Nicholas Kristoff's shocking discovery

Toxins may cause autism. No telling how many prostitutes he had to interview to publish this finding.

Early Oscar predictions

First, the shoo-ins: Actor to Jeff Bridges, Supporting to Christoph Waltz and Mo'Nique.  In the last case, there doesn't seem to be an opposing candidate to coalesce around.

Actress: the money is on Sandra Bullock, but her film was too marginal. There may be a lot of affection for her, but there's even more for Meryl Streep, whose performance made the mediocre Julie and Julia memorable. I suspect Academy voters will finally award her a third statuette. 

Director: Kathryn Bigelow. She's a trailblazer, and even co-producer of a film that was not easy to make. Besides, no one likes ex-hubby James Cameron, and who doesn't admire the amount of craft that went into The Hurt Locker? 

Picture: The Hurt Locker is the front runner, having won almost every key award from significant subsets of the Academy: directors, producers, editors, etc. It also won many of the most prestigious critics' awards. Courageous as the act of filming it may have been, the movie doesn't have a whole lot to say, however precise and well made it might have been.  To use a Winter Olympics analogy, it's the Nancy Kerrigan to Avatar's Oksana Baiul: all craft and perfection, but a bit soulless and horsey relative to the competition.  So while the voting of individual academies ought to give Hurt Locker the edge, I'm not quite ready to say that Hurt Locker has it locked up.

There's more, however, to the story. This year there are ten nominees, not five, and the decision will be made by preferential voting, an enlightened electoral system which is, therefore, not generally known in the United States outside of Cambridge, Massachusetts. A quick explanation via Vanity Fair:

Round one is simple enough. You create 10 piles, one for each nominated film, and in each pile you put all the ballots that ranked that film No. 1. The piles for The Hurt Locker and Avatar are likely to be large, while the pile for The Blind Side … not so much. Barring ties, one of the 10 piles is the largest (let’s say Avatar got the most No. 1 votes) and one is the smallest (let’s say A Serious Man got the least).

In the second round, the nominee with the smallest pile is eliminated and all the ballots in its pile are redistributed to the nine remaining piles. To follow our experiment, if A Serious Man had the smallest pile, then all the ballots in its pile are re-examined, and the film ranked second on a given A Serious Man ballot gets that ballot placed in its pile. Once all the ballots that ranked A Serious Man have been redistributed, the process is repeated, next eliminating the smallest of the nine remaining piles.

I long assumed that this system would naturally Bigelow's film, and I still do. It's hard for me to imagine that a member giving A Serious Man a first place vote would proceed to rank Avatar over The Hurt Locker.  My first place ballot for Up followed by Avatar and only then (maybe) The Hurt Locker, would surely be anomalous.

So my suspicion is that Avatar will unexpectedly start out in pole position on the first ballot, then remain stagnant while The Hurt Locker, recent charges of Tonya Harding-like unsportsmanlike conduct notwithstanding, racks up the second (and fourth and eighth and tenth) place votes to win the race.

Teabaggers may yet save the Republic

Charlie Crist is about to pull out of the GOP primary in Florida to run as an independent for the U.S.Senate. Democrat Kendrick Meek didn't have a chance in hell of being elected (though, yes, he might have a fighting chance now), this is a net win for Democrats.

The other shoe drops

Will Paterson last past March?

Guess who's leading the effort against Don't Ask Don't Tell

Joe Lieberman.

"Protestant intellectuals"

If you go to Qum University, you will find some of the world's greatest experts in Shi'a theology and Iranian religious law. But you won't find any scholars pushing the frontiers of human knowledge. Baylor can't be the "Notre Dame of the South" when it's modeled on Qum, its new president, Ken Starr, closer to Torquemada than Theodore Hesburgh.

You can't make this up

A legislator who makes a statement like this can only keep getting re-elected when 35% of the electorate has completely lost touch with reality (and 15% aren't paying attention).

State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas says disabled children are God's punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.

He made that statement Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood.

"The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children," said Marshall, a Republican.

"In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest."

Soros on the Euro

"It's the politics, stupid."

