…from Judge Bolton’s Arizona decision.
[NOTE: More here.
Shirley Sherrod’s ill-fitting suit
Shirley Sherrod has now announced her intention of suing Andrew Breitbart for posting the edited video of her speech to the NAACP that caused so much commotion.
I’ve looked at a number of articles about the lawsuit, but none have stated what the charges would be. I’m assuming defamation, but if so I can’t see that she’s got much of a case at all—unless, of course, the court turns itself inside out trying to please her. If cutting off a video and not showing the whole speech and putting it online is now considered defamation, it would be the end of the news business and most of the liberal press.
As for her job loss, that would be something for her to sue the Obama administration about. But don’t hold your breath waiting to see that happen.
[NOTE: Here’s Andrew Breitbart’s original post on Sherrod. If you read the text, you’ll see that what he describes is actually exactly what happened on the tape:
In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.
Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.]
Injuction on Arizona immigration law
I’m puzzled by headlines such as one at memeorandum, that reads “Arizona immigration law: Key parts struck down by judge.” In fact, however, the article in question describes the judge ordering a temporary injunction pending further court rulings on the matter.
I believe that this case is almost inevitably destined for the Supreme Court anyway. Till then there will be a series of rulings. This one merely suspends some of the more controversial aspects of the law until courts rule further on the merits.
How are Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice doing these days?
Remember this movie, all you older folk like me? Bet you do, if only vaguely; this was the suggestive photo that appeared in the promos:
Something made me think of the movie the other day, and I became curious enough about how the film—that quintessential artifact of the encounter movement of the 60s—has held up over these well-nigh forty years since its 1969 release to order it from Netflix and watch it, which I did last night.
Those of you who didn’t live through those times would probably find the film silly indeed, and rather boring at that. But it held my interest, in no small part due to its role in reminding me of those transformative and ultimately ridiculous and even destructive times.
The film’s message is essentially conservative; it especially mocks protagonists Bob and Carol (Robert Culp and Natalie Wood), who go to a weekend at an Esalen-like “Institute” and end up thinking they should jettison the rules of sexual monogamy while practicing an endlessly-disclosing and incredibly self-centered “honesty” about their feelings at all times. Their more traditional friends, Ted and Alice (Elliot Gould and Dyan Cannon, who are especially good in this movie) have some—err—problems with the idea. Although both couples eventually succumb to experimentation, the supposed come-on of the orgy scene in the photo above is tempered by their realization that monogamy has its charms, after all.
Other tangential observations are: (1) as you can see from the photo, the now-ubiquitous chest-hair removal for men that I commented on here had fortunately not yet begun; (2) the movie is worth watching if only for the fashions; (3) Natalie Wood was very beautiful; (4) the female stars are every bit as thin as stars today; and (5) there are a few very funny scenes, including one between Gould and Cannon in bed.
The movie is a caricature, of course. But it reminded me of some of the stupidest ideas of the 60s that have mercifully disappeared for the most part: love beads for men (sported prominently by Culp’s character), the conviction that full disclosure of thoughts/feelings is a plus, and lengthy weekend sessions featuring all-night encounter groups.
Gaia and the oil spill
It seems the earth’s waters have a powerful capacity to repair themselves:
Scientists said the rapid dissipation of the [Gulf spill] surface oil was probably due to a combination of factors. The gulf has an immense natural capacity to break down oil, which leaks into it at a steady rate from thousands of natural seeps. Though none of the seeps is anywhere near the size of the Deepwater Horizon leak, they do mean that the gulf is swarming with bacteria that can eat oil.
So even the Times admits that oil in the Gulf is an ongoing and naturally-generated problem, and that the body of water seems to contain naturally-occurring ways of dealing with it.
About that Massachusetts law re the electoral college
Those people who point out that the new Massachusetts law—awarding the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who gets the largest number of popular votes—would undercut the state’s overwhelmingly liberal voters in the event of a Republican being ahead, are technically correct but are missing a very important point. The law is written so that it only takes effect if enough other states pass similar legislation to constitute a majority of the electoral votes.
This would effectively nullify the workings of the electoral college and allow the POTUS to be elected by popular vote only, effecting a further erosion of the original republican (small “r”) intent of the founding fathers (an earlier example would be the 17th amendment).
