below is an excerpt from open letter written by StopFamilyViolence.org's Executive Director, Irene Weiser.

If allowed to go forward, this Administration's disastrous budget priorities could roll back more than a decade of success in investigating, prosecuting and preventing domestic and sexual violence.

But something hopeful is happening in the House of Representatives!!

Leaders from the Victim’s Rights Caucus and the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues are circulating a 'Dear Colleague" letter (congress' version of a petition) urging other members in the House to support full funding for the Violence Against Women Act.

The deadline to sign the Dear Colleagues letter is Friday March 14. For more information and to send a pre-written e-mail to your representative, click here .

Since this is such short notice I don't have time to outline the many important things that VAWA does and the horrible consequences the proposed changes will bring. Fortunately, StopFamilyViolence.org has outlined all of those things really well at the above link.

Spitzer Resigns

"I am deeply sorry i did not live up to what was expected of me," Spitzer said. "For this reason I am resigning from the office of governor."

In good news, New York will get its first ever African-American governor, when Democratic Lt. Gov. David Paterson assumes power next Monday. As Zuzu mentioned in comments, Paterson, who is also legally blind, is "pro-LGBT (up to and including full marriage rights), has openly gay staffers, was the first African-American to serve in a Legislative leadership position in New York, as well as the first African-American lt. gov., is committed to issues of women (including domestic violence), minorities and people with disabilities."

Video of the presser ~~shortly~~ below the fold, with transcript.

Transcript:In the past few days, I have begun to atone for my private failures with my wife, Silda, my children, and my entire family. The remorse I feel will always be with me. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the love and compassion they have shown me.

From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much—the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me.

To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.

I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been, but I also know that, as a public servant, I, and the remarkable people with whom I worked, have accomplished a great deal. There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the People's work.

Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor. At Lt. Gov. Paterson's request, the resignation will be effective Monday, March 17, a date that he believes will permit an orderly transition.

I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that, as human beings, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family. Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children.

I hope all of New York will join my prayers for my friend David Paterson, as he embarks on his new mission. And I thank the public, once again, for the privilege of service. Thank you very much.

Bush: Economics Supergenius

Let us review:

The dollar hits a record low against the Euro - $1.5504 per Euro.
The price at the pump hits a record national average of $3.2272 a gallon, on the heels of a crude oil trading record at $109.72 a barrel.
The federal budget deficit has doubled to $87.7 billion since the same time last year.
At the end of 2007, Japan and China held over $1 trillion of US debt.

I'm sure that will be highlighted in the Bush Library's fiscal management section. Long live the legacy!

Today In China

"People standing on the roof of the Beijing Olympic stadium can barely be seen through the smog. China has issued assurances that the air will be safe for the Games."

Yeah, that's reassuring. It's not like China has a history of recklessly disregarding the health, safety and welfare of people just about everywhere.

(H/T to Lena, former olympic biathlete.)

Spring Break

Barack Obama won the Mississippi primary last night, which gives him a bit of boost on top of the win in Wyoming last weekend, and now we have six weeks to go before the Pennsylvania primary. So maybe it's time for everyone to take some time off and join the college kids in South Padre, Daytona, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West and forget about all this silliness for a while.

C'mon, Barack; we already know you look hot in a swim suit, so there's no reason you and Michelle and the girls can't get out there and have a little fun on the beach. C'mon, Hillary; relax a little. It's too early for Cedar Point, but Orlando is always ready for a family fun adventure at Disney World. Okay, so it's not a village. But the biggest favor both of you can do is give your staff and surrogates some time off and tell them to basically shut up.

We're not even halfway through March and already the silliness is running rampant. Both campaigns have had high-placed surrogates shoot off their mouths and say stupid things: last week it was Samantha Powers for the Obama camp; this week it's Geraldine Ferraro for the Clintons. (And not to miss out on the fun, the Republicans are still going over the top with Rep. Steve King (R-IA) standing by his stupidity about terrorists celebrating because of Barack Obama's middle name.) And there is certain to be more to come, just as annoying and prolific as the dandelions that pop up on a spring lawn.

