Each year in the United States, perhaps a few dozen pregnant women learn they are carrying a fetus at risk for a rare disorder known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The condition causes an accumulation of male hormones and can, in females, lead to genitals so masculinized that it can be difficult at birth to determine the baby's gender.
A hormonal treatment to prevent ambiguous genitalia can now be offered to women who may be carrying such infants. It's not without health risks, but to its critics those are of small consequence compared with this notable side effect: The treatment might reduce the likelihood that a female with the condition will be homosexual. Further, it seems to increase the chances that she will have what are considered more feminine behavioral traits.
Last Friday, Rachel Maddow continued her coverage of Corrections Corporation of America, the Prison-for-Profit company that's working to "help" Arizona increase its state and federal incarcerations — because more incarcerations means more money, and that's just good business, right?
She interviewed Morgan Loew of KPHO-TV, who is doing terrific investigative work — the kind of work that's mostly done these days by tier-1 mags, like Rolling Stone and the New Yorker, and local writers like Jon Ralston at the Las Vegas Sun.
It turns out CCA's fingerprints are all over the "Send Browns to Prison" law. Not only did unelected Gov. Jan Brewer employ two CCA lobbyists on her staff — but the bill itself was introduced by Russell Pearce, senate Appropriations chairman and a man with huge ties to CCA (and far-right hate groups in general).
(There's a nice little light show of video artifacts about 30 seconds into this clip — you're welcome.)
Unelected Gov. Brewer is up to her eyeballs in this and she knows it. Go to this post, our earlier coverage of Rachel and CCA, and watch the clip at the 8:20 mark. She can't get away from the questioner fast enough.
I'll say what Rachel says — This is only marginally about jailing browns and blacks. (Remember those heavy-handed drug laws?)
Like all things Tea Party, this is really just that old post-bellum Southern Strategy, the original one: The rich guy shouts the N-word at the poor white sharecropper, then robs the both of them blind.
It's all about the Benjamins, folks. The beast wants only money, this beast especially, and it has no conscience at all. Those Tea Bags are just stage props.
If there's a Hell, this beast is going straight to the mouth of Satan.
Wonder where the Tea Bags are going.
GP
(If you really want to follow up on this subject, the comments to our earlier coverage contains several excellent items. For example, see here on placement of private prisons; here on judges who get kickbacks, up to $3 million, from private prison operators; here for the potential for forced-labor abuse; and here for lack of job training in Prison-for-Profit operations.)
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China is expected to surpass Japan this year as the world's second-largest economy, an unprecedented position for a still-developing country and one that has brought strains as well as triumphs.
Second-quarter GDP figures from Japan reported Monday morning show that its economic output, at $1.288 trillion, fell short of the $1.339 trillion China reported for the three months ended in June.
Once final numbers for all of 2010 are compiled, many economists expect China to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest national economy in U.S. dollar terms. The gap between China's $5 trillion economy and the U.S.'s nearly $15 trillion output remains very large, and even at current growth rates—which may not be sustained—it would take China a decade or more to match the No. 1 U.S.
A decade. As if that's a long time for something that significant.
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Just posted this at AMERICAblog Gay. It's big news on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell front. The government's effort to discharge Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach under DADT have been stymied -- for now. (And, by "the government" I do mean the Obama administration.)
Victor Fehrenbach's attorneys have reached an agreement with the Air Force and DOJ. There are three key points: 1) The Secretary (or his designee) cannot reach a discharge decision until after August 27; 2) If the decision is discharge, Fehrenbach will have 21 day notice. He can move forward with an injunction in that time frame. 3) Air Force and Department of Justice (DOJ) are required to notify the court of their actions.
This is good news for Fehrenbach. According to various news reports and legal filings, the decision on whether or not to discharge Fehrenbach was on the desk of the Secretary of the Air Force. That could have happened at any moment, meaning Victor could have just been escorted off the base.
Now, Fehrenbach's attorneys have some say in the matter in advance. They won't be blind-sided, which is usually the case. And, they will take the DOJ and Air Force to court over the permanent injunction. Yes, the Obama administration's DOJ will be fighting in court to kick Fehrenbach out of the military. Still. They're still going to court to defend DADT and to kick out servicemembers.
