Don't Buy the Social Security Fear Factor!

While Bush is criss-crossing the country on Bamboozlepalooza, trying to sell the country on eviscerating Social Security, Democrats in Congress are rallying to stop him.

Here's a great article by Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Wa) who is senior Democrat on the Ways & Means Committee (and by the way, the psychiatrist/congressman who was in Fahrenheit 9/11!) on why Bush is all wet on Social Security.

The Legacy of Barry Bonds

Yesterday I took care of my friend's kids while she was at class.

The ten year old said he had something to show us. He sat on the couch, mimicked shooting a needle towards each of his shoulders, then popped his arms up and pumped his fists in a muscleman pose, shouting "BUFF!"

"I'm Barry Bonds!" he cried gleefully.

Getting a White House Day Pass

Jeff Gannon, a/k/a "The Presstitute", got a day pass into the White House Press Briefing daily for two years. So it must be pretty easy, no?

The FishbowlDC blog has been trying to get in on a daily pass for three days now, with no success.

Surprised? I didn't think so.

Best Alex Rodriguez Nicknames

He calls himself A-Rod, but here in Boston we call him

A-Fraud
F-Rod
Slappy McBlueLips (credit to Joy of Sox blog)
A-Lot
Pay-Rod
A-Wad
K-Rod

ICR: One of my favorites. Here's the explanation:

ICR
From Baseball Think Factory Wiki, the free encyclopedia.

ICR is one of the many nicknames given out by Yankee fans in Game Chatters, this one coined by sjohnny. ICR is short for "Inanimate Carbon Rod", and is the nickname given to Alex Rodriguez in lieu of "A-Rod". The reason for the nickname was A-Rod's poor performance in 2004 with runners in scoring position. Many sent ICR to the nickname graveyard after his game-tying double in the 2004 ALDS Game 2.

The phrase "Inanimate Carbon Rod" comes from a Simpsons episode where an inanimate carbon rod is named Employee of the Week at the power plant instead of Homer. This insult leads Homer to become an astronaut, where he averts a catastrophe (after starting it) on a shuttle mission using an inanimate carbon rod, which receives much more acclaim than Homer does.

What I'm reading today

And you were expecting a list of books? Here are the top five blogs I visit daily:

1) Eschaton
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
Duncan Black is an economist in Philadelphia. I don't always understand his economic analyses, but his rapier wit always makes me laugh. Updated constantly. This has been at the top of my bloglist ever since I first heard the term "blog".

2) DailyKos
http://www.dailykos.com/
Markos Zuniga runs this political community weblog. Many regular posters with different talents. Right now SusanG and NYBri are hot on the trail of the Presstitute, but you can find stories on everything that's hot on the left side of the aisle.

3) Steve Gilliard's News Blog
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/
I just discovered this blog a few months ago. It's a spin-off from the Kos blog (Kos lists him as a "site alumni"). Black New Yorker, always edgy take on the news.

4) Talking Points Memo
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Joshua Micah Marshall. Very smart guy. Currently obsessed with defeating Bush's crazy destroy Social Security scheme. Has adopted the phrases "Conscience Caucus" and "Fainthearted Faction" to label supporters & opponents of the scheme, but I can't keep those cutesy little terms straight. So it's a bit of an insider's club these days.

5) Women's Hoops Blog
http://www.womenshoops.blogspot.com/

Formerly known as Sara & Ted's Women's Hoops blog. Keeps me up with women's basketball (since it is so rarely on TV I rely on the internets to keep me up to date.) Follows the games & the issues. This is where I learned about the Rick Lopez case in Colorado. Ewww.

That's my top five. This month I've also been reading AmericaBlog (http://www.americablog.org/) for its coverage of the Presstitute, and as spring training is in full swing, The Joy of Sox (http://www.joyofsox.blogspot.com/)

Jeff Gannon, Presstitute

I have dubbed Jim/Jeff Guckert/Gannon "The Presstitute".

For obvious reasons, as his occupation immediately preceding his tenure in the White House briefing room was prostitute.

You say prostitute, I say presstitute, let's call the whole thing off!

Kind of like Bill O'Reilly & his falafel.

What is it with those wingnuts anyway?

