Month: June 2015

Women in Baseball — Open Thread

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by wj This week, for the first time, a Melissa Mayeux registered for Major League Baseball’s international registration list — which makes her the first woman to be eligible to play major league baseball in the United States. Or course, the young lady is French, not American. Why not? Because, in the US, women play … Read more

On accusations of *-ism and prejudice

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Guest post by Bruce Baugh; originally a comment at File770. There’s an aspect of worldview which is sort of prior to specific politics, religion or philosophy, and so on, that needs some explicit attention. Some people believe that it’s possible (in the sense of “feasible for some significant number of people”, not the abstract possible … Read more

Marriage Equality Day

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by Doctor Science It’s here. 5-4, Kennedy wrote the opinion, on Fourteenth Amendment grounds. In my non-legal opinion, the really important Amendment for this decision was the Nineteenth, women’s suffrage. Marriage equality isn’t just saying that all *marriages* are equal, it’s saying that both persons in a marriage are equal. As I’ve said before, a … Read more

Your King vs. Burwell discussion thread

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by Doctor Science I just woke up, groggy and overslept, and saw that the King v Burwell decision has come down. The SCOTUSblog summary says: Today, by a vote of six to three, the Court agreed with the Obama administration that the subsidies are available for everyone who bought health insurance through an exchange, no … Read more

I wish I was…

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by liberal japonicus

I found it interesting that at 8 this morning, I read this
http://time.com/3932807/mississippi-state-flag/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

“The great argument we made from a business perspective was that if you were trying to introduce a product, would you make something that made 38% of your market uncomfortable?” says Blake Wilson, CEO of the Mississippi Economic Council, referring to the black population in the state. “It was a no-brainer from our perspective, but we probably misjudged the ability for business to influence the general public. The people in Mississippi were not ready to take that step.”

Two-thirds of Mississippians backed the old flag over one that had been redesigned without any Confederate symbolism. Ole Miss’s Bruce says that the alternative flag was not particularly well liked and that many Mississippians saw no threat from businesses that may not want to set up shop because of the flag. “I think the mood was, We’re a poor, agrarian state anyway,” Bruce says. “You can’t hurt us.”

and at 4:30, I read this

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150624_National_moves_against_Confederate_symbols_widen.html

In Mississippi, top state Republicans were split over the state’s flag, the last of the 50 state banners to include a specific image of the battle flag. House Speaker Philip Gunn said Monday that the image, which appears in a corner of the Mississippi flag, is offensive and should be removed.

Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves responded Tuesday that the decision should be up to Mississippians, who voted 2-1 in 2001 to keep the flag. Gov. Phil Bryant, also a Republican, said he supported that referendum result.

this
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/06/ole-miss-admiral-ackbar-confederate-flag-mississippi

On to Mississippi. Just hours after South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley asked the state legislature to pass a law removing the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state Capitol on Monday, Mississippi’s Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn issued a call for his state to follow suit. The Confederate battle flag is embedded in the upper left corner of the official state flag, but “as a Christian,” Gunn wrote on Facebook, “I believe our state’s flag has become a point of offense that needs to be removed.” Henry Barbour, the nephew of former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour and a well-connected politico himself, echoed Gunn’s call.

And for a bit of lagniappe, this
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-22/how-stephen-colbert-has-stood-against-the-confederate-flag-for-years

Now, I’m sure the commentariat has some interesting observations about this, but talking about the Stars and Bars brings back some interesting memories that I will put below the fold.

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Adventure is Somewhere Else**

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by wj Adventure has been defined as a story about someone else having a really rough time of it at least 50 years or 500 miles away. Generally both — think of westerns generally or Indiana Jones, or Star Wars or Firefly. If it’s not a rough time, it’s not an adventure. If it isn’t … Read more

can somebody explain this to me…?

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by russell This post is about the shootings in Charleston.  It's a topic about which people are going to have strong feelings, in a wide variety of directions, so I would like to ask a couple of favors. Please don't direct ad hominem comments toward other folks here on the blog. Please don't call for … Read more

The Skylark of Mince-Pies

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by Doctor Science Mister Doctor Science has been re-reading rip-roarin’ yarns of the public domain at Project Gutenberg, and just got to Skylark Three, one of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s early and defining space operas. Sample paragraph, as hero Dick Seaton watches a man from an advanced, alien civilization build a complex control device: “Whew! That … Read more

Slow Wheeling Justice

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by Ugh With a Bush III: Jeby'all! administration apparently something that can't be laughed out of the realm of realistic possibility, a reminder of his older and, uh, older brother's Presidency: Saying that high-ranking Bush administration officials may have taken part in grave constitutional violations after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court in … Read more

Foodborne Illness Report

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by Doctor Science Things I Have Learned: when you go to the “hot food pay by the pound” steam trays, even at the *good* supermarket, don’t get the Asian-style Fish with Ginger and Scallions — at least not if it’s mid-afternoon, long after the lunch rush. It may have been the Lemon Chicken, but my … Read more

Twitter is Skynet

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by liberal japonicus The image in the BBC story about the probe Philae, which landed on Comet 67P, it gives me the impression that the probe used its Twitter account to let people know it had come back on. So, we are screwed, just to let you know.

Scraping skies with gargoyles

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by Doctor Science

The last time I went by car through NYC I was driving, so I got no idea of what the city actually *looks* like these days. This past weekend the four of us traveled to Long Island together for a family celebration, and with Mister Doctor Science behind the wheel I was able to stare out the windows and absorb the sights.

PhilDolby-FreedomTower-1024

Freedom Tower by Phil Dolby.

Cut for image-heavy post.

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Everything looks like a nail

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by liberal japonicus I'm going to take the liberty of pulling up parts of two comments, one by sapient, the other by Nombrilisme Vide Sapient wrote: So speaking of sex, and Caitlyn, nobody commented on the New Yorker article I linked to. But then there was a New York Times editorial, and then a Slate commentator who objected to it (and … Read more

It only pays to be a jerk if the game is just a game

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by Doctor Science

Jerry Useem’s Atlantic article Why It Pays to Be a Jerk is amazingly self-contradictory, probably because it’s written for and about people who really want to be jerks but aren’t willing to admit it.

Start with the title. The headline and the subhead — “New research confirms what they say about nice guys” — say that the article is going to tell you that being a jerk definitely pays off (at least in business), and why. But Useem writes:

To summarize: being a jerk is likely to fail you, at least in the long run, if it brings no spillover benefits to the group; if your professional transactions involve people you’ll have to deal with over and over again; if you stumble even once; and finally, if you lack the powerful charismatic aura of a Steve Jobs. (It’s also marginally more likely to fail you, several studies suggest, if you’re a woman.) Which is to say: being a jerk will fail most people most of the time.

[emphasis mine.] In other words, the headline + subhead — doubtless written by an editor, not the author — directly contradicts the article.

It’s maybe not entirely the headline-editor’s fault, because the text of the article also contradicts *itself* — as do the articles and experts Useem used as sources.

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We’re still here, I think….

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by Ugh As I'm sure many of you know, the USA PATRIOT Act (or at least certain provisions of it and perhaps other laws) expired last night.  It's hard to tell, however, because I'm still here typing this and we do not have ISIS raising it's flag over the White House, imposing Sharia law, and … Read more