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Open Thread
Hosted by Duck Soup.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by ducks.
Ducks: They're quacktastic!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
And yes, I see I added an extra "o" in saloon. LOL. Wevs.
I'm too lazy to fix it now, so enjoy my knuckleheadery!
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Yep, Definitely
If Sarah Palin is guilty of anything, it is making TOO MUCH sense:
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told a group of women who oppose abortion rights that they are responsible for an "emerging, conservative, feminist identity."So true. If there's one thing you can say about feminists, it's that they spend a lot of time telling women that they're not capable enough to manage multiple identities.
..."Our prominent woman sisterhood is telling these young women that they are strong enough to deal with this," Palin said. "They can give their child life, in addition to pursuing career and education and avocations. Society wants to tell these young women otherwise. These feminist groups want to tell these women that, 'No, you're not capable of doing both.' ... It's very hypocritical."
Why, just last weekend, I could barely slip off my bra to burn it because I was carrying a huge "Mother OR Career Woman: You Can't Be BOTH, Ladies" sign at the Forcible Abortion Rally.
[H/T to Shaker Ivyceltress.]
Oh My Aching Sides
[Trigger warning for violence.]
Maria at 2 Political Junkies just emailed me about a new political advert being run by the conservatively-funded 527 Rightchange. The ad is called "The Attack of the 50-Foot Pelosi" and it casts Nancy Pelosi as a monster who must be killed by Republican voters.
Voiceover (over animated images of a mad scientist's lab in which cartoon avatars of Barack Obama and Harry Reid are creating "the monster" by pulling levers marked "bailouts" and "healthcare" and "carbon tax"): Once, Nancy Pelosi was safely confined to LIBERAL San Francisco [the Nancy Pelosi avatar cackles wildly as she comes to life] but Harry Reid and Barack Obama had OTHER plans!Maria's analysis is spot-on; I encourage you to head over and read what she's got to say about the ad.
Obama avatar: Under my plan, the electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.
Voiceover (over images of the Pelosi avatar being shocked in the lab and growing into a 50-foot tall version of herself and stomping down streets and crushing homes): Now, gorged on our taxpayer dollars, Pelosi has grown into a power-hungry goliath, defying the will of the American people. Who has the power to stop her?! Who can save America?! [images of people holding up "Tim Burns" buttons; Burns is the Republican candidate in the special election race for the late Representative John Murtha's seat; electric bolts come out of the buttons and hit Pelosi, who begins to scream and writhe] You! The Pennsylvania voter! Vote May 18th, the day we fight back! Rightchange is responsible for the content of this message.
The only point I'd add, in addition to her critique of the violence against an elected official being depicted in this spot, is that the Monster Pelosi is also represented being the unholy creation of two men, which is a nifty little twist of demeaning misogyny. Nancy Pelosi did not become the first female Speaker because of Harry Reid and Barack Obama. For fuck's sake.
Domestic Violence and the San Diego Courts
by Shaker Maud
[Trigger warning for discussion of domestic violence.]
Via Sign On San Diego, the online presence of San Diego's daily paper, comes this story about a Superior Court judge, DeAnn Salcido, who has taken the extraordinary step of seeking a court order specifically instructing her supervising judge, Peter Deddeh, and her fellow justices, to impose all conditions of probation on domestic violence offenders which are required by California state law.
Because, according to Judge Salcido, they are not doing so.
There is a lot of important information in this story.
- A Superior Court justice alleges that other Superior Court judges are failing to impose all the conditions of probation which they are required to by law.
- Judges are waiving these legally-mandated probation conditions, she says, in regard to a specific type of offender: perpetrators of domestic violence.
- Judge Salcido further alleges that her own insistence on following the law has lead to harassment and retaliation from a supervising judge. She says that Judge "Deddeh became increasingly upset with her and retaliated by ordering her to get his permission before asking clerks to make copies of some court papers, which she said limited her ability to control her court calendar."
- The specific conditions of probation which other judges are failing to impose, including requiring probationers to take a one-year course on domestic violence, issuing orders into a statewide database intended to provide people with protection from perpetrators, and ordering defendants to relinquish any firearms they own. Judge Salcido says that defendants who are permitted to plead to charges other than specific domestic violence charges are being sentenced merely to twelve-hour courses and given no conditions related to protective orders or firearms.
