an excellent point...

the lovely sarah k. smith of wonkette pretty much hits (at least one) argumentative nail on the head in the whole sotomayor life-experience-and-impartiality/insane-old-white-men-calling-a-distinguished-latina-jurist-a-racist kerfuffle.

"The horror, that anybody would admit that judges can only aspire to impartiality! Why, that is sort of like a journalist admitting they can only aspire to objectivity. In other words, it is a concept that absolutely enrages conservatives while it just seems like a given to other Earthlings. The point is this: the only people who can reach judicial decisions from the taint of racial or gender bias are people free from the taint of race or gender itself, which is to say, white males."

wheeee! sanity at last!

more on this later when i'm not working...

support harold koh

oh sweet jesus. what a bunch of human dildos are the far right.

this article pretty much sums up the utter crock of shit that's being flung around about this nomination.

oh, and if yer on that face-thing all the kids are dancing to, join this group.

off-season for a reason

maybe it's the economic downturn and the "staycation" trend that's only partially sweeping the nation...but whatever the motive behind this laura holson's nytimes travel section paean to the romance of the forbidding but icily beautiful winter on cape, it's abundantly clear that the author has never actually spent a whole. winter. on. the. cape.

having grown up there, i can tell you that the spring and fall right before and after the tourist season are vastly underrated...but you've pretty much got it right to avoid winter. winter on the cape is much like the rest of new england...gray and cold. if we actually get snow, it looks beautiful for about five minutes, then turns dingy and slushy, then freezes. you might have a couple of freak days in the 40s or even 50s (new england weather: toying with your shit since 1660), which will make it all melt before it drops back down to 15 with wind chill. rinse and repeat. on the cape, you also get the car-rusting salty rawness of the frigid sea air rolling off the shore...so, bonus!

and if i'm going to get self-righteous as well as mocking (and, really, when have i ever shied away from that), her brief portrait of the salty locals (look! they eat oysters, too!) glosses the reality of what happens in an economic crisis when "a drinking town with a fishing problem" overfished its two generations ago, and relies almost exclusively on tourism to sustain its economy.

is food the new sex?

i can't quite articulate how much the kind of answer that mary eberstadt (as echoed by george will) provides in the hoover institution's policy review makes me froth at the mouth.

eberstadt takes idle cocktail party speculations (has society's moral regulation of food choice replaced its moral regulation of sexual choice? are these shifts connected?), and turns it into a 7500-word steaming turd of ill-informed self-righteousness, thinly disguised as analysis by a throwaway reference to kant. i was going to spend a lot more time dissecting why this complete nonsense, but it's just too irritating, and, frankly, could take up several books. anyone who claims that the fact that people of a lower socio-economic class suffer higher levels of obesity is due to overabundance (and implied lack of self-control) shouldn't be allowed to get within 2 intellectual miles of food policy and trends. and any woman who waxes nostalgic for the days of pre-sexual revolution moral regulation, when "Susie in the town nearby got pregnant and wasn’t allowed back in school", should be forced to wear a chastity belt.

HAHA FARCE

if only...
for anyone who's ever despaired of the culture of litigation in the states, abandon all hope ye who click here...

that's right, one of the top stories on bbc.com documents the travails of welsh 14-year old kristy mcrae, who ran afoul of GROSS NEGLIGENCE, when, using a coin-operated tanning bed (aka DEATH MACHINE) without the immediate presence of a non-brain dead mammal, acquired FIRST DEGREE BURNS over 70% of her body.

for those of you who have never suffered the AGONY and psychological trauma of a first degree burn, perhaps this SHOCKING DESCRIPTION will help you to understand poor, pink kristy's plight:

"First-degree burns are red and very sensitive to touch. First-degree burns involve minimal tissue damage. These burns affect the outer-layer of skin causing pain, redness and swelling. Sunburn is a good example of a first-degree burn."

that's right. and imagine the insult added to kristy's injury by the callous implication of the salon owner: that kristy should actually have read the warning signs posted all over the store, when no one was there to hold her hand and remind her to sound out the longer words. "operating within the law" indeed...when obvious illiterates can just wander in the door and expose themselves to concentrated UV rays at £1 a pop using technology that your average monkey trained through a basic rewards system could operate without incident? disgusting. WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY I ASK YOU??

kristy was admitted to the hospital, for, um, a coupla hours...and now must suffer the indignity of regular lotion application. indeed, whose heart wouldn't be wrenched by her story of TERROR:

"It is something I don't think I'll ever forget about how scared I was and how I didn't realise just going on a tanning bed could result in going to hospital and being quite ill" ...She added: "It was extremely frightening. I was just glad I got out of hospital."

our thoughts are with you, kristy...mostly the ones along the lines of "maybe idiots shouldn't be allowed to wander the streets with loose change."