First, the press release from SLDN. The actual agreement is below:
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) and Morrison & Foerster LLP, representing their client, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, reached an agreement today with the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Air Force, on the pending request for a temporary restraining order. The agreement prevents the Air Force from discharging Lt. Col. Fehrenbach under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the discriminatory law barring gay and lesbian service members from serving openly and honestly, until the Court can schedule a hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction. Attorneys for Lt. Col. Fehrenbach filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho last Wednesday seeking a court order preventing the Air Force from discharging Lt. Col. Fehrenbach, arguing that the government cannot establish that his continued service on active duty hinders “morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”
Statement by Morrison & Foerster’s M. Andrew Woodmansee:
"This is exactly what we asked the Court to do in our motion on Wednesday, and we are pleased that the Air Force has agreed to preserve the status quo until we can have a full hearing. Of course, we continue to hope that the Air Force will do the right thing and let this war hero continue to serve this country."
Statement by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network Executive Director and Army Veteran Aubrey Sarvis:
“The agreement recognizes the immediate harm to Lt. Col. Fehrenbach and insures that he will eventually get to make his case at a full blown hearing without losing his job. This agreement is a victory for Lt. Col. Fehrenbach and our nation. The Air Force can still do the right thing and retain Lt. Col. Fehrenbach under the Pentagon’s own revised regulations on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ The Senate needs to act next month to get rid of this antiquated law that dishonors some of our finest and most talented service members.”
I started experimenting a few days ago with High Dynamic Range photography (HDR). Basically, you take a number of images at various different exposures, then stitch them all together into one photo. The idea is that you are able to capture the image as your eye sees it, rather than as the camera normally sees it (the camera will often let you capture the sky or the scenery, but not both, because the exposure setting is so different for each). What I found was that HDR tends to play interesting games with your photos, especially at night. A few of my favorites are below. You can check out the rest here.
A view across the Seine of the Conciergerie where Marie Antoinette was held before she was taken to the guillotine.
Fabien driving near the Hotel de Ville (city hall) after dark - the third in the series of photos moved, so the lights streaked, to very cool effect:
Chatelet metro station, on the way to Marcus' place:
Marcus' art studio:
An HDR look at the Arts et Metier metro stop:
More Arts et Metier:
HDR Marcus:
In this one, below, I started playing with the notion of not letting my software stitch the photos together, but rather using photos of the same subject where the subject is in motion. I thought this shot of a new Australian friend was interesting:
Here's another version of one of the photos above, where I also didn't let the software merge the photos together before applying the HDR conversion:
Marcus putting the cheese away:
Folks on the phone near my favorite pizza place in the Marais:
So far this summer Russia has lost one-fifth of its wheat harvest to raging wildfires, fueled by the worst drought the country has seen in 130 years. Crops in the neighboring countries of Ukraine and Kazakhstan are also suffering from the drought, as the wildfires continue to sweep west.
Wheat crops are failing in other parts of the world, too. The Canadian Wheat Board, a marketing agency for Canada's wheat and barley growers, is forecasting a 35 percent drop in the harvest this year, a falloff caused by unusually heavy rains during the planting season. In a study last month, the National Academy of Sciences predicted that failing crops produced by inclement weather may drive up to seven million Mexicans to the U.S. over the next 70 years.
In the eastern United States, Americans have been sweating out a summer-long heat wave following a winter of extraordinary snowfall that brought major cities to a halt several times. Scientists confirm it's been the hottest year globally on record.
In Greenland, a giant ice floe four times the size of Manhattan broke off one of the country's two main glaciers, the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly half a century. Scientists said it's difficult to state empirically whether global warming caused the halving of the 100 square-mile ice island, since the records have been kept only since 2003.
[Debra Burlingame] criticized those, mostly led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who are defending the project under freedom of religion, saying, "That's a Western concept."
"This is a different model," she said, arguing that in the United States people "for generations had been raised on this concept of separation of church and state, and that you don't trash someone because of their religion ... but that's not what we're dealing with here."