A fully fledged currency requires both a central bank and a Treasury. The Treasury need not be used to tax citizens on an everyday basis but it needs to be available in times of crisis. When the financial system is in danger of collapsing, the central bank can provide liquidity, but only a Treasury can deal with problems of solvency. This is a well-known fact that should have been clear to everyone involved in the creation of the euro. Mr Issing admits that he was among those who believed that "starting monetary union without having established a political union was putting the cart before the horse". [...]

So makeshift assistance should be enough for Greece, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. Together they constitute too large a portion of euroland to be helped in this way. The survival of Greece would still leave the future of the euro in question. Even if it handles the current crisis, what about the next one? It is clear what is needed: more intrusive monitoring and institutional arrangements for conditional assistance. A well-organised eurobond market would be desirable. The question is whether the political will for these steps can be generated.

Immigration

Expect the President to push for an immigration reform bill next year, even if Republicans control Congress.

Make that, especially if Republicans control Congress.

"The numbers don't lie," said Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant. "If Republicans don't do better among Hispanics, we're not going to be talking about how to get Florida back in the Republican column, we're going to be talking about how not to lose Texas." [...]

"That's the word that got back to folks on the street: 'They don't want us,' " said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele, who is looking for ways to tamp down fiery anti-immigration language.[...]

Beyond the immigration issue, Hispanics were alienated by Republicans pushing for English-only policies and stringent law enforcement while opposing paths to legal residency and citizenship. Bonilla said it was a moment when "all of this came crashing backward."

"Hispanics would get me on the phone and say, 'What's going on? Don't you like us anymore?' " he recalled.

Steele said the vitriol on immigration "harkens back, quite frankly, to the Southern strategy that the Republicans embraced in the 1960s, causing black Republicans to abandon the party." He wants to avoid a repeat with Hispanics. "A lot of stuff got miswired and screwed up in that debate. A lot of hotheads jumped in," he said of the immigration fight. "We have an obligation and an opportunity to reengage in that discussion and do a lot better than we did the last time."

Adrian Garcia, the first Hispanic sheriff of Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, is a Democrat who thinks Republicans did lasting damage to their brand, particularly among young Hispanic voters who are experiencing politics -- and choosing sides -- for the first time. "Immigration has galvanized the emerging generation, and they see it very clearly," said Garcia, whose parents and siblings were born in Mexico. "This is personal. It is personal to the fastest-growing community and to the next generation of community leaders."

The clock, Gillespie said, is ticking. He said Bush received 54 percent of the non-Hispanic white vote in 2000 and finished in a dead heat with Al Gore. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got 55 percent of that vote in 2008 and lost the election by seven percentage points. "If the current voting percentages among white, black, Asian and Hispanic stay the same," Gillespie said, "the Republican nominee will lose by 14 points in 2020. We have to be more competitive."

Finally proof of what we always knew

Thanks to Alex Sanders, the divine secret can be shared with everyone.

It's a tragedy for the nation that this guy isn't in the Senate, but maybe this discovery makes it all worthwhile. Thank the Trappists and the good Judge Sanders.

"It's morning in Saudi Arabia"

It sure is, Thomas Friedman, although the second Iraq War, which you supported, marked the sunrise. His words on the climate legislation wending its way to Congress are nonetheless on the mark.

Those who favor taking action are saying: “Because the warming that humans are doing is irreversible and potentially catastrophic, let’s buy some insurance — by investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency and mass transit — because this insurance will also actually make us richer and more secure.” We will import less oil, invent and export more clean-tech products, send fewer dollars overseas to buy oil and, most importantly, diminish the dollars that are sustaining the worst petro-dictators in the world who indirectly fund terrorists and the schools that nurture them.

Even if climate change proves less catastrophic than some fear, in a world that is forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion people between now and 2050, more and more of whom will live like Americans, demand for renewable energy and clean water is going to soar. It is obviously going to be the next great global industry.

China, of course, understands that, which is why it is investing heavily in clean-tech, efficiency and high-speed rail. It sees the future trends and is betting on them. Indeed, I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now. And Iran, Russia, Venezuela and the whole OPEC gang are high-fiving each other. Nothing better serves their interests than to see Americans becoming confused about climate change, and, therefore, less inclined to move toward clean-tech and, therefore, more certain to remain addicted to oil. Yes, sir, it is morning in Saudi Arabia.

