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Office War! Posted by tgirsch

July 24th, 2008 | I do too have a life, Humor | no comments

The Stadium Collection Posted by tgirsch

UPDATED 23 July 2008: Add Huntsville Stars (AA)UPDATED 25 June 2008: Add Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and New York MetsUPDATED 27 April 2008: Add Kansas City Royals.UPDATED 20 May 2007: Add Philadelphia Phillies.I’m a sports fan, and I “collect” stadiums (stadia?). Especially major league baseball, NFL football, and NHL hockey. My goal, before I die, is to see a baseball game in the home stadium of every MLB team. It would be an added bonus if I could do the NHL and NFL venues, but right now, I’m focusing primarily on baseball.Problem is, I keep forgetting where I’ve been, and losing count. Therefore, mostly for my own reference (and because I expect few others to be interested), I’m posting a list of venues attended below the fold. I’ve ordered them in roughly the order in which I first visited them, to the best of my ability to recall.However, if you have comments concerning favorite (or least favorite) venues, feel free to leave them. July 23rd, 2008 | Sports, I do too have a life, NFL, MLB/MiLB, NHL | 11 comments

Christians United for Israel Posted by tgirsch

Via commenter Ted: This is the guy whose endorsement McCain actively sought out. July 23rd, 2008 | Politics, Religion | 3 comments

Tgirsch to Cubs Fans Posted by tgirsch

Knock knock.UPDATE: I don’t know what’s gotten into Bill Hall lately, but I like it! July 22nd, 2008 | Sports, Weekend Flame Bait, MLB/MiLB | no comments

Baseball Blegging: The Saga Continues Posted by tgirsch

UPDATE: I’ve added some baseball-related humor here.OK, I’m confused. Consider the following inning:First batter gets a base hit; advances to second on a balk. Runner on first, nobody out.Second batter lays down a sac bunt, advancing the runner to third. One out.Third batter grounds out to third, runner stays put. Two out.Fourth batter gets a base hit, first batter scores. One run in, runner on first, two out.Fifth batter hits a triple, fourth batter scores. Two runs in, runner on third, still two out.While sixth batter is up, pitcher throws a wild pitch, fifth batter scores. Three runs in, two out.Sixth batter grounds out to second. Three outs.For that inning, how would you score the pitcher’s line, in terms of runs, earned runs, hits, and errors?Now consider another inning, same pitcher throwing:First batter gets a base hit. Runner on first, nobody out.Second batter is hit by a pitch. Runners on first and second, nobody out.Third batter lays down a sac bunt to third, runners advance. The first baseman drops the throw from third, and the ball rolls behind him. First batter scores. Runners on first and second, nobody out.Fourth batter pops out foul to the catcher. First and second, one out.Fifth batter strikes out looking. First and second, two out.Sixth batter flies out to deep center. Inning over.How would you score the line for that inning?Here’s how I did it:First hypothetical inning: 1.0 IP, 3R, 3ER, 3H, 0K, 0BBSecond hypothetical inning: 1.0 IP, 1R, 0ER, 1H, 1HK, 0BB, 1HBWhy do I ask? Because these examples a real game, and the official scorekeeper differed from me. His final score showed the pitcher with 4R (which I had) and 2 ER, one fewer than I had. I’m looking all over the place for the second unearned run, and I can’t find it. Digg?For reference, here’s the box score and the play-by-play. I’m concerned with the bottom of the fifth and the bottom of the sixth. July 21st, 2008 | Sports, MLB/MiLB, Blegging | 21 comments

Obama’s Foreign Policy Posted by tgirsch

According to Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, Obama is the “conservative” when it comes to foreign policy, and McCain is the “liberal”:Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president. What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.…snip…Obama rarely speaks in the moralistic tones of the current Bush administration. He doesn’t divide the world into good and evil even when speaking about terrorism. He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas.Obama never uses the soaring language of Bush’s freedom agenda, preferring instead to talk about enhancing people’s economic prospects, civil society and—his key word—”dignity.” He rejects Bush’s obsession with elections and political rights, and argues that people’s aspirations are broader and more basic—including food, shelter, jobs. “Once these aspirations are met,” he told The New York Times’s James Traub, “it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes we want.” This is a view of democratic development that is slow, organic and incremental, usually held by conservatives.Obama talks admiringly of men like Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, all of whom were imbued with a sense of the limits of idealism and American power to transform the world. “In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative,” wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in her profile of him for The New Yorker. “There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It’s not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good.”…snip…Ironically, the Republicans now seem to be the foreign-policy idealists, labeling countries as either good or evil, refusing to deal with nasty regimes, fixating on spreading democracy throughout the world and refusing to think in more historical and complex ways. “I don’t do nuance,” George W. Bush told many visitors to the White House in the years after 9/11. John McCain has had his differences with Bush, but not on this broad thrust of policy. Indeed it is McCain, the Republican, who has put forward some fanciful plans, arguing that America should establish a “League of Democracies,” expel Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and exclude China from both groups as well.The whole thing is worth the read. Cross-posted at SayUncle and TennesseeFree. July 21st, 2008 | Politics, Foreign Policy | 36 comments