Powerfully Hobbled

Condoleezza Rice's Commanding Clothes

Yes, today the Washington Post tells us that wearing stiletto heels is powerful.

Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal. When looking at the image of Rice in Wiesbaden, the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature. To shadowy daydreams. Dominatrix! It is as though sex and power can only co-exist in a fantasy. When a woman combines them in the real world, stubborn stereotypes have her power devolving into a form that is purely sexual.

Hogwash. Perching your body atop two thin pegs just makes it impossible for a woman to run. The body's weight is concentrated on the balls of the feet, and the heel is taken out of a woman's walk. If you can't put down your heel, you can't use the long muscles in your legs. If all your weight is on the balls of your feet, they hurt unmercifully. A woman in stiletto heels is hobbled.

The Post thinks she's more powerful because those heels are so sexy:

Countless essays and books have been written about the erotic nature of high heels. There is no need to reiterate in detail the reasons why so many women swear by uncomfortable three-inch heels and why so many men are happy that they do. Heels change the way a woman walks, forcing her hips to sway. They alter her posture in myriad enticing ways, all of which are politically incorrect to discuss.

"There is not need to reiterate in detail the reasons why so many women swear by uncomfortable three-inch heels....." Well, maybe there is such a reason. If heels were so great, wouldn't men wear them? They've taken up manicures, moisturizers, and face lifts. But men have never taken to heels, and certainly not to heels which are smaller than the foot that sits above them. Maybe the reason "why so many men are happy that they do" has more to do with the hobbling effect.

I'm going out for a walk. In my flat bottomed shoes.

Democrats Need a Spine Implant

David Podvin: 'A who's who of who sucks'

Here's the beginning & the end of the article - click the link to read the rest.

The United States Senate is a place where those who can't tell the difference between right and wrong perpetrate evil with the complicity of those who can. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy can certainly tell the difference, but like his Democratic colleagues he doesn't allow that ability to affect his behavior.

When considering the nomination of Condoleeza Rice to be Secretary of State, Leahy noted that Rice was an incompetent National Security Advisor who had repeatedly deceived the American people. The senator then said this: "My vote in favor of Dr. Rice is difficult to explain. It is more the product of a belief than a cold analysis of her record. I believe that Dr. Rice is capable of learning from her mistakes and changing her ways. That she will rise to this new challenge. That she can be a good Secretary of State."

Leahy's vote is not difficult to explain. He is a coward whose stated principles have no practical significance. This real life Barney Fife is so obsessed with capitulating to an administration that has tarred Democrats as unpatriotic that he gave Rice the benefit of the doubt even after admitting there was no doubt.

**********

Liberals must ultimately assume responsibility for the sorry quality of their senators. Until primary voters stop supporting invertebrates like Leahy and Lieberman and Biden and Feinstein, the Republicans will maim the United States with impunity. The essential counterbalance to evil is resolve. For that quality to radiate again from the Democratic Party, a newly vigilant rank and file must at long last refuse to accept anything less.

Random Jottings

-- Harry Reid has been a great choice to lead the Senate Democrats. While the left blogosphere wailed when he got the job, I was happy -- he's the guy who worked on Jim Jeffords for a year to get him to switch from Republican to Independent (see "The Jim Whisperer", on salon.com). Therefore saving us from total Republican domination of government, until this year.

-- Censorship is everywhere. I watched "Remember The Titans", the Denzel Washington film about the first integrated football team in Alexandria, Virginia two nights ago with my friend's two kids. It was being shown on the Disney Channel. When they showed the scene in the lockerroom where Ronnie Bass kisses the quarterback (who has accused Bass of being a girl, or "one of them", for having long hair) Disney cut out the kiss! This made the next two scenes incomprehensible -- the other players reaction's to the kiss, and a subsequent scene in the cafeteria where the character Petey asks Bass if he's "like that".

Apparently Disney, which gives domestic partner benefits to gay couples, can't show a man kissing another man, even in jest. Sad.

-- Good news for US Women's National Team fans: April Heinrichs has submitted her resignation as coach of the national team. She was a terrible judge of talent (two time National Player of the Year Abby Wambach barely got on the 2003 World Cup squad) and a pathetic tactician (unless you like boot-and-chase soccer). Farewell & good riddance Ape.