While the right is certainly to blame for America's inaction, there's plenty of blame to go around. I would save a big chunk for our once politically gifted young President and his team. First of all, no one knows what "cap and trade" is. It's about as horrific a marketing term as "public option." Next, it was an act of enormous stupidity to sell this as a as an environmental package when 100,000 Americans are in Iraq.

Americans aren't dumb: they may or may not think we went to Iraq for its oil, but they all know that if Iraq didn't have oil, our soldiers wouldn't be there. Even John McCain had to bow to this reality and at least pretend he was for energy independence during the 2008 campaign.

Energy reform is a debate about national security quite as much as it is about the environment. The United States cannot continue to be held hostage to the nuttiest region in the world for its energy needs. Nor should any more of its soldiers die to preserve the medieval Islamist fiefdoms that control the oil.

The Republican Party's treasonous approach towards this and many other military issues is amply documented. But by throwing out the most potent political argument for a reform of energy policy, the Obama Administration has once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Generations of Americans to come will pay the price under the now greatly hastened arrival of Chinese dominance. And countless lives will be snuffed out by the millions of dollars our thirst for oil ultimately funnels to Islamist governments and terrorists.

Stephen Baldwin on Obama

Republicans are idiots:

It is one of the biggest annual gatherings of conservatives in Washington. The yearly CPAC convention hosts everyone from Sen. Scott Brown to Mitt Romney. Even former Vice-President Dick Cheney made a surprise appearance today. [...]

And one of the people leading the youth charge is Stephen Baldwin. One of the famous Baldwin brothers, Baldwin hosts a conservative radio show and has enlisted himself in the youth recruitment effort. Baldwin told our Jonathan Karl that he blames Obama for the state of the country, but also prays for him.

“I am not happy about the way things are. I pray for President Obama every single day. But tell you what. Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it,” said Baldwin.

When we asked Baldwin to clarify that he did in fact mean Obama when he said “homey” Baldwin stuck by his words. “That is correct,” he said.

"We Are the World 25"

The tawdry remake doesn't just compare poorly to the original but to the song it's actually modeled on. Just ask Don Cheadle.

Republican Osama?

He was upset about taxes, so he rammed his plane into a building. He'll become a GOP hero in a few days.

Witness testimony for ENDA

At the committee hearing on September 23, 2009. The speaker: William N. Eskridge John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale Law School.

Even when they are not so explicitly set forth as they were recently in the Colorado campaign, these anti-gay tropes—immorality, predation, and disruption—still motivate state officials to discriminate against sexual and gender minorities. I shall close my testimony with my own case.

I was denied tenure at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985 based in part on my sexual orientation. Although I was one of the law school’s top teachers, had engaged in first-rate institutional service (including very successful two years as chair of the clerkship committee), and had written several articles, congressional testimony, and two co-authored books, my petition for tenure was rejected, based upon the recommendation of the appointments committee. There is good reason to believe that the committee’s recommendation was tainted.

For one thing, the committee chair never provided me a copy of the procedures that apply to tenure cases, including the requirement that I be appraised of a likely negative recommendation so that I could appear before the committee to answer questions. Instead, the chair appeared in my office the morning after the committee’s primary meeting and subjected me to a tantrum. With clenched fists and a beet-red face, the chair of the committee threw a tantrum that included a string of accusations, such as “stabbing me in the back” and behaving in the treacherous manner that he and his colleagues ought to have expected of a “faggot.” Apparently, the chair thought I had complained to the dean that he had been derelict in following the established law school procedures and that I was sneaking behind his back to discredit him. In fact, I remained utterly clueless as to what those procedures were and was reduced to tears as the chair of the committee spat on me and called me dirty names. During this tirade, the chair of the committee never shared with me his committee’s reasons, their recommendation, or the news that I had a right to appear before the committee. Nor did he share this information with me thereafter.[...]

Affording a federal cause of action, ENDA would offer LGBT public employees more options for discovering the underlying reasons for job discrimination against them. ENDA would also provide incentives for the states to educate supervisors about the facts regarding sexual and gender minorities, as well as the costs of homophobia.

This is what you get

When you elect Republicans:

Gay and lesbian state workers in Virginia are no longer specifically protected against discrimination, thanks to a little-noticed change made by new Gov. Bob McDonnell.

