The hatter keeps popping out of the rabbit hole....

Michael Steele, the current GOP RNC chair, seems to be losing touch with what the American people will regard as "reasoned discourse." And by "American people" I mean those outside the confines of the "party faithful" who are not corralled into the party's "big tent."

In a story carried on Saturday (My 16, '09), The AP reported that Steele, in a speech at the GOP state convention in Georgia, had stated that one of the ways that the GOP could be "recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks" would be to push the supposed "extra" cost of health care for spouses to gays.

"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

Now, I realize that the GOP likes to present themselves as the champion of small business (even when the real effect of the GOP-supported policies is to give the overwhelming competitive advantage back to big corporations), and they have found themselves in thrall to the ideologues of the Religious Right (tm).

This presents Steele, who is supposed to formulate and articulate the GOP's positions in somewhat of a quandary, as he tries to find a speech that will appeal to both constituencies. The trouble with *this* tactic (a tactic that Steele has to undertake) is that his chosen arguments are patently foolish.

He is trying to equate, as an "added cost" to small business owners a cost that they have to be prepared to bear as a simple cost of employee retention, and attempts to ignore the fact that discrimination, based on marital status, is *already* against the law. It sounds like Steele is trying to be able to roll back the pre-existing civil rights protections against those with married status.

Of course, an oft-stated complaint from this brand of "conservative" is that the civil rights protections afforded the "protected" groups are unneeded and and burdensome to ... business.

Again, forgetting that the "protected" are people.

People who should be afforded fair and equitable treatment under the law.

But, I suppose, most of us know this. Just that damned hatter keeps popping out of that rabbit hole.

"his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American."

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim - American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star - showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn't have a Christian cross.

It didn't have a Star of David.

It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan.

And he was an American.

He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life."

-- Colin Powell, Oct 19, 2008, on Meet The Press on the occasion of Powell's public endorsement of Barack Obama for President of the United States

Sweet mystery of life...

File under: Irony and Karma

P.Z. Myers, who is a biologist and Asst. Professor at the University of Minnesota, and the blogger behind Pharyngula.org., was supposed to be viewing the local premier of "Expelled - No Intelligence allowed", a film supposedly describing, in an even-handed manner,the tension between evolution and "intelligent design."

Long before the film was near to being released, the film was being shot at by the very academics who were interviewed for it -- under claims that the project was misrepresented to them, and that the interview tapes were being cut and reedited in a manner to misrepresent what they had said. (see this piece in the New York Times from 2007 and the footnotes in the Wikipedia article )

As one of the people who were interviewed for the film, Myers was eager to see it (Likely with some trepidations about how cringe worthy it would be).

Well, he needed have worried -- at the premier he was not allowed to enter the theater. It seems he was persona non-grata and was told that he would have to leave the property. But his wife and daughter, with a guest, were allowed in to see the movie.

The irony is that their guest was Richard Dawkins. Someone who is even less enamored of the ID proponents than Myers is -- if thats possible.

And, being a blogger, Myers has, very happily, written about the barring him from the showing. One of the premises in the film is that opposing views are shouted down and barred from being considered. Which makes this so much more surreal (actually not -- it just points up more of the deceit and hypocrisy of the creationists who keep trying to deny that science is real)

Caveat for full disclosure. -- I'm a Christian. Been one all my life. I even teach in Sunday School. I also believe in a manner of "intelligent design." Where I believe that our Creator built and set in motion the universe where we all live and function.

But not the "intelligent design" that says that the Lord has created and enforced physical laws, yet, for some reason, has pettily violated those same physical laws so that radio-carbon dating, and examinations of geology somehow need to be disregarded if the result yields an age for anything that is more than 6000 years old. The sheer pettiness and self-aggrandizement of those conclusions is staggering

And those who espouse the "creationists" and "Intelligent design" dogmas are, at best, fools with monumental hubris without any real understanding of science or intellectual rigor, and at worst, hucksters preying on those who have real faith but need guidance.

The illustration is one that shows the adaptive matrix of Galapagos finches -- also known as "Darwin Finches" "Click" on the image for a larger view.

Update -- the non-admittance story has made the New York Times Science Section

Lawsuit against IRS in re reassignment surgery moves forward

In July I noted a case going into tax court about Rhiannon O'Donnabhain, who underwent reassignment surgery in 2001, and listed the $25K as a medical deduction, had the deductibility disallowed by the IRS in 2003.

The case has now finished oral arguments, and Judge Joseph Gale has stated he wants briefs filed from both sides by Nov 6.

In a development that indicates that this may not be as simple as just deciding arcane developments in tax law, but seemingly has a definite political slant, one of the government witnesses was forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz, who testified that Gender Identity Disorder is not a disease. Dr Dietz has a small problem in credibility, when one reflects that he was the same doctor who testified that Andrea Yates had apparently seen an episode of the TV series "Law and Order" that depicted a woman who had an insanity defense after drowning her children. The problem, however, was that no such episode of Law and Order had ever aired.

Dietz's credibility was challenged by the lawyer for Ms. O'Donnabhain in open court.

The model of a truly impartial judge? (updated)

During his confirmation hearings in 1991, I recall saying that Clarence Thomas, who was nominated in 1991 by President Bush (senior) to replace outgoing Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, would, by his own words, not be an impartial member of the U.S. Supreme Court. I suppose that I should feel lucky, in that Thomas at least never complained pettily that it was unfair for his fellow justices on the appellate court to criticize him for refusing to recuse himself from sitting in judgment over matters that directly affected his family, as another sitting U.S.S.C. Justice has done.