- The nature of the disagreement between the justices as to what the law requires. In her court filing, Judge Salcido states that the law requires judges to consider whether the relationship between the defendant and the victim is one which is covered by the standards defined in domestic violence laws, i.e. co-habitant, former spouse, those who have been dating, etc . If so, Judge Salcido contends, then even if the defendant is allowed to plead to a charge other than domestic violence, such as disturbing the peace, all the conditions of probation in domestic violence cases must be imposed.
- That a "longtime defense attorney" says, "Defense attorneys will often negotiate plea agreements to avoid those probation conditions" and that some judges consider the underlying relationship between defendant and victim, and others limit their consideration to the specific charge pled to. Judge Salcido "is known as" one of the former.
- That while other judges are refusing to comment publicly on this specific matter, one Superior Court judge, Fredric Link, defended Judge Deddeh, against whom Judge Salcido's allegations of failure to follow the law, harassment and retaliation were lodged, saying Deddeh is "one of the court's best judges." The story does not make clear whether Judge Deddeh is also the supervisor of the judge who publicly praised him, or whether Link is himself one of the judges potentially affected by the court order Judge Salcido is requesting.
Also, according to this story, "several judges contacted Friday were stunned at Salcido's move and privately critical of it." Anonymously. Apparently it did not occur to the reporter to inquire of any of the judges whose opinion he solicited of Judge Salcido's action and Judge Deddeh's character what conditions of probation they themselves impose in such cases.
- That the judge making these allegations is running for re-election in June. Another candidate is running to replace her, and he has been endorsed by a "conservative group called BetterCourtsNow". Judge Salcido said at the news conference on the courthouse steps, at which she announced filing her order with the court, that her court challenge is not related to the election.
I have listed these pieces of information in the order of what seems to me their importance and natural relationship to one another. The writer/editor(s) of the SignOn San Diego story began with the same first point I do above - diverging immediately thereafter. They began the second sentence with the information that Judge Salcido is running for election this year. In a news story you want to get the important information up front; in the minds of those who published this article, apparently, the fact that the judge who filed this complaint is running for election is a more urgent piece of information than any which followed.
It is true that where there are elections there is politics, and we have certainly seen this in the case of judges running for office. Still, the placement of that bit of information suggests that the writer or editors of this article were awfully eager to raise the suggestion that Judge Salcido's allegations were meant to be in aid of her chances in the election. I also note that, while they chose to print Judge Link's statement praising Judge Deddeh, we are given no information as to what other judge's impressions are of Judge Salcido's work. Given that she has alleged that other justices are not following the law, such an appraisal might not be positive, but we simply don't know.
Also, while the writer notes Justice Salcido's upcoming election and apparently asked the candidate opposing her for his views of the matter (he refused to comment, citing a rule that prohibits candidates from criticizing a sitting judge), we are given no information as to the gender make-up of the court, and whether any of the judges whose anonymous criticism of Judge Salcido's action are also women. Also, as previously noted, there is no notice taken of the possibility that any of the judges whose opinions on the matter were quoted may themselves be affected by the court order Judge Salcido is requesting, nor of what their own practice is in the imposition of probation conditions in such cases.
Related reading: The story Liss blogged about here did not take place in the same county, so does not involve the same judges. It is but one recent example of judges not taking domestic violence, or its victims, seriously.
I want to say one word to you, just one word: Plastics.
Lazy fatties, caloriesincalaoriesout!, why don't you stop eating whole cakes in one sitting, et cetera:
Studies are showing increasing evidence there may be a link between certain chemicals and obesity. A new study found overweight young girls had significantly higher levels of phthalates than the general population of children. Phthalates are found in plastics and can be hormone disruptors.Plastic food wrappers, bags, and storage, nonstick pots and pans, and the lining in items like tin cans and microwave popcorn bags are all potential sources of the phthalates that may interfere with the metabolic process.
Nutritionist Keith Bishop of Oklahoma City says these disruptors can cause all sorts of problems, "The plastics attach to receptors on the cells. If it's a fat cell, it can stimulate that cell to grow and get bigger."
These plastics can also attach to the thyroid, according to Bishop, causing metabolism problems.