McDonnell (R) on Feb. 5 signed an executive order that prohibits discrimination "on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities," as well as veterans.

It rescinds the order that Gov. Tim Kaine signed Jan. 14, 2006 as one of his first actions. After promising a "fair and inclusive" administration in his inaugural address, Kaine (D) added veterans to the non-discrimination policy - and sexual orientation.

The most important gay rights battle right now, as we have written repeatedly, is neither the battle over marriage or don't ask don't tell. It's passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The useless Human Rights Campaign should have pushed hard for that bill, rather than ending discrimination in the military, which would have been covered by ENDA in the first place. It might have been a bigger battle, but Republicans would have been hard pressed to oppose it before the glare of the national media. Even a filibuster would have been a pyrrhic victory, since it would kill the GOP's hopes of winning independent voters under 35. Not just in 2010 or 2012, but probably forever.

Ending DADT is an incremental reform that affects a handful of people, however deserving they may be. ENDA could pass the House easily and would have decent prospects in the Senate(it got 49 votes in the upper chamber 15 years ago, when national attitudes towards gay rights were far more bigoted). Once again, as we have seen too often over the last year, an achievable victory has been thrown away. And in the meantime, in most states it continues to be perfectly legal to fire American citizens because they're gay.

Four in ten Republicans favor DADT repeal

Go figure. And it gets better:

By a 54 to 35 percent margin, voters support repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Unlike so many other issues in the country right now—and unlike 1993—this issue simply does not polarize voters. Even among Republicans, repeal finds support with four in ten voters.

In the context of two hot wars, voters also want to change right now. By a 60 to 31 percent margin among likely voters, there is a belief that “we are in the middle of two wars and need every talented man and woman we can get, regardless of sexual orientation,” compared to “we are in the middle of two wars and this is no time to make such a dramatic change as allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.”

Voters could not hold the U.S. military in higher esteem. The military generates 90 percent favorably rating among all voters in this survey. However, voters also do not defer this decision to the military. A 66 percent majority of all voters in this survey say military opposition would make no difference in their opinion of this issue.

Bad as George W. Bush was

Remember, Jeb Bush is a lot worse. And as a red meat conservative and former governor of Florida, could easily be the next Republican nominee.

The brothers differed in opinion on subjects such as Sarah Palin. Although, both tried to stay neutral, George W. said vice presidents don't win elections.

The former president also said attacks on America is what keeps him awake at night after 9/11.

Most notably the Bush brothers disagreed on the Senate race between Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist. Jeb Bush says he is officially neutral, but is disappointed in Crist's embrace of the stimulus bill. George W. Bush joked "who the hell is Marco Rubio", something that even caught the attention of this high schooler.

Roger Ebert on District 9

Funny:

This science-fiction fable, directed by newcomer Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter (“The Lord of the Rings”) Jackson, takes the form of a mockumentary about van der Merwe’s relocation campaign, his infection by an alien virus, his own refuge in District 9 and his partnership with the only alien who behaves intelligently and reveals, dare we say, human emotions. This alien, named Christopher Johnson — yes, Christopher Johnson — has a secret workspace where he prepares to return to the mothership and help his people.

Much of the plot involves the obsession of the private security firm in learning the secret of the alien weapons, which humans cannot operate. Curiously, none of these weapons seem superior to those of the humans and aren’t used to much effect by the aliens in their own defense. Never mind. After van der Merwe grows a lobster claw in place of a hand, he can operate the weapons, and thus becomes the quarry of both the security company and the Nigerian gangsters, who exploit the aliens by selling them cat food. All of this is presented very seriously.

Then serious:

The film’s South African setting brings up inescapable parallels with its now-defunct apartheid system of racial segregation. Many of them are obvious, such as the action to move a race out of the city and to a remote location. Others will be more pointed in South Africa. The title “District 9” evokes Cape Town’s historic District 6, where Cape Coloureds (as they were called then) owned homes and businesses for many years before being bulldozed out and relocated. The hero’s name, van der Merwe, is not only a common name for Afrikaners, the white South Africans of Dutch descent, but also the name of the protagonist of van der Merwe jokes, of which the point is that the hero is stupid. Nor would it escape a South African ear that the alien language incorporates clicking sounds, just as Bantu, the language of a large group of African apartheid targets.