The Corporate Media "Finds" Gannongate

In the New York Times today:

Frank Rich
The White House Stages Its 'Daily Show'

Maureen Dowd
Bush's Barberini Faun

And the Washington Post covered the story yesterday, albeit on the first page of the "Style" section:
Howard Kurtz
Online Nude Photos Are Latest Chapter In Jeff Gannon Saga

I'm waiting for an article by one of those pathetic "journalists" who sat in the White House press room with this fraud for two years & never even googled his name. Reporters? They hardly deserve the moniker.

Gannongate

I know it's been a few weeks since I last posted, so it has to be a bombshell.

Jeff Gannon, who was admitted to the White House press room for two years despite questionable credentials & the use of an alias, was a gay prostitute who peddled his services over the internets. AMERICAblog has the story:

A Man Called Jeff

WARNING: Clicking on the above link sends you to an article that contains screen captures of pornography.

Here's the end of the AMERICAblog story:

Why does this matter?

So in the end, why does this matter? Why does it matter that Jeff Gannon may have been a gay hooker named James Guckert with a $20,000 defaulted court judgment against him? So he somehow got a job lobbing softball questions to the White House. Big deal. If he was already a prostitute, why not be one in the White House briefing room as well?

This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a "daily basis." They reportedly made a decision to give him - one of only six - access to documents, or information in those documents, that exposed a clandestine CIA operative. Say what you will about Monika Lewinsky - a tasteless episode, "inappropriate," whatever. Monika wasn't a gay prostitute running around the West Wing. What kind of leadership would let prostitutes roam the halls of the West Wing? What kind of war-time leadership can't find the same information that took bloggers only days to find?

None of this is by accident.

Someone had to make a decision to let all this happen. Who? Someone committed a crime in exposing Valerie Plame and now it appears a gay hooker may be right in the middle of all of it? Who?

Ultimately, it is the hypocrisy that is such a challenge to grasp in this story. This is the same White House that ran for office on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. While they are surrounded by gay hookers? While they use a gay hooker to write articles for their gay hating political base? While they use a gay hooker to destroy a political enemy? Not to mention the hypocrisy of a "reporter" who chooses to publish article after article defending the ant-gay religious-right point of view on gay civil rights issue.

Who in the White House is at the center of all of this? Who allowed this to go on in the People's House? Who committed the crime of exposing Valerie Plame? Jeff Gannon has the answers to these questions, and boy we know he loves to talk.

Let him talk to Patrick Fitzgerald.

Ethics? Torture Guy Don't Need No Stinking Ethics!

Torture Guy, Alberto Gonzales, had a unique way of being an impartial judge when he was on the Texas Supreme Court. He would accept money from the corporate defendants who had cases pending in his court, then rule in their favor!

How could such a lowlife be our next Attorney General? How has he even kept his bar license? Any Democrat who votes for this guy should be removed from office. Republicans should be ashamed. He deserves to be Borked. Will the Democrats be true to their ideals?

As Texas judge, Gonzales heard donors' cases

WASHINGTON -- When White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was a Texas Supreme Court justice running to stay in office in 2000, he took thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from companies that had business before him and he did not recuse himself from voting on their cases.

The practice is legal in Texas, and Gonzales was not the only judge to benefit from it. But his record in 2000 -- when he raised $539,000 for the Republican primary, outraising his opponent by a 1,047-to-1 ratio -- drew special criticism from an Austin-based group that tracks the influence of money on government.

**********

Gonzales had been appointed to the bench in 1999 by then-Governor George W. Bush, but had to run in 2000 to keep his seat. That year, he accepted $2,000 from an insurance company after the court heard arguments -- but before it issued a decision -- as to how much the company should pay a man injured in a car accident. In a similar case, he voted in favor of another insurance company whose law firm gave his campaign $2,500 just before the court heard arguments.

Both cases involved whether insurance companies had to pay interest to plaintiffs whose final awards were delayed because the case went to court. The watchdog group said the decisions were ''a costly slap in the face to Texas consumers."

Bush Has Been Trying to Privatize/Abolish Social Security Since 1978

George Bush claimed Social Security would be bankrupt in 1988 when he ran for Congress in 1978!