Switch Pitcher Posted by tgirsch

Most baseball fans have probably already seen this video, but it’s worth the watch if you haven’t:But this makes me wonder: What is the rule here? Is there one at all?UPDATE: In response to this very incident, a new rule was drafted: the pitcher must declare which hand he’s going to throw with first. The batter can then respond by declaring which side to hit from. Each may change sides once during the at-bat, but only after the first pitch is thrown, from the side originally declared by the pitcher. It’s worth noting that this is exactly the opposite of what our resident baseball expert digglahhh told us in comment #5.

July 17th, 2008 | Sports, MLB/MiLB | 11 comments

Another Baseball Bleg Posted by tgirsch

I suppose I could look this up myself, but I’m lazy: Is it scored as a fielder’s choice any time when you have a double-play situation but only one out is made (sans an error), or only when the batter is the one who’s safe? I suspect it’s the latter, but I’m not sure.Example 1: Runner on first, batter grounds to the shortstop, who throws to second, getting a force out. The second baseman chooses not to throw to first, or throws too late. Fielder’s choice, clearly.Example 2: Runner on first, batter grounds to third. The runner gets a good jump and the third baseman isn’t sure he can get the throw to second in time, so he throws to first and gets the force there. My guess: Not fielder’s choice, just 5-3.Discuss.P.S.: I’m thinking of going to Huntsville this weekend to go see a Stars game. Has anyone been? Any thoughts what to expect? July 17th, 2008 | Sports, MLB/MiLB, Blegging | 24 comments

Changing the Dominant Paradigm Posted by Kevin

Go give this guy nine bucks. July 17th, 2008 | General | one comment

It’s Starting to Look a Lot Like Equality Posted by KTK

(. . . in two states, at least).Massachusetts is now in the process of repealing the racist and obsolete law that Mitt Romney invoked to continue to limit marriage rights for gays after the state legislature removed the overt bar to marriage in the law. Until now, gay couples - but not heterosexuals - could not get married in Massachusetts unless they were official residents of the state, as the result of an old Jim Crow law specifying that couples from out of state could not get married “if their marriage would be illegal in their home state” - a reference to anti-miscegenation laws in southern states. The Supreme Court has long since invalidated legal prohibitions on inter-racial marriage, and the law has never been invoked since then, but was never officially appealed repealed. When gays won the right to marriage equality, the existing anti-equality law was triggered again, so now the law only applies to gays. Romney and his right-wing supporters, happy for any form of discrimination they can still call their own, used it to prevent marriages for gay couples from other states. Now that MA has a decent governor again, they’re working to correct certain oversights.Interestingly, the article implies (though perhaps not intentionally) that the legislature only acted after marriage equality was recognized in California without a discriminatory clause, and New York state announced it would recognize out of state marriages (ironically, without actually providing equality for in-state ones). That creates a huge pressure for New York couples to seek marriages in California or Canada, to claim equality back in New York. With full marriage equality available in Massachusetts, NY couples can get it done there much more easily than in California, representing a potential revenue stream of more than $100 million over just a few years’ time. Was MA really acting to end discrimination, or just jumping on a lucrative westward-bound bandwagon? Hard to say, but it underscores the dangers of leaving your liberties in other people’s hands.Either way, great news, again, from Massachusetts. Step by step, state by state, one of the ugliest forms of open discrimination still remaining in this country fades into the growing trash heap of conservative history. Every day, hundreds of new legal gay couples are created, and thousands of people see their stupid fears and fantasies exploded by the simple, mundane reality of equality in their states, cities, and neighborhoods. By the time the planned hate amendment referendum comes up in California this winter, there will be tens of thousands of gay couples married and living in equality in that state - and California is not going to vote to forcibly divorce them all simply out of spite. The other states will follow suit, as their own citizens marry and demand recognition of their rights. With two states now actively offering to all citizens a form of legal equality that they can take back to their homes, there will be a flood of legally married gay couples across the country not merely challenging the legal discrimination they face, but forcing their neighbors to admit that it’s their own friends and family members they are hurting for no reason.It’s over. The haters have lost, faster even than I imagined. The bigots are now doing nothing more than fighting a rear-guard action to see how long they can continue destroying at least some lives, somewhere. They’ll succeed in that - they’re good at it. Jim Crow taught them how to evade and undermine legal equality with a fierce and savage cunning, and they haven’t forgotten. If we don’t get a decent Supreme Court, it could be that the last state to hold out for discrimination could go for decades before giving up. But that’s all just trapped-animal raving. As far as the nation’s choice between equality and bigotry is concerned, and notwithstanding some early and painful victories by well-organized bigots, it’s over. July 16th, 2008 | General, Politics, Legal Issues, Church & State, Religion, Culture, Privacy, News & Current Events, Race | 89 comments