Then funny:

He movie mentions Nigerian prostitutes servicing the aliens, but wisely refrains from entertaining us with this spectacle.

O Canada

A very bad day for the Spam Man.

Three men stood in the sea of red at Cypress Mountain on Sunday, their chests bare except for paint. Euphoria surrounded them, men and women, young and old, who waved Canadian flags and clanged cowbells and danced to the Black Eyed Peas.

Alexandre Bilodeau of Canada won the gold in the Men’s Moguls on Sunday.
Minutes earlier, Canada had secured its first gold medal of these Winter Olympics, a men’s moguls triumph from Alexandre Bilodeau in the last event on the second day of competition. It was also the first gold medal won by a Canadian in an Olympics in Canada. [...]

Directly to his right sat Dale Begg-Smith, the silver medalist. This, too, was important to Canadians, because Begg-Smith grew up near the base of this mountain and left Canada, in a departure that grew more contentious and controversial over time, to compete for Australia as a teenager.

The gold medal Begg-Smith won at the Turin Games in 2006 kept a Canadian off the podium. [...]

At the news conference, Begg-Smith fidgeted at the podium, his green hat with an Australia logo pulled low, as if to cover his eyes. He said that he had skied the way he wanted and that he felt happy — no regrets.

His face betrayed the stoic theme he tried to portray, showing the effects of a long, taxing and sometimes hostile Olympic experience. This was not so much a homecoming as a home inquisition.

All week, Begg-Smith ducked Canadian reporters who had questions about the Internet business that made him rich, about his pop-up ads and manufactured spyware, about his unflattering nickname, Spam Man. Begg-Smith repeatedly said he was not here to talk about his business, at least when he did talk, and even after his first run Sunday, he blew past reporters and left his coach to answer questions for him.

Bilodeau, on the other hand, according to CTV, is the real deal, an Olympic hero.

Not a lot of us had Alexandre Bilodeau in the first-Canadian-gold-medal-on-home-soil pool. The betting was with Jenn Heil or Charles Hamelin or one of the downhill skiers. Still, a careful observer might have spotted the opportunity, if Day One of the Games didn't go quite as scripted, and the truth is you won't find a better story.

Not just that he won, but that seized the moment so brilliantly in the men's moguls. Not just that he won, but that he beat Dale Begg-Smith, the Canadian turned Australian who wore the black hat in this one. Not just that he won, but that he has found inspiration in his older brother Frederic, who suffers from cerebral palsy - and that's not just one of those made up for TV things, that's for real.

The opening ceremonies of the games were a showcase for Canada's singular contribution to world culture: the exalted place it accords to human diversity. The games were opened by Canada's Governor General, a Haitian-Canadian woman. The torch was brought into the Olympic stadium not by a politician, movie star or the inevitable Wayne Gretzky, but by Canadian paralympian legend Rick Hansen. The performance pieces honored the First Nations and Canada's linguistic and ethnic diversity. And their showstopping final number was "Hallelujah," beautifully phrased by k.d. lang, a powerful testament to Canada's courageous trailblazing on gay rights.

For most host countries, the Olympics are a call to nationalism, of a jingoistic or even militaristic sort. Canada, however, is a case of middle power greatness.

Middle Power does not just mean a state’s size or military or economic power. Rather, 'middle power diplomacy' is defined by the issue area where a state invests its resources and knowledge. Middle Power States avoid a direct confrontation with great powers, but they see themselves as ‘moral actors’ and seek their own role in particular issue areas, such as human rights, environment, and arms regulations. Middle powers are the driving force in the process of transnational institutional-building.

There aren't too many good citizens in the world community, but Canada is special. Despite, or more likely because of, its proximity to us, it has evolved a set of values that really are reflected in its people. That's why Canadians embody the Olympic spirit, continually demonstrating an unironic enthusiasm that Americans simply aren't capable of.

Canadians have achieved that perfect balance: a justified pride in their nation that is free from narrowness and the assumption of superiority that mars most patriotism. Maybe the games should be held there every year.

"The Jews made me use this woman for sex!"

Shocking news of Israeli treachery from the Palestinian authority:

Facing a corruption scandal that has rocked the highest echelons of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the Palestinian president suspended his chief of staff on Sunday while a committee investigates accusations that the aide traded influence for sex.