And we all know that happened -- NOT! It was all part of his plan to abolish Social Security by privatizing it. Different century, same old song.

Here's the Texas Observer article of June 25, 1999 (via bluebus.org):

According to Gary Ott, who was then a reporter for the Plainview Daily Herald, Bush stopped by the paper’s little office “maybe five or six times. He’d sit down at my desk; he was a fun guy. He was very outgoing, very friendly, and we would argue politics since I was a liberal. We’d argue over Carter policies.” Bush criticized energy policy, federal land use policy, subsidized housing, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“a misuse of power,” he said), and he warned that Social Security would go bust in ten years unless people were given a chance to invest the money themselves. None of this really distinguished him from Hance, though, so in the end Bush simply argued that a Republican could better represent the district: “If you want a chance in the way Congress has been run, send someone who will be independent from those who will run the Congress.”

We Love Lists

Especially lists of losers. Even when we're on them! (See number 3.)

The Beast 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004

I would have left off Ben Affleck -- his movies suck, but he's harmless -- and substituted Torture Guy, aka Alberto Gonzales.

But the guy he's going to replace made the list:

8. John Ashcroft
Crimes: Promoting sexual shame, writing and singing alarmingly jingoistic and terrible songs, flattening constitutional protections, detaining brown people at will without charges or counsel, pretending to be a patriot, and intentionally ignoring terrorism in his pre-9/11 tenure.

Smoking Gun: Put a fucking curtain up to cover a naked breast on a statue. A statue.

Punishment: Only heterosexual judge on the supreme court in 2035.

What's on my turntable today

I think the word "turntable" gives me away. Even though they're CDs, not albums, I am a musical dinosaur.

Today's 5:

1. The Best of Warren Zevon (Rhino, 2002). A Christmas gift from my brother. Warren Zevon ruminating on the good, bad & ugly of life. From lawyers to rehab, this has it all. We all know the classics: Excitable Boy; Lawyers, Guns & Money; Werewolves of London; but there was so much more. Man, could this guy write lyrics.

2. Ray Charles, Genius Loves Company (Hear Music, 2004). Another Christmas gift, from my brother & sister-in-law (I assume my sister-in-law picked it). I forgot what a great voice Ray had and what a great phraser he was. He's the guy who sang the only version of "Georgia" that counts, right?

Except for a few clunkers (who decided to have Ray & James Taylor sing "Sweet Potato Pie", anyway?), a great disc. I love "Here We Go Again" with Norah Jones, "You Don't Know Me" with Diana Krall, and "It Was a Very Good Year" with Willie Nelson.

3. Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose (Interscope, 2004). Sometimes you have to buy your own Christmas gifts. Along with Kanye West, this disc was on many "Best of 2004" CD lists. Produced by Jack White of the White Stripes. Loretta Lynn stripped down to her bare country roots. Awesome. "Family Tree" reminded me of all the Loretta Lynn classics: "You Ain't Woman Enough To Take My Man", etc., and without the 60s/70s horn or string overlay. Just her great heartbroken voice.

4. Joss Stone, Mind Body & Soul (Curve Records/EMI, 2004). Another Christmas gift from bro & sisinlaw. Great voice, but very young & it shows in the lyrics. This is one of those rare discs that I've liked less the more I've listened to it. It gets another week, then if it doesn't hit me it goes out of rotation.

5. Los Lonely Boys (Oz Music, 2003). I gave this to my brother for Christmas & he liked it so much when I saw it on sale I bought it for myself. Reminds me of Los Lobos, high energy Tex-Mex rock. I hope they have Los Lobos' staying power. I remember being in LA for the Olympics in 1984, and my friend Jimbo read in the paper that "The Wolves - Do You Speak Spanish?" were playing in a club in East LA. Seeing them play live was one of the great musical experiences of my life.

Torture Guy's a Liar, Too

Torture Guy is a liar, too. Everyone else in the case reported by Newsweek, below, says he is lying about what he did to keep Bush's DUI from becoming public. A lying Attorney General. Well, the President's a liar too so he'll fit right in. Do you love that Bush "left blank" the question on the juror questionnaire asking whether he had ever been the accused in a criminal case. That's lying, too, by omission. Will the Senate show a backbone? Will these three officers of the court testify about Gonzales' lies? I doubt it, but an attorney can hope.