Quote of the Day
"Come on down here and play golf, enjoy the beach, catch a fish and pay a little sales tax while you're here."—Chair of the Republican Governors Association and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, downplaying (to put it charitably) the gravity of the oil spill in the Gulf.
Via Alex, who notes dryly: "[I]t may be hard to enjoy a beach covered in tar balls and dead fish."
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of the A-1 Head Jars, for all your future head-storing needs.
Recommended Reading:
Latoya: Questions Remain Around Elena Kagan and Race
Echidne: Insidious and Dangerous
Andy: Story from the Frontline of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': A Soldier Returning to Baghdad
Angry Asian Man: Small Town Adopts Pointless English-Only Law
Lauredhel: Slam After Slam for People with Disabilities in Australia's New Budget
And RMJ's got a great series on disability and birth control: Part One. Part Two. Part Three.
Leave your links in comments...
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Sure
[Trigger warning for Polanski garbage.]
Sure, yes, absolutely, I was just thinking that what Roman Polanski needed was yet another petition in support of his freedom from persecution justice.
And HuffPo definitely should have provided this space to Bernard-Henri Lévy for his continued crusade on behalf of poor Polanski. He's TENACIOUS! Let no one ever suggest that anyone loves defending a child rapist more than Bernard-Henri Lévy!
Gawd. Roman Polanski is the WORST. But HuffPo is also the worst, and Bernard-Henri Lévy is the worst, too. They are all the worst.
Oh Dear
A new study led by Dr. Barry Sinervo, professor of biology in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, has found that "populations of lizards have been lost on five continents over the past few decades, and based on these extinction patterns — and the current rate of global warming — scientists predict that by 2080 nearly 40% of all lizard populations and 20% of lizard species could vanish."
Given that lizards are a key source of food for many birds, snakes and other animals, and are important predators of insects, the disappearance of these animals could have major repercussions up and down the food chain.I used to work for a guy who would shout at employees, "Adapt or die!" and I always think of him when I hear about global warming deniers and/or the free marketeers who argue that irrespective of the source of global warming, species just need to "adapt or die."
...As global warming causes weather to get hotter and stay hotter longer, lizards — especially species that live in the warmest areas — spend more time seeking refuge out of the sun. "They have so little time during the day to forage and so little time to reproduce that conditions become untenable [for survival]," says Aaron Bauer of Villanova University, a co-author of the study.
To test that theory, Sinervo and his team spent a year creating a predictive model of extinction, based on what they knew about lizards' heat sensitivity, where different species lived and the measured increases in local temperatures over the past 30 years. The model pinpointed exact sites where extinctions should be happening. The scientists then scoured the scientific literature and contacted herpetologists around the world to see how the animal populations had fared.
Sure enough, populations of lizards were vanishing in just the places the model had identified.
I wonder if that was an easier thing to say when they assumed that most species on the planet weren't likely to go for "die."
This...
When you find yourself in danger
When you're threatened by a stranger
When it looks like you will take a lickin'
(bock, bock, bock, bock!)
There is someone waiting who
Will hurry up and rescue you
Just caaaaall for Super Chicken!
(bock-ah!)
"Fred, if you're afraid, you'll have to overlook it
Besides you knew the job was dangerous when you took it!"
(bock-ah!)
He will drink his super sauce
And throw the bad guys for a loss
And he will bring them in alive and kickin'
(bock, bock, bock, bock!)
There is one thing you should learn
When there is no one else to turn to
Caaaaall for Super Chicken!
(bock, bock, bock, bock!)
Caaaaall for Super Chicken!
(bock-ah!)
Blog Note
A bunch of people have emailed me to let me know they're still having problems commenting, and though I've responded to each of them individually, I thought I'd better post an update...
It seems that key features of Disqus' upgrade are not backwards compatible, so you may be having problems with the form, or getting logged out after leaving a comment, if you're not using the most current version of your browser. Updating your browser, if you can, should solve some of those problems.
I'm also aware that the direct links to comments aren't working when you click on a "reply to" link, and, as you've no doubt noticed, the text in comments remains terribly small, because we are currently unable to customize our CSS to fix it.
We do have a help ticket in with Disqus to hopefully resolve these issues ASAP, but we've not heard back from them yet.
Again, my sincerest apologies for the inconvenience.