Patting Myself on the Back Posted by tgirsch

I beat FactCheck to it by a full day. Although they have some interesting details that I missed.

July 15th, 2008 | Politics, Bloggin, Economics | no comments

I Suck at Geography, and Can’t Read, Either Posted by KTK

I have already noted how ignorant I am of geography. But this morning, on a whim, I started staring at a map of Europe, really paying attention to it for the first time in a long time, and I am aghast at how completely screwed up I am.I had this vague mental map of Europe that I’ve been carrying around in my head, probably since high school (where, not coincidentally, they didn’t teach geography). It’s not like I haven’t seen real maps many times since then, but I never paid attention. And the few times I have tried to impress on myself the geography of a region - the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe - because it was relevant to some issue there, I have gotten only a distorted and out-of-context view of things. I have even lectured students on political geography (in a by-the-way, parenthetical manner - I would never set myself up as an expert on the subject) - sometimes with embarrassing results. And now when I actually look at the map, I am amazed at how wrong I was, and so uncomprehendingly, for so long.more… July 15th, 2008 | General, Politics, Religion, Culture, Education, News & Current Events | 22 comments

All-Star Game Open Thread Posted by tgirsch

digg asks, and he shall receive. July 15th, 2008 | Sports, MLB/MiLB | 18 comments

Brett Favre Open Thread Posted by tgirsch

I thought we were going to be spared the perennial Brett Favre retirement drama this year, but sadly that’s not going to happen. I’m a life long Packers fan, and I do love me some Favre, but it really is time for the team (and for Favre) to move on. So while I may be in the minority among Packers fans, I think the team is handling this very well. Even if he were to return, and they did let him start, this year would almost certainly be a disappointment — anything less than a return to the NFC Championship Game would be a letdown. It’s time for the team to move forward. I wish he’d retire gracefully.Agree? Disagree? Don’t give a shit? This is the thread to discuss it. July 14th, 2008 | Sports, NFL | 7 comments

Tony Snow Dead Posted by tgirsch

He was just 53 years old. I may not have liked his politics, but 53 is far too young for anyone to go. My thoughts go out to his family and loved ones. Having lost my uncle (age 56) to cancer just a few weeks ago, I know exactly what they’re going through. July 12th, 2008 | News & Current Events | 3 comments

Baseball Bleg Posted by tgirsch

So I was teaching my wife to score baseball today at a minor league game, and encountered a scenario that I’m not sure how to score. Runner on first, batter grounds to the second baseman. The second baseman “freezes” the baserunner and throws over to first to get the batter out at first. 4-3, so far so good. But the runner is still out there between first and second. I had thought that it was as simple as throwing back over to second to get the second out and turn the double play, but apparently, since the batter was thrown out at first base first, that leaves the baserunner with the option of going on to second, or running back to first. And he’s caught in a rundown. So after the 4-3 I already mentioned, 3 throws back to 4, who throws back to 3, who tags the runner.How the hell do you score that? 4-3-4-3? And is the batter credited with grounding into a double play in that scenario? And however the hell you do it, how the hell do you fit it in the little 0.75mm2 box they give you?I also have a couple of questions about minor details, since it’s been perhaps 25 years since I’ve scored a ball game:Is any fly out that advances a runner a sac fly, or only ones on which the runner scores?How do you indicate whether an out on the basepaths was a force out or a tag out?I’m 95% sure that a batter who grounds into a double play that scores a run is not credited with an RBI, but I’d like confirmation of that.What’s the code to indicate a runner was picked off?I expect digglahhh will answer all these questions from memory, but we’ll see.