Gonzales: Did He Help Bush Keep His DUI Quiet?

Jan. 31 issue - Senate Democrats put off a vote on White House counsel Alberto Gonzales's nomination to be attorney general, complaining he had provided evasive answers to questions about torture and the mistreatment of prisoners. But Gonzales's most surprising answer may have come on a different subject: his role in helping President Bush escape jury duty in a drunken-driving case involving a dancer at an Austin strip club in 1996. The judge and other lawyers in the case last week disputed a written account of the matter provided by Gonzales to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It's a complete misrepresentation," said David Wahlberg, lawyer for the dancer, about Gonzales's account.

Bush's summons to serve as a juror in the drunken-driving case was, in retrospect, a fateful moment in his political career: by getting excused from jury duty he was able to avoid questions that would have required him to disclose his own 1976 arrest and conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in Kennebunkport, Maine—an incident that didn't become public until the closing days of the 2000 campaign. (Bush, who had publicly declared his willingness to serve, had left blank on his jury questionnaire whether he had ever been "accused" in a criminal case.) Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy to describe "in detail" the only court appearance he ever made on behalf of Bush, Gonzales—who was then chief counsel to the Texas governor—wrote that he had accompanied Bush the day he went to court "prepared to serve on a jury." While there, Gonzales wrote, he "observed" the defense lawyer make a motion to strike Bush from the jury panel "to which the prosecutor did not object." Asked by the judge whether he had "any views on this," Gonzales recalled, he said he did not.

While Gonzales's account tracks with the official court transcript, it leaves out a key part of what happened that day, according to Travis County Judge David Crain. In separate interviews, Crain—along with Wahlberg and prosecutor John Lastovica—told NEWSWEEK that, before the case began, Gonzales asked to have an off-the-record conference in the judge's chambers. Gonzales then asked Crain to "consider" striking Bush from the jury, making the novel "conflict of interest" argument that the Texas governor might one day be asked to pardon the defendant (who worked at an Austin nightclub called Sugar's), the judge said. "He [Gonzales] raised the issue," Crain said. Crain said he found Gonzales's argument surprising, since it was "extremely unlikely" that a drunken-driving conviction would ever lead to a pardon petition to Bush. But "out of deference" to the governor, Crain said, the other lawyers went along. Wahlberg said he agreed to make the motion striking Bush because he didn't want the hard-line governor on his jury anyway. But there was little doubt among the participants as to what was going on. "In public, they were making a big show of how he was prepared to serve," said Crain. "In the back room, they were trying to get him off."

Gonzales last week refused to waver. "Judge Gonzales has no recollection of requesting a meeting in chambers," a senior White House official said, adding that while Gonzales did recall that Bush's potential conflict was "discussed," he never "requested" that Bush be excused. "His answer to the Senate's question is accurate," the official said.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

Freedom is on the march

Today is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

Abu Ghraib is our most recent example of this axiom.

As a result, Donald Rumsfield & his top deputy Stephen Cambone cannot travel to Germany where they will be arrested for war crimes.

What goes around, comes around.

Not Everyone Agrees with Lizard Brain (Lawrence Summers)

The Boston Globe weighs in on Lawrence Summer's 20th century faux pas remarks:


Harvard women's group rips Summers

In his talk Friday at a conference on women and minorities in science and engineering, held at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Summers listed three possible explanations for the small number of women who excel at elite levels of science and engineering. He said he was deliberately being provocative, as he was asked to do by the organizers, and relying on the scholarship that was assembled for the conference rather than offering his own conclusions.

His first point was that women with children are often unwilling or unable to work 80-hour weeks. His second point was that in math and science tests, more males earn the very top scores, as well as the very bottom scores. He said that while no one knew why, "research in behavioral genetics is showing that things people attributed to socialization" might actually have a biological basis -- and that the issue needed to be studied further.

Several participants said that in making his second point, Summers suggested that women might not have the same "innate ability" or "natural ability" as men.

Summers' third point was about discrimination, and he said it was not clear that discrimination played a significant role in the shortage of women teaching science and engineering at top universities. However, he concluded by emphasizing that Harvard was taking many steps to boost diversity.

