Hosted by a Little Red Corvette.
Question of the Day
Are you handy?
If so, what's the the last DIY project you completed? If not, what's the last DIY project you screwed up, or the last project you wished you could DY, but had to hire or ask someone to D for you?
Quote of the Day
[TW for homophobia.]
"I really do not think that we should have homosexuals guiding our children. I think that it's a lifestyle that I don't agree with. I realize a lot of people do. It's my personal faith, religious faith, that I don't believe that the people who do this should be raising our children. It's not a natural thing. You need a mother and a father. You need a man and a woman. That's what God intended."—Florida Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum, who, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear, is a Republican. Oh, and a fuckneck.
He's also wrong.
At least about the "you need a mother and a father" business. I've got no quantifiable evidence about the intentions of any heavenly creators.
Support Relief Efforts After Flooding in China, India, and Pakistan
As a result of the devastating flooding and subsequent landslides in India, Pakistan, and China, which started last week, more than 2,000 people have died across all three countries, thousands are still missing, and millions of people have been affected. According to CNN, more than 150 people have died and more than 400 are missing just in the town of Leh, India alone.
Large swaths of Asia look like New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Katrina:
Flood victims wave to receive food relief being dropper by Pakistan Army soldiers during air rescue and relief operations on August 9, 2010 in the Muzaffargarh district in Punjab, Pakistan. An estimated 5 million Pakistanis have been affected by the floods and are bracing for more destruction as heavy rains further bloat rivers and streams. Deadly flooding across Pakistan, has claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people and has forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, in what is the country's worst floods since 1929. [Getty Images]
People wade through floodwaters at Alampur village, about 200 km (124 miles) from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, October 7, 2009. Rescue workers with boats and helicopters struggled on Tuesday to deliver rations to about 5 million victims of flooding triggered by torrential rains in southern India. [Reuters]
A survivor jumps into floodwaters as rescuers (background) evacuate people from flooded buildings after a deadly flood-triggered landslide hit Zhouqu, causing flooding in northwest China's Gansu province on August 8, 2010. Soldiers and rescuers battled on August 9 through an avalanche of sludge and debris as they raced to find survivors of mudslides that killed at least 127 people and left 1,300 missing in northwest China. [Getty Images]As after any disaster of this proportion, relief agencies are in need of donations.
Donate to Doctors Without Borders, about whose efforts in the region you can read here. Donate to CARE.org here.Please feel welcome to make recommendations of other relief agencies you like in comments.
I Write Letters
Dear Hollywood Filmmakers:
I am politely but firmly requesting a 20-year embargo on the use of any scenes of a pregnant woman's water breaking in a film and/or television show.
Should you fail to accommodate this appeal, and decide to include comedic scenes of a very pregnant woman—wearing, naturally, a skirt—splashing a gush of perfectly clear liquid onto her high heels, thus precipitating a mad rush to the hospital with an unlikely bystander set to Motown music, please be forewarned that this may result in the delivery of a bag of stinky dog poop to your front step.
After the 20-year embargo can be lifted, I would advise you to remember that only around 10% of pregnant women experience a rupture the amniotic sac as a precursor to labor—and an even smaller percentage have that experience in public. Rarely is this a hilarious experience.
Have a nice day!
Love,
Liss
Seen
A little while ago I came out of the grocery store to find this parked beside me:
The top image, which may be hard to make out, reads: "Heart image/Pro-Life; Cross image/Pro-God; Gun image/Pro-Gun; Anti-Obama"
...Starring Deeky!
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Daily Dose o' Cute
Video of Dudley at home and at the dog park, from the past two weeks. Dudley makes friends with everyone at the dog park, but he is especially fond of Sheba the Shiba Inu and Mimi the Standard Poodle, both of whom looooooove it when he chases them, which he is happy to oblige. Set to Flo Rida's (featuring David Guetta) "Club Can't Handle Me," which has been stuck in my head on a nonstop loop ever since I heard it Friday night. (Which, as an aside, was behind a diggable performance of the Step Up dancers—including SYTYCD's Twitch—on Jimmy Fallon.)
Still pix of Dudz in motion below the fold.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Giant Gardening Gloves. Now in beige!
Recommended Reading:
Andy: Mexican Cardinal Calls Gay Marriage 'Evil', 'Inherently Immoral' [TW for homophobia]
Cara: Disabled Student Assaulted on School Bus; Bus Driver Watches and Doesn't Respond [TW for violence, disablism, and victim-blaming.]
Bree: Life Doesn't Stop at 300 [TW for fat hatred]
Tasha Fierce: My Life as a Tragic Mulatto [TW for racism]
Angry Asian Man: Koua Fong Lee Freed in Fatal Toyota Acceleration Crash Conviction
Phil: Kitty Success Story
Leave your links in comments...