A videotape broadcast by an Israeli television station last week shows the chief of staff, Rafiq Husseini, waiting naked in bed for a Palestinian woman who was said to have come to the president’s office seeking government help.

The accusations against Mr. Husseini, brought to light by a former senior Palestinian intelligence officer, have stoked a crisis of confidence in Palestinian leadership and led to accusations that the affair was part of an Israeli plot to discredit the Western-backed Palestinian government. The scandal has added another element of discord to the region at a time when the Obama administration was trying to coax the Palestinians back to peace talks.

Hamas, is shocked, shocked, I tell you:

The scandal has jolted the Palestinian Authority, already weakened by the internal schism that left Gaza under the control of the Islamist group, Hamas.

In conservative Arab Muslim society, the sexual aspect of the affair “is something shocking, an earthquake,” says Mahdi Abdul Hadi, an independent Palestinian analyst and director of PASSIA, a research institute in East Jerusalem.

Hamas' preference, of course, is that women not be seen at all. Because we all know that hidden behaviors always result in less exploitation.

Free trade has always been with us

How bad can it be?

Harold Ford never paid taxes in New York

And the taxes, given his multimillion dollar banking job, would have been considerable.

Ford claims to have moved to New York three years ago, and says paying "New York taxes" makes him a New Yorker. But his spokeswoman confirms to Gawker that he's never filed a New York tax return — meaning that he's never paid New York's income tax, despite keeping an office and a residence in New York City as a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch since 2007: "He pays New York taxes and will file a New York tax return in April for the first time," Ford's spokeswoman Tammy Sun told Gawker. "He will file all necessary personal disclosure and tax forms that candidates are required to file if he chooses to run." (According to Sun, Ford admitted to the tax dodge yesterday at a press availability in Albany, but we can't find any news accounts mentioning the remarks.)

Ford presumably decided that his real home was Tennessee, which conveniently has no income tax. Which means that, despite the fact that New York law requires part-time and nonresidents to pay income tax on money they earn in the state, Ford has shielded his entire Merrill Lynch salary from New York's tax collectors for the past three years. In fact, it seems like Tennessee's lack of an income tax may be the best explanation for Ford's rather complicated two-state life since 2007 — he clearly wanted to live in New York, and married a woman in 2008 who did live in New York. But he made sure to keep a foot in a state whose tax code is friendly to rich guys like himself.

When Merrill Lynch announced Ford's hiring in 2007, it said he would be keeping offices in Nashville and New York City. Ford has said that he's basically lived in New York since then, though he never technically lived here until last year since he didn't "spend the requisite number of days" staying at his wife Emily Ford's breathtakingly yellow apartment in the Flatiron district. ("Moved is such a legal term," he told the New York Times). Ford was clearly thinking of New York's 184-day rule, which requires that part-time residents who spend 184 or more days living in the state pay New York taxes on all their income.

So why did Evander Holyfield beat his wife?

And if you're that religious, could there be a better reason?

From the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up department, Candi Holyfield, wife of Evander Holyfield, has been granted a temporary restraining order against the boxer for hitting her. Why? Because she would not prove to her husband that she was tithing. According to court documents, Mrs. Holyfield asserted that after complaining about being cold in their mansion (had heating bill been paid?), Holyfield told her that she "needed to put God first in her life" and asked to see her checkbook to see if she had been tithing. When she refused, Holyfield hit her several times.

Still more from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up department: the name of his pastor.

This story is very disturbing on several levels. It is indicative of what I term the "brittle theology" of the prosperity gospel, which requires adherents to tithe, give extra monetary offerings, and believe God no matter what the person's financial situation really is. Holyfield has been in the press for the last several years in part because of his financial problems, namely potential foreclosure, bankruptcy, and his insistence on tithing. His pastor, Creflo Dollar, a prominent prosperity gospel purveyor, was subpoenaed in Holyfield's divorce from his second wife because of her allegations that Holyfield had donated seven million to Dollar’s ministry. Dollar refused, but escaped contempt of court charges when the divorce case was settled.