Summers' remarks were taped, but he has denied requests for a copy, saying it was a private, off-the-record meeting.

Perhaps it's gender block by Eileen McNamara

Personally, I blame PMS. Between the bloating and the foul mood, it was just easier to curl up with a heating pad and read romance novels than to measure the hypotenuse of a triangle.

I offer this possible explanation for the "F" I got in geometry in 10th grade, not in my official capacity as a columnist at The Boston Globe, but as a freelance provocateur. If unsubstantiated speculation about behavioral genetics is good enough for the president of Harvard, it's good enough for me.

I make no claim to the intellectual rigor that President Lawrence H. Summers brought to his unscripted remarks at a luncheon of the National Bureau of Economic Research the other day. I pulled my theory of female ineptitude out of thin air. Summers, on the other hand, characterizes as a "purely academic exploration of hypotheses" his idea that female scientists might be underrepresented in the academy and the professions because of innate differences between men and women.

To the untrained ear, that might sound like making it up out of whole cloth, but Larry Summers is the president of Harvard University, so let's just say his theory needs further study. Not that "anatomy is destiny" is exactly an original idea. Women have been hearing for eons that their lack of achievement, in the arts as well as the sciences, is the result of, variously, their weaker constitutions, their smaller brains, their delicate uteruses, and/or their unruly hormones.

GLOBE EDITORIAL
Summers's sense

ARE WOMEN and science like oil and water? Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, says no, and in a statement Monday he described his deep commitment to the advancement of women in science.

But outrage flared last week when Summers spoke at a conference on women and minorities in the sciences and engineering. He raised questions about whether innate gender differences account for the low numbers of women in the sciences, the impact of long work weeks, socialization versus genes, and a possible dampening of discrimination.

**********

Are men and women innately different? It's a moot point, since women have already shown they can be first-class scientists.

DERRICK Z. JACKSON
Summers's tortured logic

HARVARD President Lawrence Summers had impeccable timing for his slip of the tongue. It was the beginning of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Summers spoke at a conference titled, "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce: Women, Underrepresented Minorities and their S. and E. careers." The conference came 44 years after King said: "If we are to implement the American dream we must get rid of the notion once and for all that there are superior and inferior races."

Four and a half decades later, Summers took to the podium to wonder why women struggle in those highly technical fields. He said perhaps one reason was because women with children were not willing or were unable to work 80-hour weeks. Then he noted, according to newspaper reports, how more boys than girls in late high school had superior test scores in science and math.

He wondered if "innate differences," "innate ability," or "natural ability" could be involved.

**********

Summers's mind was fixed on a target as stale as a decade ago when Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein tried to revive notions of racial inferiority in their best-selling book "The Bell Curve." The authors cited IQ scores as fixed facts that should make us abandon the American dream.

**********

Summers of course would say he meant nothing so crude. But every time a privileged white guy blurts out something verging on the Cro-Magnon (instead of, for instance, decrying 80-hour work weeks and demanding that fathers better share the parenting), it puts the discussion of what really holds back women and people of color into a holding pattern. That means further discouragement for the young and silent destruction of careers for the groups that do not share such privilege.

No Comment

Why women are poor at science, by Harvard president

The president of Harvard University has provoked a furore by arguing that men outperform women in maths and sciences because of biological difference, and discrimination is no longer a career barrier for female academics.

Lawrence Summers, a career economist who served as treasury secretary under President Clinton, has a reputation for outspokenness. His tenure at Harvard has been marked by clashes with African-American staff and leftwing intellectuals, and complaints about a fall in the hiring of women.

He made his remarks at a private conference on the position of women and minorities in science and engineering, hosted by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In a lengthy address delivered without notes, Dr Summers offered three explanations for the shortage of women in senior posts in science and engineering, starting with their reluctance to work long hours because of childcare responsibilities.

He went on to argue that boys outperform girls on high school science and maths scores because of genetic difference. "Research in behavioural genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialisation weren't due to socialisation after all," he told the Boston Globe yesterday.

As an example, Dr Summers told the conference about giving his daughter two trucks. She treated them like dolls, and named them mummy and daddy trucks, he said.