Full Effect
[Transcript: Caption on Screen: Tucson, Arizona: On August 2, 2010 around 3:15 p.m. Officer Zinn and Officer Koontz of the Tucson Police Department called Border Patrol on a woman during a traffic stop. Border Patrol came and took her into detention.
Woman to camera: They said they pulled her over because she ran a stop sign, and so they asked for her documentation and they said that she had a citation before in 2008, and that she said that she did have a traffic citation before but she took care of it in court. There was two officers, and I have their names; Officer Zinn and Officer Koontz, and they said they have every reason to believe that it was right to call Border Patrol because they needed to verify her identity, so right now she's going into detention. Explained that to the Border Patrol that her lawyer was en route but he said that he didn't want to wait, and so he took her. And she said he was asking her questions about her citizenship, about where she was born, and she said she didn't want to talk to him; that she wanted to talk to her lawyer. And I gave her a "Know Your Rights" card so she has that information.
Caption: This is Arizona.]
Digby:
In practice, this amounts to ethnic cleansing. Sure, they don't say "Latinos" but even if you are an American citizen of Latino descent you have to ask yourself whether or not it's worth it to stay in Arizona if you're going to be subjected to this kind of harassment. Plenty of them are leaving (although it's up in the air whether it's the law or a combination of the law and general economic conditions.) I don't blame them. But it's hard to see how this ends well. We are, after all, always going to share a border with Mexico, which is a very different thing than any of the earlier "assimilation" controversies.Of course, it's entirely possible that that is what the Arizona legislature intended all along but didn't have the guts to say outright: Let's get rid of all the Mexicans. (Ironic, since the Mexicans were in Arizona a long time before the Anglos and the snowbirds showed up.)
Crossposted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
College: The solution to everything
So there's this headline in the Times, and because I like freedom pie and hate evil, I'm obviously for it: Obama to Call for Better [College] Graduation Rates
The president wants the U.S. to lead the world in college graduate rates. Sure, why not?
The problem I see here is that the President, the Secretary of Education, along with every other platitude smoking pundit is really confounding three or four different concepts.
I'm with Obama on expanding access to higher education. If young people and their loved ones were guaranteed high quality health care, affordable housing, and affordable day care, a lot more people would be able to attend college. Increasing funding to colleges, working with colleges to lower tuition, and making it easier for part-time students to obtain financial aid (especially grants) would be a huge help, too. Obama and Congressional Democrats seem interested in making student loans less profitable. Baby steps, I suppose, but good nonetheless.
Here's where things get dicey for me.
The article talks about "better" graduation rates, while the article is actually about higher graduation rates. Sure, if we assume access is what limits graduation rates, higher rates are better, in that they indicate greater access. However, if the outcome we want is a more educated populace, we should really be talking about education, not graduation rates. There are multiple ways to increase graduation rates, and they don't all involve providing more or better education.
You may have noticed that I had to add the word "college" to the headline. Perhaps an editor left out that particular word for reasons of column-space. In any case, there's a massive assumption that for folks over 18(ish), education equals college attendance equals college graduation. This lets us forget about quality public broadcasting, public libraries, community centers, rural (and urban) internet access, trade apprenticeships, and pretty much every collaborative educational effort that folks benefit from before, after, during, and/or in lieu of college.
And what's that Secretary Duncan? "We have to educate our way to a better economy"? Yes, investing in education would create more jobs in education, which would in turn stimulate the economy. I don't think that's what Duncan is talking about, though. AFAICT, he's spinning the tired yarn about how a more educated workforce leads to a more robust economy.
Sure, I guess. Maybe a little bit. This also strikes me as saying that you don't have a job because you're stupid (or uneducated, which is different, at least to me). This would be easier to swallow if I didn't know tons of people who are smart, well-educated, experienced, and exceedingly unemployed.
There's a real dark side to this "educational economy" perspective. Sure, folks in the future will need to know how to work the lasers in the laser-operated robot mines of tomorrow, and this will take some training. However, the real subtext I hear is that smart (slash educated) people will create jobs.
Creating jobs is not about intelligence or education. It's about having enough money to pay someone to do something. And :drumroll:.... having money is not exclusively a function of being educated, intelligent, good-smelling, or anything else, really. Of course, if we argue that wealth is solely a function of merit (as measured by education, which we assume is a function of intelligence), then yeah, it's pretty much axiomatic that a more educated populace will create more jobs.
If we realize that some folks who have a lot of money and power to burn aren't necessarily deserving of such, the wheels fall off in a hurry. Rather than simply arguing for more college degrees, our leaders would be pushing sustained and broad-based social change as the means of improving people's lives (you know, provided that improving the economy is about improving people's lives, which... yeah). Alas, we're stuck with victim blaming, and solutions that reinforce the concept that the underclass is inferior to those with power.