Now the campaigns are trying to define just what makes a "winner" as each side tries to woo the delegates and parse the difference between delegates, pledged delegates, caucus delegates, delegates who chew Trident... and it goes on and on to the point where you just wonder if maybe the Canadians or the British aren't on to a good thing after all when they could have a complete election cycle and get a new prime minister and cabinet seated and have their first scandal in the time between now and April 22, when Pennsylvania votes.

Perhaps it's because I spend a lot of time paying attention to all of this noise that I have reached my silliness saturation point. I hope that the rest of the country isn't watching every move and listening for every nuance to a statement or a non-apology apology that comes out of each campaign, and I hope that the electorate has either tuned it out now because they've already had their primary and have gone back to worrying about things that matter like the price of gasoline or where they're going to get the money to pay for their health care, or they haven't yet had their primary and are avoiding paying attention to this until they absolutely have to. It's only those of us who are following the circus from town to town, some with their noses buried deep in the tracking polls and the inside numbers, looking for a shift of a percentage point here and there in a bellwether precinct that might be the precursor to the butterfly effect that signals a fault line in a candidate's message; or who stand back and watch this whole spectacle, shaking our heads in wonder at how silly and stupid it must look to the rest of the world: is this really how the most powerful nation on earth chooses its leader? Let's hope nobody else notices.

C.J. Cregg, the fictional White House press secretary on The West Wing, once said that everyone's stupid during an election year. Her colleague, Charlie Young, countered that the press treats everyone like they're stupid during an election year. He's right, but that's because we give them every reason to think we are. Maybe if everyone just took some time off, went to the beach or to the mountains or just the back porch; to wherever we need to to get away from it all for a while... for good or ill the world will still be here when we come back. And we could put it all in perspective: six months from now nobody will remember what someone in the Obama campaign said about the Clintons and vice versa back after the Ohio primary -- or was it Texas -- and six months from now we'll all be amazed at the trivial crap the Republicans have managed to throw at everybody because that's all they've got as John McCain runs for George W. Bush's third term.

Which way to the beach?

(Cross-posted.)

Spitzer Update

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is reportedly working on a resignation plan and may resign as earlier as today.

Law enforcement officials have also confirmed to the New York Post "that Spitzer didn’t want to wear a condom," which was the unsafe activity about which we were speculating on Monday.

I'm still reading lots of shocked expressions that Spitzer was a patron of the sex industry, even as reports emerge that he's been doing this for a decade or more and dropped nearly a hundred thousand dollars on the habit. CNN's senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, who attended law school with Spitzer, said, "To say this is a shock is an understatement" and called Spitzer "the straightest arrow I know." The level of shock and perplexed betrayal and general whatthefuckitude from his friends and allies is interesing; it's a swirling morass of confusion where circled wagons, fierce denials, and accuser-discrediting would be, if the story were ever so slightly different.

If one of the sex workers had made allegations against Spitzer without the benefit of a wiretapped phone call to back up her story, every person who is now incredulously calling Spitzer a "straight arrow" etc. would be refusing to believe even the possibilitiy of his involvement in this scenario, or would bury any suspicion well below the feelings of righteous indignation that one of their own was being smeared by that woman. But Spitzer's been busted bigtime, and there's no room for denials or planting the seeds of doubt about the character of that woman or any of the usual plays out of the playbook—so all his allies can do is express shock and dismay, wonder how it could be he was doing something like that right under their noses. But we knew him!

It's a curious thing to see. And it is worth remembering the next time one of those women makes an allegation against a public figure.

But it won't be.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Sports Night

The final scene in this clip is so perfect in its capacity to convey how deeply condescending magnanimity can be when it comes too late. Dan (Josh Charles) is sincere, as he always has been, but Casey (Peter Krause) just wants a cookie.

I don't think Sorkin intended it that way. But then he's always struck me as the kind of guy who gets resentful when he doesn't get a pat on the head after doing what he was told to do by someone for whom he should have done it without being told he ought to.