The new Massachusetts law is actually rather fiendishly clever, showing the mindset of liberals and the left towards the constitution. Any way to get around it is fair game, and this is a rather creative one. It would increase the left’s electoral power significantly.
What are Democrats planning?
There are no plans to push unpopular bills through in a lame duck session, no plans at all, says Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
Who’s he? An assistant to Speaker Pelosi. Do you trust him to be telling the truth—or to even know the truth? I don’t.
Oh, and Harry Reid’s got some plans, too—to reinstate what used to be called the “nuclear option.” I discussed Reid’s plans previously here, back during the HCR-passage days:
…Harry Reid announced that… he approves of a plan to abolish the filibuster by a simple majority vote at the beginning of the next session of Congress. Chuck Schumer of NY says they’re going to start talking about it in a couple of weeks.
This would refer to the so-called “nuclear option,” a technique by which the need to have a 2/3 majority to change Senate rules (such as the filibuster) could supposedly be overcome at the beginning of a new session of Congress by a simple majority vote. The argument goes this way:
“…[O]n the first day of a new Congress, Senate rules, including Rule XXII, the cloture rule, do not yet apply, and thus can be changed by majority vote. Under this argument, debate could be stopped by majority vote as well.”
The strategy became well-known (but was not actually used) when Newt Gingrich threatened to employ it to overcome Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial appointments (and these Democratic filibusters themselves were a break with Senate tradition; routine judicial appointments previously had usually been given the courtesy of an up-down vote). The Democrats, of course, opposed the nuclear option mightily at the time, although now they would be attempting to use it for far larger and more transformative (and more unpopular) matters than mere judicial appointments.
The opposing party can do a number of things after a nuclear option that would threaten to shut down the Senate; I believe that’s one of the reasons it’s called “nuclear.” But the most important point for our purposes today is that this sort of thing makes it even more vital that the election of 2010 not only result in Republican control of the House, but accomplish the much more difficult task of taking control of the Senate too…
Because Senators are only up for re-election every six years, only a third of the Senate will run for office in 2010 (unless a few more resign), and only eighteen of these are Democrats (see a list here).
So the Republicans would have to retain every seat they hold and gain ten of the current Democrat seats in order to take control.
My current prediction, however, is that if the House changes hands in the election of 2010 and comes under Republican control, even if the Senate doesn’t, there would be little point in Reid (or whoever is in charge of the Senate if Reid loses his bid for re-election) employing this approach, because it would be so hard to get the legislation they want passed in the House. This is why it is so vitally important for the Republicans to gain control of at least one legislative body come the session that begins in January of 2011.
Two would be far better, of course. But the House matters a great deal, because we still have a bicameral system of government in which bills must be approved by both bodies to become law.
[ADDENDUM: Ezra Klein elaborates.]
The “does it make me look fat?” question
Quite a few people responded to my observation at the end of this post about “the admitted double-bind of that ancient question: ‘does this outfit make me look fat?'”
So I thought I’d expand (pun intended) a bit on that thought. Since I already have noted that the question is a double-bind, here’s the definition of that very useful term:
1. A psychological impasse created when contradictory demands are made of an individual, such as a child or an employee, so that no matter which directive is followed, the response will be construed as incorrect.
2. A situation in which a person must choose between equally unsatisfactory alternatives; a punishing and inescapable dilemma.
Meaning, of course, that the poor guy can’t win no matter what he says.
“Yes” is a widely recognized no-no, although the interests of honesty sometimes dictate it. Other seemingly safer responses such as “No, it doesn’t make you look fat,” open him up to the plaint, “So you think that some things do make me look fat?”, whereas a careful and cagey “I’m not sure” is asking for trouble of the “You just don’t notice or care anything about me!” variety.
“You always look good in everything” sounds good, but it smacks of flattering and untruthful copout. Perhaps the best response might be a simple “You look great in that” if it’s a thumbs-up, or “I think something else might be even better” if not.
But the entire exchange is fraught with peril and minefields, and if the woman knows what’s conducive to the health of the relationship, she won’t ask the question in the first place, but will save it for her female friends instead. The same is true of the equally dangerous, “Do I look like I lost weight?”
I once chuckled at a cartoon in the New Yorker that I wish I could find online, but I can’t seem to locate it at the moment. It featured a woman posing in her underwear, asking an onlooking man (presumably her hapless boyfriend or husband), “Does my body make me look fat?”