Two Facts
1. Ross Douthat's brain is full of garbage.
2. The New York Times continues to publish that garbage.
The Dark Ages of America
CNN—U.S. electricity blackouts skyrocketing:
Throughout New York City, about 52,000 of ConEd's 3.2 million customers lost power during the heat wave. Triple-digit temperatures forced residents like 77 year-old Rui Zhi Chen, to seek shelter at one of the city's 400 emergency cooling centers. "It felt like an oven in my home and on the street," Chen said.Among the problems is the US' "lagging infrastructure," which Paul Krugman addresses in his column, "America Goes Dark."
Should Americans view these kinds of scenarios as extraordinary circumstances -- or a warning sign of a darker future?
Experts on the nation's electricity system point to a frighteningly steep increase in non-disaster-related outages affecting at least 50,000 consumers.
During the past two decades, such blackouts have increased 124 percent -- up from 41 blackouts between 1991 and 1995, to 92 between 2001 and 2005, according to research at the University of Minnesota.
In the most recently analyzed data available, utilities reported 36 such outages in 2006 alone.
"It's hard to imagine how anyone could believe that -- in the United States -- we should learn to cope with blackouts," said University of Minnesota Professor Massoud Amin, a leading expert on the U.S. electricity grid.
...[U]tilities in New York Pennsylvania and New Jersey averaged 214 minutes of total interruptions each year. These figures don't include power outages blamed on tornadoes or other disasters.
But compare the U.S. data to Japan which averages only four minutes of total interrupted service each year. "As you can see, we have a long way to go," said Andres Carvallo, who played a key role in planning the smart grid in Austin, Texas.
[I]n a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.I will never cease to be amazed that the people who most loudly, garishly, ceaselessly claim to love America and be the "Real Americans" are the ones who evidently won't be satisfied until the United States crumbles into dust and ruin.
...We're told that we have no choice, that basic government functions — essential services that have been provided for generations — are no longer affordable. And it's true that state and local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But they wouldn't be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were willing to consider at least some tax increases.
...[T]he end result of the long campaign against government is that we've taken a disastrously wrong turn. America is now on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere.
[Related Reading: Rehabilitating Bush, Crumble, Thank a Progressive for the Luxury of Your Disdain.]
Shaker Help Request
Shaker Michelle emails:
I work as a birth and postpartum doula in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area, and I'm on attempting to find affordable maternity clothing for one of my clients. I wear the same sizes (20-24 US women's sizes or 2xish), but can't find a local place that is a decent price that has sizes that fit. I'm unfamiliar with what's reliable on-line, and I'm wondering if the Shakers have any suggestions.
ARGH
So, Obama hired Larry "Girls Aren't Good at Math and Science" Summers (over lots of objections). And it turns out Summers SHOCKINGLY didn't listen to the sage advice of a brilliant woman, but instead edited her recommendations based on his opinion, because he is the Great Auditor of Women's Work or whatthefuckever.
Obama structured his administration to position misogynist men in places where they are the arbiters of women's work before it reaches him. And so now, surprise, he's getting shitty advice.
Gee, if only we'd known that Obama has a sexism problem.
Tish Long to Head NGA, or First Woman to Head Major Intelligence Agency in United States
[Letitia "Tish" Long], who has spent 32 years in government service including more than two decades in the intelligence community, will take over as director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the office responsible for collecting and analyzing overhead imagery and geospatial information.Wow. Well (and unexpectedly) said, John McLaughlin!
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, said this is a historic first of a woman running a spy agency with a multi-billion dollar budget and thousands of employees.
"This is an important appointment, and I hope that she will bring a new and determined management ability to this agency," said Feinstein.
...John McLaughlin, the former CIA deputy director who worked with Long while she was at the agency, said Long was ideally suited for the job, because, "not only does she have a deep understanding of defense intelligence needs but assignments over the course of her career have given her a unique window into civilian intelligence as well."
He added: "A woman at the helm of one of our major intelligence agencies is a long overdue step recognizing that the contribution of women to intelligence success has long been equal to that of men."
I've got no idea what sort of positions on intelligence-gathering Long brings to the table (although warrantless wiretaps and national security letters haven't been as much at issue at the NGA by virtue of its purview), but I'm guessing that her positions don't significantly deviate from that of the administration (unfortunately). Still, I like this:
Long said the intelligence committee has benefited from including not just women, but minorities.Nice.
"The intelligence and defense communities have gained an incredible range of talents, skills, knowledge, and insight by welcoming not only women, but also more minorities, to the field," she said in a written answer to questions from CNN. "I believe that when you have a more diverse population exploring any type of intelligence problem, you will develop a broader and deeper range of solutions. I like to refer to that wider scope as 'cognitive diversity.'"
One More Reason Why Hippos Are Awesome
[Description of video: Mama hippo and her calf swim. Mama spots a gator nearby. She nudges the baby to a hiding spot. The gator pursues the calf. Mama hippo chases the gator (chases the gator!) away.]
[Cross-posted.]
