Open Threads

This cracks me up:

Under current (Rhode Island) state law, prostitution is legal in Rhode Island as long as it takes place indoors. Only streetwalkers, their pimps and the customers flagging them down can be charged.

[….]

University of Rhode Island women’s studies Prof. Donna M. Hughes said that if prostitution remains legal indoors, “Rhode Island will soon be the sex industry capital of the United States.”

[….]

“It’s really a travesty it’s allowed indoors,” state police Lt. Col. Steven G. O’Donnell said. “Make no mistake about it, people take advantage of that, including the strip clubs.” And some spas and massage parlors are brothels, he said. The “loophole” in state law “puts a stamp of legitimacy” on groups of people we don’t want joining our economy, he said.

If you’re at all familiar with Rhode Island government, this doesn’t surprise you at all. One mayor of Providence was put back into office by the voters after pleading no contest to having tortured a man he thought was his wife’s lover (yes, he was a Republican).

Update: I don’t know whether this is a good thing or not, but I bet that it’s a result of strip club owners having paid somebody off. That’s all I mean about Rhode Island government.

It’s hard indoors for a pimpPost + Comments (56)

I was running some errands and stopped by the grocery for more carrot juice, and I picked up a juice named Acai, something I had never seen before. What a really odd flavor, sort of berry chocolate with a hint of something I can not place. Maybe lavender. And something cinnamony.

It was really interesting and had a silky texture.

New DrinkPost + Comments (71)

Ben Smith writes a blog that I really enjoy, but this, today, was a cry for help:

Alex Burns, who can name the members of the RNC in alphabetical order as a party trick…

Party. Animals.

Hey! You! Take That Lampshade Off Your Head!Post + Comments (32)

Good news only, please.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (71)

Sully says this blew his mind. It doesn’t surprise me at all:

In the study made public on Thursday, Dr. Friedman and his colleagues compiled a brief test, drawing 20 questions from the verbal sections of the Graduate Record Exam, and administering it four times to about 120 white and black test-takers during last year’s presidential campaign.

In total, 472 Americans — 84 blacks and 388 whites — took the exam. Both white and black test-takers ranged in age from 18 to 63, and their educational attainment ranged from high school dropout to Ph.D.

On the initial test last summer, whites on average correctly answered about 12 of 20 questions, compared with about 8.5 correct answers for blacks, Dr. Friedman said. But on the tests administered immediately after Mr. Obama’s nomination acceptance speech, and just after his election victory, black performance improved, rendering the white-black gap “statistically nonsignificant,” he said.

The reason this doesn’t surprise me is that it has been well-documented that African-Americans do worse on tests if they are asked to identify themselves by race before their test, so clearly people’s preconceived ideas “race” and “intelligence” influence their performance on these things . And, unlike some, I’ve never been one for half-baked white supremacist ideas about IQ.

To some extent all of this stuff indicates that the notion of using standardized tests to measure “intelligence” (to the extent that such a thing exists and is quanitfiable in the first place) is complete horseshit. And it also goes to something that everyone should just admit: we live in a society that makes blacks feel bad about themselves in a way helps cause them to do poorly on the bogus aptitude exams that we administer in order to convince ourselves that we’re a meritocracy.

All of that said, if there really is an “Obama effect” on African-American performance on standardized tests (the study hasn’t even been peer-reviewed yet, so it’s much too early to say), it’s great news for our society.

The “Obama effect”Post + Comments (64)

According to the Huffpo, the ACLU was hit hard by the Madoff scandal and has had to lay off 35 employees:

The American Civil Liberties Union, impacted by the unfolding economic crisis, laid off ten percent of its national workforce this week. Thirty-six staffers lost their jobs, including five in the Washington, D.C. legislative office, a source familiar with the firings told the Huffington Post.

A source in the ACLU’s Washington office confirmed that there had been layoffs, but couldn’t confirm the details. The ACLU has two separate Washington offices: a local branch that works on District of Columbia issues and an arm of the national ACLU, which works on legislative issues. The layoffs impacted the legislative office — though the District office is not necessarily immune to a budget shortfall.

The loss of the staffers means a likely reduction in influence for the civil liberties organization just as Democrats begin to push a legislative agenda as ambitious as any since the mid-sixties. Liberal advocacy organizations have been hit hard across the board by the economic downturn, as donations have fallen off and returns from investments have gone negative.

If you are able, now is as good a time as any to donate to them. I’m in for another fifty bucks.

And for the record, another thing I have never, ever, ever understood is the right-wing antipathy to the ACLU, which as far as I can tell, will stridently defend everyone’s rights, regardless of their political affiliation. Ask Larry Craig. Ask Jerry Falwell. Ask Rush Limbaugh. When we wanted to teach the Japanese about Democracy, who did Douglas McArthur send? You got it. Roger Baldwin, founder of the ACLU.

On inauguration day, Orin Kerr had a pretty snarky post that really made me laugh (particularly because it is something I said over and over again the past few years to my Republican friends– “Sure, you like this now. But do you want President Hillary Clinton to be able to do this?”) :

Just A Reminder, for the folks who thought that President Bush had the power to arrest anyone in the United States and detain them as “enemy combatants” without any hearing as part of his Commander-in-Chief power, that this power is now enjoyed by Barack Hussein Obama. That’s right: A liberal with the middle name “Hussein” who pals around with terrorists and is adored in Paris now has all that Commander-in-Chief power. And if he decides that you’re a threat to the nation, he can order you seized and locked up indefinitely. Congress can’t get in B. Hussein Obama’s way: As the FISA Court of Review emphasized back in 2002, Congress “could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.” And that meddling Supreme Court can’t stop “The One,” either. Or at least that’s your view of things.

Of course, late conversions into believers of checks and balances are more than welcome.

You know who would be fighting for those people? The ACLU. Without hesitation. There simply isn’t a more American institution out there, and I do not understand why it is so hated by the right. Go give.

Tough Times For The Group That Is Always Your Friend In Tough TimesPost + Comments (152)