By now you’ve all heard about Dr. George Tiller

 Link, in case you haven’t.
Not sure what to think about late-term abortions*. But I do know what I feel about the murder of mature, productive members of a society.
The next few months will be awful for the family. More so than usual for a death, even a violent one like this.
Won’t be easy for his [...]

Oprah is bad for women and children

Much commending is due to Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert for writing in  Newsweek  a long overdue debunking of Oprahism:
Last summer Dr. Christiane Northrup, a physician and one of Oprah’s regular experts, took questions from the audience. One woman asked about the HPV vaccine, which protects women against a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer. [...]

Marx refuted again: History plays itself as farce, then tragedy

The Onion, 2001:
American Voices
The 2000 presidential election is barely in the books, but talk has already turned to the possibility of Hillary Clinton making a White House run in 2004. What do you think?
“A woman president? What if she menstruates all over some important legislation?”
Rich Durban,
Machinist

Gordon Liddy, 2009:
Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when [...]

Six more gay men murdered in Iraq

Via ABC News:
…An Iraqi military source claimed the recent killings were linked to tribal violence, not militias, and his characterization of the killings hints at how deep homophobia runs in Iraqi society.
“Two young men were killed Thursday. They were sexual deviants. Their tribes killed them to restore their family honor,” an Iraqi army member [...]

Diversity in the SCOTUS

Alan Dershowitz, writing at TNR’s The Plank, echoes my  own opinions on the significance of the Sotomayor’s pick to national racial dynamics, probably with greater economy than I could muster myself:
The fact that she is the second justice of Spanish heritage (Benjamin Cardozo was the first) and the first Latina is also significant, as is [...]

I don’t know what to think about Sonia Sotomayor

…but at least I admit it.
Any of you have formed opinions yet on the nomination of the secondLatin American to the SCOTUS? Usually when I say I’m withholding judgment, I really have an opinion, but either one so sloppily constructed I’m too embarrassed to share it, or one too heterodox for me to comfortably explain [...]

Prop 8 upheld

It’s not like we didn’t see this coming.  The question of “How, exactly, a court was supposed to find the constitution it is meant to interpret invalid in of itself?” was answered “It isn’t,” and probably for the best. If Facebook status updates are any indication, many LGBTple and their allies are taking the loss in stride, respecting the [...]

WTF News in Whedon

i.) To the delight of a few and to the surprise of all, Fox renewed Dollhouse. Just three more episodes and it’ll have beat Firefly’s longevity!
Wait…that’s not funny at all. Firefly was clearly the better show. But Fox canceled it after airing eleven of its fourteen produced episodes. But Dollhouse gets picked up for renewal after [...]

Will they ruin it?

Well, will they?
(Link contains a video with NSFW dialogue, but you have to click to play it.)

Does one wish someone a “happy” Memorial Day?

I don’t know. Never lost anyone who served; I have an uncle in Vietnam who served as a communications officer. He doesn’t mention it much, so I don’t bring it up. He refused a promotion with the parks service that would have required him to wear a sidearm. That’s really a Veteran’s Day anecdote. I know [...]