[NOTE: A related issue is whether women are more tolerant of significant overweight in their men than men are in their women. I must confess that in general, it’s been my observation that women tend to be less focused on the looks of their men than men are on the looks of their women, although there are so many exceptions to that rule as to make it virtually meaningless. In particular, I’ve noticed that happily married couples take the physical changes that inevitably occur over time (weight gain in some, shriveling in others; wrinkles; sagging; and all that goes with the aging process) in stride, and accept them as the natural consequences of living. Others, less happy, hold the spouse to some impossible standard, and/or replace the old model with a newer shinier one.
And a French study indicates that, at least in France:
Obese women were 30 percent less likely than “normal” women to have had sex in the last year, but obese men were just as likely to have had one sexual partner in the last 12 months as average guys. Professor Kaye Wellings, one of the authors of the study, summed it up pretty effectively by saying, “Maybe women are more tolerant of tubby husbands than men are of tubby wives.”
Your mileage may differ.]
[ADDENDUM: I have kindly been provided with the cartoon, and here it is (hat tip: Baklava):
[ADDENDUM II: In case you haven’t seen it, here’s Honest Abe dealing with the dilemma (hat tip: commenter “Ernie G.”):
[ADDENDUM III: Commenter “mousebert” has kindly created the following creative compendium:
Rehearsal time
Enjoy this brief interlude, while they sweat without showing it:
Spambot of the day
Shameless sycophant spambot:
Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.
Wikileaks on Afghanistan
The story du jour—and for probably quite a few more jours—is the Wikileaks dump of classified information on the war in Afghanistan.
Revealing previously classified information about ongoing wars has become a sort of cottage industry, with the word “classified” taking on lesser and lesser meaning as time goes on. This is mostly because there are virtually no consequences for the perpetrators of such leaks, and no shortage of outlets willing to disseminate them, encouraged by the United States’ lack of an Official Secrets Act such as is the law in Britain (I’ve already written extensively on issues related to the question of whether this country should pass a similar statute).
What do the most recent leaks actually reveal? Not much (see also this). Anyone who’s been paying attention to the Afghan situation already knows that the government of Pakistan and especially its military intelligence arm has ties to the Taliban, and that civilians have been killed in this war, which are the main facts revealed by the present leaks.
Just about everyone paying attention also knows that a central issue is that the goal of our continued presence in Afghanistan has not been clearly defined. The original reasons we went there were related to the 9/11 attacks and fact that their masterminds were being sheltered by its then-rulers, the Taliban. Now the whereabouts of many of the former are unknown, and the Taliban are not officially in charge, although they’re still highly influential and perpetually resurgent. Our commitment there—by both the Bush administration (after the initial push), and the Obama administration today—has been what I could crudely call half-assed, and the definition of what success would actually look like is murky.
Are we still nation-building there? Are we still looking for the elusive (and perhaps deceased?) Bin Laden, and won’t leave till we get him? Is Pakistan an ally in name only? These are the questions that need to be asked, and answered, posthaste, ones that I’m afraid will not be answered by this administration, which used the Afghan War as a campaign weapon to demonstrate macho hawkishness in the “right” war, and to bludgeon Bush for fighting the “wrong” one.
The 6-items-of-clothing diet
If I had to choose only six items of clothing to wear for a month (plus underwear), it wouldn’t be these six—bore-ing (especially that sad sack of a dress):
But oh, what would my own selections be? To start with, they’d have more color. I’d have one blogging/relaxing/grungy outfit, two pairs of slacks and two shirts or blouses, and one snazzier dress.
What a stupid idea, though, to limit things to six—although cutting down on the wardrobe isn’t a bad idea in general. After all, I tend to wear only a small percentage of my clothes regularly anyway, which the article describes as typical. The rest of my collection consists of (a) older items I can’t quite fit into at the moment, but have fairly recently and might again some day (I’ve only fluctuated about a size and a half during the last fifteen years; the really skinny clothes from my starvation/dancing days are long gone); and (b) stuff I thought looked good on me at the time of purchase but was always a mistake.
Buying this latter variety is one of the perils of shopping alone, which I’ve done for most of my adult life, alas. I say “alas” because I much prefer to have a friend along—not a husband or the man in my life (sorry, guys), though, because I’ve never had a husband/boyfriend with the superhuman patience to come along on these lengthy excursions, nor one who could withstand the admitted double-bind of that ancient question: does this outfit make me look fat?