Dollar's unyielding stance on tithing despite economic circumstances undoubtedly has had an effect upon Holyfield. In January, Holyfield filed to pay less child support to some of his eleven children, noting financial difficulties. I wonder if World Changers International, Dollar’s church, has received its January and February tithe check from Holyfield.

Patrick Kennedy will not run for re-election

Sad news for the nation.

On the same day, however, Rhode Island made history in a different way:

Gordon D. Fox was elected as the state's first black and openly gay House Speaker, moments after West Warwick Democrat Willliam J. Murphy relinquished the helm on Thursday.

Fox was elected House Speaker with 51 votes; another 14 went to Rep. Gregory Schadone, D-North Providence, and five to House Minority Leader Robert Watson, R-East Greenwich. [...]

He has been guarded about where he stands on some of the more volatile issues the 2010 legislature is likely to face, including casino gambling and gay marriage.

An openly gay man, Fox says he is "in a long-term relationship, but not officially married ... When I get married, I would like to do it in my home state."

Fox said he was reluctant to make a hard-and-fast commitment to bring the issue to the House floor for a vote after Murphy leaves, without "a lot of internal discussions." But, "we should have equal marriage rights in Rhode Island ... That would definitely be something on a personal level I would like to see." [...]

Fox is the son of an Irish father and a Cape Verdean mother, who grew up in the Mount Hope area that forms part of his East Side district .District landmarks include the Charlesgate nursing complex and Brown Stadium.

Biracial, he once told a reporter that he calls himself black because he hopes his achievements will serve as a role model for black youngsters, to send them a message, "If I can do it, you can do it also."

"As Rev. Jesse Jackson once said, ‘God isn’t through with me yet.'"

Fortunately, the New York Senate is. Homophobe Hiram Monserrate became the first state senator to be expelled by the body in nearly a century. In case you missed the story, here's why:

Hospital workers testified Thursday that Hiram Monserrate's gal pal blamed the lawmaker for slashing her and called him "crazy" while the pol claimed it was an after-sex accident.

As Karla Giraldo was being treated, the state senator defended himself to Dr. Donald Frogel in the waiting room of Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

"He said that the patient came over to his apartment that night," Frogel said in a police statement read at Monserrate's assault trial.

"They had sexual intercourse and then got into an argument. She was very upset. As he was handing her the glass, he tripped and consequently the glass shattered. There was glass everywhere."

Monserrate's story - that the Dec. 19, 2008, incident was an accident, not a jealousy-fueled attack of rage - was contradicted by another doctor and a nurse.

The emergency room workers recounted what Giraldo - who now backs Monserrate's story - told them as she hid cuts around her left eye behind a blood-smeared towel.

"They were fighting, and he took a piece of glass and cut her face," Dr. Dawne Kort said. "She repeated many times that it wasn't an accident."

Not surprisingly, the only senator who publicly defended Monserrate was its only evangelical pastor, Rubén Díaz. If there's one thing that Christianists, Islamists and secular politicians like Hiram Díaz have in common, it's their extraordinary tolerance for the oppression of women, otherwise known as "headship."

Hiram avoided the felony charge he surely deserved. And he can sleep even better knowing that gay unions won't threaten the integrity of his future marriage to whichever women whose face he's planning to cut up next.

Conan is dead to NBC

Classy.

Hey, remember that time you cut your ex's face out of all the wedding photos? Now imagine you're NBC.

One would hardly expect the network, which parted ways with Conan O'Brien in January, to keep a lot of sentimental mementos hanging around. But considering the long history O'Brien had there, you might expect something to remain, if only for the fans. Think again. NBC has quietly scrubbed the redheaded host from its history. Not content to have his image removed from the mural at 30 Rock (replaced by one of -- ouch! -- Jay Leno) and his set dismantled, the network appears to have obliterated his whole oeuvre from Hulu and the NBC online archives. There aren't even any photos of the guy to be found on NBC's Web page.

The good news: it's not about adultery

The bad news: today's story is about corruption. And the other story, whatever it is, isn't scheduled to break till Thursday.

NEW YORK (WPIX) - PIX News has learned that federal prosecutors are investigating Governor David Paterson's awarding of a lucrative contract to a politically connected group to run a gaming center at Aqueduct Raceway.

The embattled Governor who appears to have dodged the bullet of rumors and innuendo that had been circulating over a purported "bombshell" story being prepared by the New York Times, is now part of a probe by the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn. [...]