Part of the controversy over the confirmation hearings concerned the allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him by Anita Hill, the the absurdly low competency rating from the lawyers guild, and his allegations that the hearings were a "high-tech lynching."

The Thomas nomination was the first in recent history that showed just how unconcerned with acumen a proposed justice could be and how much ideology was the requirement, and the administration would twist arms to get the ideology rather than the competency (the Bork nomination hearings were a different matter -- Bork is extremely intelligent, but a nutcase on Constitutional matters).

Also of concern to me were simple matters of honesty -- as when Thomas declared he hadn't thought about the matter of abortion in a Constitutional setting, or when he was following the conservative line about affirmative action and set-asides when he never would have been admitted to law school except for minority set-asides.

Well, Thomas has a new memoir that has just been published ("My Grandfather's Son" - Harpers), and according to reports about the book he's still railing about how he was "lynched" and about how Hill was just "traitorous" to him. (one of the most telling facets for me that had me give credibility to Hill rather than Thomas was that Hill had nothing to gain by her testimony, and the certain knowledge that her testimony would be a cause of trouble for her in her future career.)

I didn't think he was qualified when he was confirmed, and I think it's even less complimentary for him to be bruiting about these sentiments when he's still a sitting Justice.

As an aside, I see that the right-wing noise tactics are not changing any -- if you look at the comments on Amazon, the description of one commentator who call Thomas a "liar" has just been painted as a "racist" based on that evidence alone. Just as Thomas himself is making the oblique charge of racism when he continues to call the confirmation hearings a "lynching."

I'll wait until I have a chance to see this from the library before I make a final determination about the worth of the book. I very much doubt that it will change my opinion of Thomas a a Supreme Court Justice however -- which feeling has been confirmed by his voting record and written opinions from the bench since his confirmation.
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UPDATE: Anita Hill has responded to the smears in Thomas's book (OK, OK, I believe Hill, I don't believe Thomas. And that will affect my choice of phrase). In a piece in the NY Times Hill addresses some of Thomas's accusations against her. Among the comments she made in the Times article is:

Regrettably, since 1991, I have repeatedly seen this kind of character attack on women and men who complain of harassment and discrimination in the workplace. In efforts to assail their accusers’ credibility, detractors routinely diminish people’s professional contributions. Often the accused is a supervisor, in a position to describe the complaining employee’s work as “mediocre” or the employee as incompetent. Those accused of inappropriate behavior also often portray the individuals who complain as bizarre caricatures of themselves — oversensitive, even fanatical, and often immoral — even though they enjoy good and productive working relationships with their colleagues.

Finally, when attacks on the accusers’ credibility fail, those accused of workplace improprieties downgrade the level of harm that may have occurred. When sensing that others will believe their accusers’ versions of events, individuals confronted with their own bad behavior try to reduce legitimate concerns to the level of mere words or “slights” that should be dismissed without discussion.

Unfortunately, Hill thinks those tactics as a defense against sexual harassment are going away, when they really are still being used extensively. And they will continue to be used as long as that kind of deception is allowed, and that will continue as long as sexual harassment is viewed as a minor matter in the workplace.

5'11" and 154 lbs is "fat?"

At least according to the British television show "Make Me A Supermodel," when model Jennifer Hunter (see picture at left), a divorced mother of one who is 5'11" and weights 154 pounds.

The show, similar to the U.S. "reality" show "America's Next Top Model," pits men and women against each other in an elimination format, with the winner getting a contract with the Select modeling agency, one of the sponsors for the show. The overall winner was a male model, but Ms. Hunter was the top female vote getter in a UK-wide phone vote. This win came after the show's judges castigated her for being "selfish" and "greedy" because she wouldn't drop "extra" weight to fit their demands. In her stead, the judges' favorite female contestant was Swedish teenager Marianne Berglund, who is supposed to weigh 112 lbs, but she appears a lot less. One commentator likened her to a concentration camp survivor. (see side-by-side comparisons of Hunter and Berglund wearing similar swimsuits here)

The judges, while cutting down Hunter, praised Berglund as having a "perfect body for modeling." If that's a "perfect body" we're in bizarro-world and someone's lost the key out.

I don't follow fashion trends, and I tend to view fashion photography with a "bus man's holiday" view. But of late I've been seeing more and more images that I find disturbing, from the heroin-chic wasted runway models to the magazine "fashion" spreads that look like sexual assaults.

Now two fashion models have recently died from self-induced starvation, and the authorities in Spain have gone so far as to regulate what the minimum body-mass-index can be for a profession model.

If it wasn't that the "fashion industry" has such a disproportionate influence in young women as they are growing I could pass it off as an aberration in the industry, but this is too pervasive.

From a meta-context viewpoint, it's also a further indication of the societal constraints that have women's lives and self-images controlled by male-dominated corporations.

Terrorists attacks are in the news? Lets run sexy ads!

"They're beautiful, and they can strip a rifle"

That's the lead to a short Sky News clip on the nation of Israel's new PR campaign to make the country more attractive to tourists.

According to Sky News, the Israeli government paid for a photo spread in MAXIM magazine that highlights the more personal attractions of the country. As the Sky News correspondent notes, "Israel has an image problem."

And someone had the bright idea that "rebranding" the country by pushing more websites with scantily clad women is the way to fight that image.

This, however, is so bizarre that it feels like it was dreamed up by someone in the Cheney/Bush administration. Or maybe the PR honchos at Southwest Airlines.