It's a good thing we don't split the check this way...
American RealPolitik has the simplest explanation of how progressive taxation works that I've ever seen. Those folks who think that 'tax cuts for the rich' are a bad thing would do well to read it.

"Segre-gate" has nothing to do with religion
At least for me.

Clayton Cramer poses the question: Is the libertarian wing of the Republican Party hoping to push Lott out as Senate Majority Leader so that someone less identified with the Christian Right ends up in that capacity?

I identify as libertarian, and I fully admit that my desire to be rid of Lott is not soley founded in his most recent comments. It has nothing to do, however, with his identification as a member of the religious right. It is because I believe that as a leader for the republican party, he has been an abject failure. He botched the impeachment mess. He agreed to 'power-sharing' with the democratic party. He let Jim Jeffords hand the majority over to the democrats. In a time when republicans are doing their best to prove that they aren't all segregationists wearing sheep's clothing, he's an embarrassment as the majority leader, with a healthy history of espousing segregationist views, and supporting segregationist causes. He'll remain a pimple that the democrats will pick at for so long as he retains party leadership... and he has a history of deal-making with them that I suspect will only worsen now that he's lost so much credibility.

Put down your coffee cup before you follow this link
Rand Simberg has turned the tired old 'some of my best friends are black' riff into the funniest commentary on Trent Lott I have ever seen.

"I know that many of you will be surprised to learn that I was 'passing' all of these years. It was a deep, dark family secret."

"My great-great grandmother was a house nigra on a plantation outside of Biloxi. My great-grandfather was a mullatto, my grandmother was a quadroon, and my mother was an octaroon, which makes me a hexidecaroon..."

It just gets better.

Too close to home...
Ouch! The Onion's article, Area Mom Could Have Made Same Meal At Home For Much Cheaper was just a little too close to the bone there.

"For what we're shelling out on [son] Eric's cheeseburger and fries alone, I could have made dinner for the entire family," Wiersma said. "We all could have had nice cheeseburgers and fries, with plenty left over for baked beans and cole slaw. Plus, I would have toasted the bun just the way Eric likes it."...

Anxious to avoid such situations in the future, Bob said he will make an effort only to bring the family to restaurants that serve foods his wife does not know how to prepare. "Next time, we'll go to a foreign place and try to pass it off as a 'family-enrichment night,'" Bob said. "There's a Chi-Chi's over in Downers Grove I've always wanted to go to, and I'm pretty sure Sandy doesn't know how to make Mexican, so it should be a more relaxed evening for us all."

Since I moved so far out to the boonies, and can't even get pizza delivered, I've been doing a lot more cooking. Since I've had to do a lot more cooking and grocery shopping, I've noticed the contrast in prices for restaurant food compared to home-made a lot more than I used to. And it is kind of frustrating for a woman to sit down in one of those obnoxious chain restaurants, have everyone order dinner, and have the tab equal the cost of delmonico steaks and a decent wine for dinner for eight at home... but I really just linked to the article because I thought it was hilarious. :)

Baptisms for the dead = knock on the door
Eugene Volokh has some interesting commentary regarding this AP News piece on Jewish objections to Mormon baptisms for the dead.

I have to agree with Eugene, this is a mountain out of a molehill, but my agreement stems from personal experience, and an understanding of what "baptism for the dead" actually is and means. When the LDS church performs baptisms for the dead, their intent is to offer LDS salvation to folks who didn't have the chance to convert to the LDS church during their life-times (either because they didn't know of it, or were dead before its founding). This is the equivalent of the missionaries showing up at your door, and asking if you'd like to join up. If you believe that humans continue to exist after their deaths, then these souls are welcome to say "No thanks, not interested," just like people do when the missionaries come to their door in this life. There is no disrespect meant to jews, and no one is making the claim that those people the LDS church have baptised after their deaths are now mormons... unless they wanted to be.

And now that I think of it, that's a hell of a lot nicer, in terms of religious tolerance than a lot of other sects can claim. One of the reasons I turned away from organized religion was that I could not stand the holier-than-thou-we're-saved-everyone-else-is-going-to-hell attitude prevalent in organized religion. At least the mormons don't condemn you to burning hellfire for all eternity if you don't join their team.

Too bad the mormons are also incredibly insular, sexist, and in my experience there is a shockingly high rate of child and spousal abuse within the devout community. The stories you can find on exmormon.org mirror the experiences of everyone else I know who left the church (including me) - either someone was being physically or sexually abused, and received zero support from the priesthood for it, or they started questioning church history and the scriptures too closely.

This isn't to say that the LDS church is all bad, or even mostly bad. It's just not for any woman who believes in equal rights or self-determination.

If you're curious about mormons, you might find this weird little indy thriller I watched the other week worth watching. It actually gives a remarkable picture of what non-sicko mormons are like. The movie is Brigham Town, and Wilford Brimley, of all people, is in it. Pick up the box, and there is no indication that the movie is about a predominantly LDS small town, just that it's a "small town serial killer murder mystery." The pacing is a bit slow, but the movie is remarkably well constructed, and kept my interest throughout... and the scenes shot during sunday services are exceptionally accurate; it felt like I was having a flashback.

Send them to Stanford!
... but put an electrified fence around it.