Oh, so THAT'S the scientific basis for this bullshit theory. Ok, just so my tiny female brain can understand the rigorously developed scientific basis for this crap.

Dr Summers also played down the impact of sex bias in appointments to academic institutions.

He said: "The real issue is the overall size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was held down by discrimination."

At least half of his audience comprised women, several said they found the remarks offensive and one walked out.

"It was really shocking to hear the president of Harvard make statements like that," said Denice Denton, who is about to become president of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Others said Dr Summers's comments were depressingly familiar. "I have heard men make comments like this my entire life and quite honestly if I had listened to them I would never have done anything," said Donna Nelson, a chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma.

A Harvard spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday, or to release the transcript of Dr Summers's remarks. Richard Freeman, who invited the Harvard president to speak at the conference, said Dr Summers's comments were intended to provoke debate, and some women over-reacted.

"Some people took offence because they were very sensitive," said Dr Freeman, an economist at Harvard and the London School of Economics. "It does not seem to me insane to think that men and women have biological differences."

During Dr Summers's presidency, the number of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36% to 13%. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women.

I guess the "pool" of qualified women dropped by two-thirds in the three years this lizard brain has been at Harvard? Or is my tiny biologically-impaired brain not understanding this really hard math thing?

Prick.

I've dealt with pigs like this guy all my life & I'm sick to death of it. He's the Al Campanis of our decade. Remember poor old Al Campanis saying on national TV that blacks didn't "have the necessaries" to be major league baseball managers? He was out on his keaster the next day. Lawrence Summers should be removed from his job immediately. Does Harvard have any integrity? Probably not. All alumni should withhold all contributions until this asshole has a new job. I'm sure the Bush Administration could find a place for this neanderthal.

I'm with Nancy Hopkins on this one:


Harvard Chief Defends His Talk on Women
By SAM DILLON

Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who once led an investigation of sex discrimination there that led to changes in hiring and promotion, walked out midway through Dr. Summers's remarks.

"When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill," Dr. Hopkins said. "Let's not forget that people used to say that women couldn't drive an automobile."

United We Stand

Joan Vennochi is an excellent columnist in the Boston Globe. Her comments on the Democrats fudging their message are right on:

Blurred messages from Democrats

HERE'S THE new Democratic Party slogan: We stand for nothing but victory.

Or, as Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told The New York Times: "Some people argue about old Democrats and new Democrats. I'm a Vince Lombardi Democrat. Winning is everything."

Inspirational, isn't it? That should lure those Red State voters to the Democrats' side.


**********

Pelosi is also encouraging former Representatative Tim Roemer of Indiana to seek to replace Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. Roemer, who is Catholic and antiabortion, has a 94 percent rating from the national Right to Life Committee. Pelosi has a 100 percent prochoice voting record, as rated by NARAL, a national organization devoted to a woman's right to choose abortion.

Donna Brazile, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute, describes Pelosi's support for Roemer as a way to illustrate the party's new "big tent" commitment. Said Brazile, via e-mail: "As a party, we have a large tent, but our basic values will remain. The Democratic Party's problem is not what we stand for, as much as how we communicate our values. Roemer's personal views will not alter the Democratic platform on choice."

Put aside the practical matter of how the party plans to communicate values through a prochoice platform and a prolife party chairman. This is a way to win?

Roemer as head of the DNC sounds like a desperate effort to figure out which way the wind is blowing, long after the 2004 wind blew the Democrats away. Where does it leave Democrats when President Bush and his allies work to secure the appointment of Supreme Court justices who are anxious to repeal Roe v. Wade?

It also sounds like a way to institutionalize John Kerry's losing campaign strategy: When it comes to controversial issues, duck. Stand for everything and nothing. Whenever possible, avoid direct answers on issues like war and abortion.

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Senator Edward M. Kennedy had it right yesterday. In remarks prepared for delivery to the National Press Club, Kennedy said, "We cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices. We cannot become Republican clones. If we do, we will lose again and deserve to lose."

Currently, Democrats like Pelosi and Emanuel sound confused, not reasonable. Indeed, adrift is a word that comes to mind.

Confusion and drift are ways to kill, not grow, a political party. But it appears to be the path of spooked Democrats after the Nov. 2 election loss.