Shorter Chunky Reese Witherspoon David Brooks: If Northern liberals weren’t such a bunch of baby killers, they’d have to resort to the shotgun marriages that drag down their noble, white trash brethren in the South.
Read a fucking book.
mistermix has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2010.
Let The Speculation Begin
Elena Kagan’s a bit of a blank slate. Larry Lessig thinks she’ll be a powerful negotiator and advocate who can bring different groups together, plus they shared an opera subscription. Glenn Greenwald thinks we could do a hell of a lot better and that progressives need to make this our Harriet Miers moment. (Kagan, of course, is slightly more qualified than Miers, who was just on the faculty at Harvard, not the Dean.)
All of this is dwarfed by burning question that will dominate all known forms of media for the next few weeks: is Kagan teh ghey?
Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Here’s how Reason responds to a new poll showing that Democrats have a more favorable opinion of Libertarians than Republicans:
I suspect the slightly better Democratic numbers may reflect a knowledge gap between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans actually understand what libertarians are for, and they know they hate it. Registered Democrats on the other hand can afford to pick up a few strands of anti-drug-war, pro-gay marriage tinsel without worrying about the radical approach to individualism to which they’re attached. (Which is not to say that actual Democratic politicians are in any way libertarian on drugs, gay marriage, or anything else.) It’s sort of like the way I think the world of people from Bhutan because I’ve never actually met any of them.
You know who I’ve never met? A writer for Reason who was able to set aside hippie punching in order to suggest a constructive engagement strategy with the majority party. Of course, that might actually get an item on the Libertarian agenda enacted into law, and that would mean that the wankers at Reason would have one less thing to whine about.
Watch Out Constipation, Here Comes Obstruction
Normally, I wouldn’t care that some teabagger is going to ride to victory in Utah on the strength of the St George sister-wife demographic. Unfortunately, the new Club for Growth candidate will replace Bob Bennett in the Senate, and probably join Rand Paul there. Expect a blizzard of holds, hours of filibuster on the floor, and support from Republicans like Hatch and McConnell, who are now more than a little afraid of being reduced to tears at post-convention press conferences.
Watch Out Constipation, Here Comes ObstructionPost + Comments (43)
Open Thread: Celebrating Birth Control
There’s nothing like listening to a couple of lesbians singing about birth control and beer to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the pill.
Homophobe Hypocrite and Junk Scientist
George Rekers, the Baptist minister who rails against homosexuality yet traveled with a rentboy who gave him the “long stroke”, carries the title of “Distinguished Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science” at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He was chair of the Department of Psychology for 19 years, and taught there for 20.
According to his CV [pdf], Rekers has published extensively in secular journals on the topic of childhood sexuality. His tracts have also been published by Christian publishers. Here’s what a Florida judge said about his scholarship:
Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and un-biased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.
Dan Savage has published the whole opinion, where the circuit court judge in a custody case methodically destroys Rekers’ supposedly “empirical” case against homosexual adoption.
Looking at Rekers’ CV, it’s clear that only Christian universities (Regent and St Thomas) would publish him during the last decade. So why did USC keep him on as a department chair where he could attempt to pack the department with other cranks? His co-author on his Regent University publication was “Director of Child and Adolescent Outpatient Services and Assistant Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science” when “Studies of Homosexual Parenting: A Critical Review” was written. It looks like he didn’t get tenure and moved on, but I wonder how many other slightly less cranky Rekers’ associates are still there.
Is South Carolina so fucked up that their public universities are turning into refuges for minister-professors who churn out junk science? And what about the American Psychological Association? I guess I’m not surprised that they don’t mind having this crank in their organization, since they can’t even pass a straightforward resolution against their members participating in torture sessions.
I’m On Pins and Needles
Overall, the new job news is good. More people are getting jobs, and some who had given up are back looking.
But since it’s been well established that a few facts about the economy can’t overrule some fat-fingered trader, we’ll just have to wait breathlessly for the final verdict from the alpha seekers.