Clayton Cramer has some interesting commentary on capital punishment and death penalty appeals. I think he's spot on, but then again, my response to people who oppose capital punishment is: "We shoot rabid dogs, don't we?" This paragraph, however, is priceless:

Because death penalty opponents are overwhelmingly people that don't believe in prison, either (because all criminals are victims, too), it is hard to have much confidence that life in prison would actually happen. Once the death penalty was repealed throughout the country, the ACLU's full energies would be devoted to proving that life in prison was cruel and unusual punishment; that it destroyed any incentive for criminals (excuse me, the differently valued victims of capitalism) to reform; and that it was cheaper to send them to Stanford. (emphasis mine)

I think that Clayton may be dismissing such an idea too quickly... given the cost of prison guards, wardens, food and water, legal representation, etc, it would be cheaper to send them to Stanford. It would be especially cost effective if we built a nice big wall around Stanford, first, then renamed it Coventry. It's not a new idea, in any sense of the word. Robert Heinlein set his version of Coventry in the northern US; Robert Anton Wilson just fenced off the state of Mississippi and called it Hell; John Carpenter set it smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles; Australia and Georgia both have their roots in the concept. Nowadays, we've got much better security and construction technologies, so it's far more feasible. I'd be willing to give up Disneyland if the trade involved dumping anyone who had been deemed so dangerous they could never be set free again (life sentences, death row inmates) in one place, shutting the gates, and then tossing the key... and I never thought Berkeley was really part of the U.S. anyway. They can be free to violate, attack, and do whatever it is rabid humans do to each other, and we'll be left alone.

Yeah, I know it's a pipe dream, and there are all sorts of legal and moral concerns over such a project... but I don't see how exiling someone and leaving them to their own devices is any crueler than imprisoning them and leaving them to Bubba the mad-dog rapist's tender mercies.

A Point For Slobs...
For all of the folks who have teased me in the past with remarks like:
Is your car a surveillance vehicle?
Do you live in your car?
Have you ever cleaned your car?...
I can only point to this article: Messy Car Helps Man Survive Snow

Assorted food packets, a peanut butter jar and other items are being credited for Ward's surviving six and a half days trapped in subfreezing weather after he crashed his car last week. A broken hip suffered in the accident prevented him from climbing out of the vehicle.

On Unemployment again...
An issue on my mind today, since my company is showing up in the layoff news... When I said 'boo hoo' with regards to laid off workers' unemployement benefits ending, I wasn't making any sort of comment on the value of unemployment benefits, but on the complaints of people who have already gotten extra help, and are whining for more special treatment.

Bad Girls may like good contracts, but Smart Girls get a better-paying job
Best of the Web today carried 'Dispatch from the Porn Belt', detailing a strike of unionized strippers out in San Francisco.

"We want respect," said Vivian, 27, who has worked at the Lusty Lady, in San Francisco's touristy North Beach district, for a year and a half.
Hrm... maybe you'd get more 'respect' if you didn't work as a stripper at place called the Lusty Lady. Hate to break it to you, but stripping isn't considered a 'respectable' job. Sure, if you aren't a total moron, and are capable of pinning a smile on your face, it can be quite lucrative, but it isn't respectable. There's nothing about taking your clothing off in front of a bunch of drunken or lonely men (and women) that you wouldn't even smile at if they weren't holding a sweaty fistful of singles that's respectable. You aren't a nurse.

The dancers are complaining the club's latest contract offer cuts hourly wages and eliminates their one day of sick pay. Sick pay was one of the victories the union won when workers approved their first contract with management in 1997, a year after unionizing.
The Exotic Dancers Union, a chapter of the Service Employees International Union, Local 790, wants management to restore $3 an hour in pay cuts made during the past 20 months, back to a top scale of $27 an hour. The club said the cuts were "revenue-based," but dancers say management has failed to justify the cuts financially by opening the club's books.
Sounds like the club really is behaving badly, but I'd say the strippers managed to screw themselves if their 'good' contract gave them a top rate of $27/hr with 1 day of sick pay. A top rate of $27/hr? Even the ugliest, surliest, strippers in the DC area pull in better than that in tips on average. If you're friendly (and I'm not referring to the illegal sort of friendly) you can pull in thousand dollar nights around here.

Here's a clue. Stop striking, and find a job at a club where you'll make better money. If you can't make better money elsewhere, then you either shouldn't be in that line of work, or should be content with what you're making.

Blackface merits a red face
UVA's Inter-Fraternity council has quite correctly decided that dressing up in blackface may be rude, but it is protected speech.

The panel, convened by the university's Inter-Fraternity Council, determined Monday that Kappa Alpha and Zeta Psi could not be punished because the partygoers' actions were constitutionally protected speech.

I'm still wondering, though, if it's always 'blackface' to dress up as a black person, even if you're costumed as an actual person (like Venus Williams), does this mean that we have to institute racial segregation in Halloween costumes? ... "I'm sorry, Billy, but you can't dress up like Booker T because you're too white." "But mom! Booker T is my favorite wrestler!" "I know, darling, but you're white, so you only get to dress as a white wrestler. How about this nice Chris Jericho costume?"

I thought people who counseled you to 'stick to your own kind' were considered racist.

They're missing the joke...
The AP's headline is Reverse Racism Nets Indian Scholarships.

The effort began last winter when a group of Indian students at the University of Northern Colorado asked officials at nearby Eaton High School to change the school's mascot from "Fighting Reds" because the name was offensive.
When the school refused, members of the UNC intramural basketball team, made up of Indians and whites, decided to get even.
   They named themselves the "Fightin' Whites" and began wearing T-shirts bearing the name. After getting national media attention they began selling the shirts, which also bear the slogan "Everythang's going to be all white," from their Web site.
   More than 15,000 shirts and hats have been sold, raising at least $100,000.

I think its great that they've managed to raise that much money for scholarships, but I have a deep-seated suspicion that the reason they've done so is not out of sympathy for their cause. It's because only native americans find the use of racially themed names for sports teams offensive. You don't hear norse-americans protesting the Minnesota Vikings, and you won't see the DAR protesting the New England Patriots. People bought 'Fightin' Whites' t-shirts because they thought they were fun, and in some cases, because it's nice to see someone using the word 'white' in a positive light for once. It's not an effective protest of native american sports names, it's a case of "If you Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em."