UPDATE: I got tired of waiting for digglahhh, so I looked a few of them up, and have other updates:According to rule 10.08, it is only scored as a sacrifice fly a runner scores as a result.According to rule 10.04, if you ground into a double play, you are not credited with an RBI, even if a runner scores. Also, if you ground into what should be a double play but isn’t because of an error, you’re not credit with an RBI.Someone asked how the runner at first could be “frozen”; basically, the ball was grounded between first and second base, and the second baseman fielded the ball. Once it was in his glove, he was standing directly between the runner and second base. Had the runner continued, he would have run directly into a tag, at which point there was an easy throw to first for the second out. The second baseman didn’t have sufficient time to turn around, throw to second (being covered by the shortstop), and have the shortstop throw over to first. In my estimation, however, it was decidedly a baserunning error by the runner; had he tried to run around the second baseman, he would have forced the second baseman to choose between chasing and tagging him or throwing over to first. At a minimum, after the second baseman threw to first, the runner should have tried to advance to second instead of trying to go back to first, which is what he actually did. By trying to run back to first, he made it a rundown situation instead of a simple tag play at second.According to the MLB definitions, it looks like it should be scored as a “reverse double play,” and the batter should be charged with grounding into a double play. And indeed, the official box score is available, and it lists the batter (Sanchez) as having grounded into a double-play. (His other two at bats were a base hit and a strikeout.) My memory of it was not quite right, though. They scored it 4-3-6-3. (You have to follow the gameday flash link from the box score — the little baseball diamond next to the “Box” link — in order to get the official play-by-play.)So it looks like Ted was correct on his first three points, with the other two still open questions. July 12th, 2008 | Sports, MLB/MiLB, Blegging | 9 comments

