Feminism and the 2008 US Vice Presidential race

For the first time in a long time, an honest feminist ran for Vice President of the United States. No, not her; ironically, perhaps, it was the man running for the position, Joe Biden. Biden has already spent 20 years fighting for women's rights. He fought to make marital rape as heinous a crime as ( Read more... )

Harry Reid, and What Happened to the Public Option | Robert Reich’s Blog

First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a non-starter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn’t hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada - which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 ( Read more... )

Two things that make me angry:

One, prosecutorial immunity.  I mean, yes, I understand the point of protecting professional public adversaries from punishment for doing their jobs; but when we’re seriously asking "Should prosecutors be allowed to knowingly frame people for murder and get away with it?" - something’s effing broken.

And two, people ( Read more... )

Fifteen years of draconian copyright regimes show that when you create powerful enforcement tools without any consequence for misuse, they get misused. And half a century’s worth of evidence on digital technology shows that no amount of enforcement will make computers and the internet worse at copying. Hard drives won’t get magically bulkier and ( Read more... )

After pondering it all week, I think we should get rid of this word (as it’s used to oppose the word "rich").

I know that we (humanity) still haven’t gotten the hang of the concepts of racism and sexism, and why it’s important to redress their wrongs for the health of our whole species - but I still hold out hope that soon we’ll come to the same ( Read more... )

Maybe it’s the philosopher in me, but I don’t see how any argument against racism that depends on color to make its point is valuable in the long run.  If the goal is to end racism, which I hope it is, then shouldn’t we be engaged in activities and rhetoric that de-emphasize skin color (etc.) as a valid reason to make political (and by extension ( Read more... )

So, I’m on my very first ever actual calorie-restriction diet.  This is Day Two.

I’ve had more fun.

However, I probably also never have actually eaten this healthily, if health can be measured in quantities of raw vegetables.

Anybody could know why I did it, I imagine…three years of regular, increasingly athletic exercise, and I’m in the best shape ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

In the news, upstanding people standing up…

Jimmy Carter becomes one of my heroes for the Nth time. In this opinion piece he wrote for The Age, the 60-year member and Deacon formally cuts his ties to the Southern Baptist Convention - which would be kind of a big deal anyway, except that he did it because of how the Church (and Christianity as a ( Read more... )

I love a good word-invention any day of the week, but this one from Dispatches from the Culture Wars really made my Monday:

Loonisphere, n.

The loonisphere is a magical place where the laws of logic do not apply. A place where not allowing someone to oppress another is a violation of the oppressor’s religious freedom, where quitting one’s job is ( Read more... )