UPDATE: And I have no idea why comments are occasionally loading looking like total garbage. This is what we ought to be seeing, but threads are sometimes inexplicably loading looking like this or this. Again, I'm sorry that commenting's such a mess at the moment.
I Get Letters
Fat Princess. Still.
Thank You. I'd just like to sincerely thank you for providing my friends and I with a good laugh with your article(s) about Fat Princess. I think you're pretty much the reason nobody takes feminism seriously.I had no idea "nobody takes feminism seriously." I'm so stupid I actually thought feminists took feminism seriously.
But it turns out, according to my helpful correspondent, no one, including the millions of women and men all over the world who identify as feminists, takes it seriously. And it's all because of me!
I am powerful. Rrrrooowwaaarrr.
[Fat Princess: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen.]
Oil Spill Bigger Than Estimated
The "5,000 barrels a day" number, which has become the conventional wisdom about how much oil is spilling, could "easily be four or five times" less than what's actually spilling every day. BP continues, however, to resist allowing scientists to conduct more accurate volume measurements.
BP has repeatedly said that its highest priority is stopping the leak, not measuring it. "There's just no way to measure it," Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, said in a recent briefing.Which is appropriate, given that this stands to be the largest oil spill in history. Kevin Drum notes, if indeed the underground reservoir continues bleeding until it's dry, "That would be about 2 billion gallons of oil. If all of this floods out, it would be the biggest oil spill in history by a huge margin and 20 times bigger than the biggest previous spill in the Gulf of Mexico."
...Speaking more broadly about the company's policy on measuring the leak, a spokesman, David H. Nicholas, said in an e-mail message that "the estimated rate of flow would not affect either the direction or scale of our response, which is the largest in history."
And BP, while resisting proper volume measurements to determine if we're talking about 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) or 25,000 (1,050,000 gallons) of leaking oil every day (or even more), is "using chemical dispersants to send most of the oil to the bottom of the sea. This keeps it off the shore, but might end up doing more damage in the long run. Nobody seems to know for sure."
Meanwhile:
The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf."I told you so!" comes the collective scream from all those dirty hippies who were concerned about Dick Cheney's Top Secret Energy Task Force and the unchecked corporate handouts from the Bush administration to Big Oil in the form of massive deregulation. Remember when raising concerns about corporate cronyism during the Bush Era meant you were SUCH AN ASSHOLE because SHUT UP THE MARKET WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING!...? Yeah, well, let's all hold our breath and see how long it takes the Invisible Hand to reach down into the depths of the sea and PLUG THAT GODDAMN HOLE in BP's fucking rig.
Those approvals, federal records show, include one for the well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and resulting in thousands of barrels of oil spilling into the gulf each day.
The Minerals Management Service, or M.M.S., also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.
Those scientists said they were also regularly pressured by agency officials to change the findings of their internal studies if they predicted that an accident was likely to occur or if wildlife might be harmed.
...Responding to the accusations that agency scientists were being silenced, [Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for the Minerals Management Service] added, "Under the previous administration, there was a pattern of suppressing science in decisions, and we are working very hard to change the culture and empower scientists in the Department of the Interior."
Another biologist who left the agency in 2005 after more than five years and who now works as an industry consultant said that agency officials went out of their way to accommodate the oil and gas industry.Because who gives a fuck about the planet when corporations need to make money, amirite?
He said, for example, that seismic activity from drilling can have a devastating effect on mammals and fish, but that agency officials rarely enforced the regulations meant to limit those effects.
He also said the agency routinely ceded to the drilling companies the responsibility for monitoring species that live or spawn near the drilling projects.
"What I observed was M.M.S. was trying to undermine the monitoring and mitigation requirements that would be imposed on the industry," he said.
Honestly. It's like the thought that all their vast, fantabulous, cock-hardening profits won't be worth shit if there's no goddamn livable environment left never crosses their greedy little one-track minds.
-------------------
UPDATE: Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs the congressional subcommittee on energy and the environment, says "he will launch a formal inquiry Friday into how much oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico after learning of independent estimates that are significantly higher than the amount BP officials have provided."
Question of the Day
To follow-up on yesterday's QotD: What is the one attribute, positive or negative (or neutral), that you can't hide about yourself, even if you want to?
That I am trusting (even when I shouldn't be) and that I will give multiple chances (even when I shouldn't).