Open Letter to PZ Myers: The Cracker Incident Posted by KTK

Dear Dr. Myers:I have long admired your blog and your many contributions to science, to science education, and to the fight against irrationalism. I share your perspective on many things, and greatly respect the ways in which you have given it expression. You are doing a great service both to the community of rational thinkers and, if they only knew it, to the superstitious and anti-intellectual as well.I was aghast, but, sadly, not surprised at the events involving the “Eucharist” cracker at UCF. I am appalled at the hostility expressed toward the student involved and at the university’s failure to support him, still more so at the threats of violence and retaliation directed at him and at you for supporting him. You have my best wishes for your safety.All that being said, however, I’d like to call on you to reconsider your most recent post on that matter. It is easy to laugh at the overheated antics of religious kooks, and certainly even the most mundane religious beliefs are absurd upon inspection. But, as you know all too well, I’m sure, religious people take them very seriously. It’s mind-boggling how people wrap themselves up in these ridiculous claims - “miracles”, crackers-into-flesh (but you can’t see it!), Jesus on tortillas and whatnot - but it’s not as hard to understand that, given that they do believe this nonsense, they do care about how that nonsense is treated by others.At the point of believers’ emotional investment in their nonsensical beliefs, we are not talking about the rationality of those beliefs but about how those beliefs impinge on the believers’ values and well-being. In that way, crazy as they are, believers are no different from atheists or other rational people. That is, in caring about what they believe in, rather than their actual beliefs, they are just like us - their values (however unfounded) guide their lives, they are invested (however irrationally) in living up to those values, and they hurt (even if unnecessarily) when others gratuitously trample them.That, I think, is where you tread in soliciting help in openly desecrating religious paraphernalia (asking for someone to steal a Eucharist cracker so you can publicly destroy it). I understand deliberately contravening religious claims to prove their falsity (calling on God to smite you, for instance); that serves a kind of scientific purpose in rationally testing the factual claims believers make. But your plan, as far as I understand it, seems to consist in mere taunting: flaunting your “sacrilege” to show up those who threatened you and the student.Allow me to suggest, with respect, that that is beneath you. No one could deny your grievance in becoming the target of death threats and an attempt to destroy your career for your beliefs. But a malicious lashing-out in revenge is mean-spirited, even in the face of such gross provocation. If your plan was not intended as vengeance but rather some sort of counterstrike or defensive move, I have to say it still seems to consist merely in gratuitous outrage rather than any practical step toward securing the rights of non-believers. I really can’t see how it constitutes any useful “fight[ing] back against Bill Donohue”, or “countercampaign” against a witch hunt - as your blog post terms it. At the very least, it will cause real hurt to many people who have nothing to do with this incident, far more so than it will make any overt contribution to resolving it. And on those grounds - causing hurt to no purpose, or for purely personal satisfaction - it serves the same base impulse that has been aimed at you. It may not be my place to tell you how angry you have a right to be, after such unconscionable behavior was directed toward you. But I want to say that it is the part of decency to be magnanimous where possible, and it is incumbent upon rationalists to fight their battles with logic and not malice.However misguided and often offensive, superstitious and irrational people are part of our world - indeed the majority of it. I do not for a moment suggest we should surrender any of our freedom to their constant trespasses: stamping their silly slogans on coins, currency, and government buildings; making children mouth cant and dogma upon command in the public schools; writing their phobias and perversions into discriminatory laws to oppress the many groups and subgroups they despise; resorting to violence and terrorism when they cannot oppress by other means; and all the immeasurable rest. But we owe them, as to any moral person, the minimal decency of regard for their feelings, whether or not we share those feelings or endorse their reasons for having them. We owe to their silly beliefs and rituals, not the condescension of uncritical approval, but the moral respect of tolerance.We are entitled to, and desperately need to, defend our own rights, freedoms, and scope for belief and practice, but we should avoid going out of our way to give offense in regard of others’ beliefs, even where we reject them. And I can’t see that deliberately soliciting and committing “blasphemy” or “sacrilege” or whatever it is will serve any purpose other than angering the people who get angry about that sort of thing. Most of them don’t deserve that, however wrong they are about other things. If nothing else, it will live forever as a treasured example of atheists’ “hatred for Christians” and the “war on Christianity” - and so for our sake if not for theirs, I’d ask you not to do it. But more importantly, I’d ask you not to just because it seems mean, and, though we shouldn’t surrender what really matters, we shouldn’t be mean.Thanks for your time and consideration. I know I can rely on your judgment.With best wishes,/s/ Kevin T. Keithwww.leanleft.comwww.sufficientscruples.com UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan also condemns Myers’s proposal, while managing to work in the word “bigot” - directed at Myers. Maybe I need to rethink this . . . July 11th, 2008 | General, Church & State, Religion, Culture, Education, Media, News & Current Events | 43 comments

Grammar Bleg Posted by tgirsch

Where’s Dvorkin when I need him? Why the hell do we call it the “present perfect” when it involves verbs conjugated in the past tense, and refers exclusively to events that happened in the past? July 10th, 2008 | I do too have a life | 23 comments

Post-Racism Society, My Ass Posted by tgirsch

A lot of people want to pretend that racial discrimination is ancient history. It’s not:John Jordan, a 40-year-old, black Milwaukee man, was invited by a friend to head down to the east side to Decibel and its Deep Bar Vodka Lounge.“What he said was (it’s a) great place to go to. ‘I want you guys to meet me down here,’” Jordan said.Decibel’s Web page boasts it’s Milwaukee’s hottest new nightclub.When Jordan got to Decibel, he said guards stopped them cold at the door.“I was greeted by two security officers and they were like, ‘Hold on, wait a minute,’ and I was like, ‘Ah, guys are asking me for my identification.’ I was like, ‘Great’ with laughter,” Jordan said. “They told me no your pants are too baggy, and I said, ‘No, you’re joking.’”Meanwhile, Jordan said he saw other guys in similar attire walking in and out of the doors of Decibel who were not black.“I’ve heard rumors of things like this happening. I just didn’t know it would ever happen to me,” he said.Jordan said he and his buddies left quietly that night but returned a week later to see if it would happen again.When they returned, they took a video camera.When Jordan returned, he talked to a black man named Alfonso who said he was turned away at the door for not being dressed properly.Before attempting to enter the club a second time, Jordan took video footage of the group’s attire. He also showed the camera the tag showing size on his pants.Upon his return to Decibel, Jordan said the same two security guards were working there.But again, Jordan was denied entry for his pants being too long and his friend was told his shoes were not right.“We don’t allow boots in the club and that’s that,” a Decibel security guard said.After being denied, Jordan was able to capture footage of patrons wearing clothing that the guards said was prohibited.“I’m looking at this guy’s pants. Your pants look nice and long,” Jordan said. “Thirty-twos, and you just came out of the club. And you’re wearing boots? I just wanted to make certain you’re wearing boots.”After being denied a third time, Jordan decided it was time for a little experiment and called up his friend Joel, who is white.He wanted to see if the clothes he was denied in would be acceptable if they were worn by a white man.Jordan’s experiment worked.“On three different occasions, I put all the clothes on that he had a problem getting in with. It was absolutely no problem (for me),” Joel Edgar said.That night, Edgar was wearing the same brown cashmere jacket and dress pants Jordan wore previously. The next time, he had the same black jack and red vest on.“I walked right in, and they flagged me right on in every time,” Edgar said.Edgar said that in three visits he saw just one black woman in the club.“When I walked out, there were three black men trying to get in and they denied them access,” Edgar said.[Emphasis mine.]Read the whole story. It’s appalling. July 9th, 2008 | Culture, News & Current Events, Race | 29 comments