"I think the challenge for us is enlisting the Muslims who have already bought into the American program and not adjusting" to Muslim culture, she added. For Burlingame, the issue is not political — she said she objects to the content as well as the form of efforts by Bloomberg and others to push back because the goal is "to shut you up."
Yes, how dare we apply a "western concept" of the Bill of Rights to New York City.
But it was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who seemed to fit the issue most clearly into a recognizable political category of culture war.
"Is it just that we can offend Americans and Christians, but not foreigners and Muslims?" he asked.
First off, some Americans are Muslims. Secondly, who's offending Christians? This is part of the far right's "Christians aren't welcome in America" garbage. Yes, we all await the day that a Christian is finally elected to office in America. Huckabee simply assumes the GOP base is dumb, and that they'll fall for this nonsense. And they are, and they will.
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I do know of at least one House candidate I spoke with who said he wouldn't want the President campaigning for him, though he would welcome the First Lady - she's apparently popular even where he isn't. Then again, as the article argues, Democratic candidates may have a hard time positioning themselves away from the President in any case. A presidential visit will certainly raise cash, but will embracing the President really fire up the base? More from Cillizza at the Post:
Fight or flight?
That is the question Democratic incumbents and challengers in this fall's elections are asking themselves when it comes to dealing with President Obama. Is the best course to distance oneself from a president whose job-approval rating has sunk below 50 percent and whose appeal to independents has gone missing? Or to embrace him and his policies -- the majority of which remain quite popular with the Democratic base that will be essential to any victories that the party claims this fall?
Powerful forces are lining up on both sides of that strategic divide
This is just wrong. It's another legacy of the Bush/Cheney era. All those politicians who claim to support the troops aren't supporting the troops if they let this happen:
At the height of the Iraq war, the Army routinely fired hundreds of soldiers for having a personality disorder when they were more likely to be suffering from the traumatic stresses of war, discharge data suggests.
Under pressure from Congress and the public, the Army later acknowledged the problem and drastically cut the number of soldiers given the designation. But advocates for veterans say an unknown number of troops still unfairly bear the stigma of a personality disorder, making them ineligible for military health care and other benefits.
"We really have an obligation to go back and make sure troops weren't misdiagnosed," said Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, a clinical psychologist whose nonprofit "Give an Hour" connects troops with volunteer mental health professionals.
So, we sent these men and women to war, they suffered because of it. And, instead of helping them, the Army kicked them out with no benefits.
Republican strategist Ed Rollins today called Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele a washout as party leader.
“Michael Steele has failed miserably,” Rollins said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” noting the RNC’s dismal fundraising numbers and inability to articulate a message for the upcoming midterm election.
The President has a busy week. He's flying out to Wisconsin this morning for events in Menomonee Falls at ZBB Energy Corporation and Milwaukee with the city's Tom Barrett who is the Democratic candidate for Governor. Then, he's heading to Los Angeles for a DCCC fundraiser. He'll spend the night in L.A.
The flooding in Pakistan is just unbelievable. One-fifth of the country was under water. Millions and millions are affected. The UN and the US are starting to provide aid. This is just a crisis of epic proportions.
Meanwhile, in this country, Republicans have decided to make the NYC mosque a campaign issue. So, they're agenda seems to be: Bash gays, Latinos and Muslims. How inspiring. The worst part is that it resonates with some. Just saw Rep. Peter King on the TODAY Show stirring the pot. At one point, Matt Lauer said, "so, that's a good point." Give me a break. Nothing King said was a good point. His sole purpose was to inject more controversy into this issue. And, of course, Obama could have handled it better. But, the President did what we've come to expect.
We expect a ruling from the Ninth Circuit on the request for a stay from the anti-marriage forces in California. Judge Walker's stay expires at 5:00 PM PDT on Wednesday. Absent intervention from the Ninth Circuit, marriages begin again on Wednesday. Over the weekend, we posted an excellent analysis from USC Law Professor David Cruz on whether those on the anti-marriage side even have the standing to appeal.