Race and Stupidity: A Bad Mix Posted by KTK

Things are bad down Texas way: an unusually boring Dallas County Commission meeting turned into a racial shouting match over one Commissioner’s bizarre eruption at the use of the word “black” in a non-racial context.County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.The “black hole” reference, it should be painfully obvious, was an analogy invoking the scientific term for an object with such a strong gravitational field that nothing can escape it (i.e., when things go in they never come out - like the paperwork at the traffic ticket office, apparently). Black holes are “black” because they do not emit light.* The term has nothing to do with race, and is not derogatory (even in a race-neutral sense like “a black day for Dallas”). Mayfield tried to explain this. The story says “other county officials quickly interceded to break it up”, but doesn’t explain exactly how it all ended.OK, so the obvious first reaction is to note how stupid the outraged Commissioners were. The phrase “black hole” is in fairly common currency these days, and it doesn’t seem too much to expect responsible public officials to be able to recognize it as a scientific term, whether or not they understand it in detail. In addition, their assumption that it must have been a racial insult (and Price’s immediate retaliation with what he apparently thought would be the corresponding racial insult “white hole” [also a scientific term that means exactly the opposite of what was being expressed about the traffic ticket office]), seems to underline the complaints we hear about “racial sensitivity” and the supposed incidence of knee-jerk claims of racism founded on ignorance or unthinking anger.But there’s a lot more going on here, and it leaves me with a feeling that the situation is more complicated than that.more… July 9th, 2008 | General, Politics, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Race | 19 comments — Next Page »

The View From the Sinister Side of Life

Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: "Kings. What a good idea." Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees. -- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

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AltercationAmerican StreetDaily HowlerDaou ReportLabor BlogLife in 2025 (Kevin's fiction blog)Political State ReportRocky Top BrigadeSierra Club BlogSufficient Scruples (KTK's bioethics blog)TappedUN Dispatch

Interesting Blogs

&cAin't No Bad DudeAlexBeacon BroadsideBeyond CorporateBody and SoulBrad DeLongBusyBusyBusyCorrenteCrooked TimberDaily KosDemosthenesDissociated PressDoc SearsDougalDoxagoraDubya's Daily DiaryEschatonFiredog LakeGail OnlineGamer's NookGet DonkeyHullabalooInteresting TimesJim HenleyKevin DrumLady GreenLaw and PoliticsLiberal OasisMad KaneMar A. R. KleimanMattMatthew YglesiasMax SpeaksMemeorandumMichael SilenceMikeMove LeftMyDDNatan NewmanNorbiznessOff the KuffOh!pinionsOutside the TextPandagonPartisan Witch HuntPolitics From the ZerosPublic NuisanceRittenhouse ReviewRoad to SurfdomRobert's RamblingsRuminate ThisSays UncleSeeing the ForestShakespeare's SisterSideshowSkippy the Bush KangarooSouth Knox BubbaTalk LeftTalking Points MemoTboggTerminusThe HamsterThe Talking DogTrey JacksonUggaBuggaUnclaimed TerritoryUngodly PoliticsWampumWhoviatingWordPress

Literary Blogs

Agent oo7Charlie's DiaryElegant VariationKathryn CramerMaud NewtonMiss SnarkMoorish GirlNeil GaimanReading ExpirienceSlush GodThe Early Days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod)The MumpsimusWhatever

Interesting Sites

American ProspectBuzzflashDemocratic UndergroundDemocrats.comNationNew RepublicTom Paine

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Lean Left 2008 July

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Another small attempt at disseminating progressive thought.

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