Paterson has been under fire by members of his own staff and legislative leaders for awarding the contract to Aqueduct Entertainment Group, a group that includes former Congressman Rev Floyd Flake, whose political support the Governor had been aggressively seeking.

Flake had said publicly that he was considering endorsing Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for governor, if he decides to run. The loss leading of a black Democratic leader's support would be a serious setback for Paterson. After the contract was awarded to Flake's group, the Governor met with the Queens leader, but Paterson's office denies any endorsement was discussed.

PPP on 2012 opportunities

Because you never know. Obama still has two and a half years to salvage the mandate he blew.

The state where Obama was most popular in 2009 that he didn't win in 2008, perhaps surprisingly, is South Carolina. One might have expected it to be a state like Missouri, Montana, or Georgia where he just narrowly lost. His approval in SC was 56.1%. I actually thought it was a little curious Obama didn't go after the state more strongly because of a) its large black population, b) what an overwhelming margin it gave him in the primary and c) its whites aren't quite as predominantly conservative as they are in some other southern states. Maybe that'll change in 2012.

Next best for Obama among states where he lost are South Dakota at 55.8%, Georgia at 55.6%, Missouri at 55.5%, North Dakota at 55.3%, and Arizona at 54.7%. It'll be interesting to see what he can do in Az. in 2012 without John McCain on the opposing ticket.

Montana, the second closest state where Obama lost, may be moving away from him. His approval there came in at just 48.1%, mirroring the broader trend of Obama's lagging popularity in the Mountain West region.

A 2012 Obama victory in all but one of these states would attest to an Electoral College landslide. I wonder, however, whether Arizona's changing demographics (30% Hispanic with an extra electoral vote to boot) might make it worth contesting down the road. That said, the meltdown in Democratic Party support in Colorado does not make the Southwestern strategy look very promising right now.

Sloppy

Rumors are that a major Democratic politician has been in an adulterous relationship with Vicky Iseman, whom you will perhaps remember for her (alleged) affair with John McCain. It was about time we had some bipartisanship in American politics.

The banks turn on Democrats

With any luck, that will push the majority party in the House and Senate to crush, then extort.

NOLA.com headline

Mitch Landrieu avoids the runoff

He is now Mayor-elect of New Orleans. a prospect we've been tracking for some time now. Happier still, it wasn't even close.

With 58 percent of the city’s 366 precincts reporting, Mr. Landrieu had 67 percent of the vote. His closest challenger, Troy Henry, a businessman and first-time candidate, had 13 percent.

Though you wouldn't know it from post-Katrina press coverage, departing mayor Nagin was a Republican until he realized he needed some black votes in order to let the GOP control city contracts.

as “the pro-business alternative”. His opponent Police Chief Richard Pennington often called him “Ray Reagan”, for Nagin’s campaign contributions to George W. Bush’s 2000 Presidential campaign and his support of normally GOP positions.

In the end, Nagin rewarded his white supporters, assembling an administration that drew heavily on Republican and Caucasian appointees. He even endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal over Democrat Kathleen Blanco.

Good luck to Landrieu. It's a tough job, but with Nagin out, the city at least has a chance at good governance after eight long, corrupt, incompetent years.  And congratulations, further, on a truly rare achievement: he won two-thirds of the white vote, and two-thirds of the black vote, running against a black candidate. If only that had happened four years ago against an undeserving, reinvented, hypocritical Ray Nagin.

What if David Lynch worked for Disney?

Answer: He did, and the result was a masterpiece, 1999's The Straight Story. Here, however, is an alternate vision, a reminder that soundtracks are as central to the realization of Lynch's vision as meditation and his background in painting.

Lyle Lovett and Ann Richards

What a pair! A song we'll enjoy a lot more after the state's secession:

"That's my other truck"

Intrepid reader G. sends us this awesome cartoon by the Boston Globe's awesome Dan Wasserman.

Islamism, France and Christianistan, USA

Doing something right:

The French government has refused to grant citizenship to a foreign national on the grounds that he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil.

The man, whose current nationality was not given, needed citizenship to settle in the country with his French wife.

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said this was being refused because he was depriving his wife of the liberty to come and go with her face uncovered. [...]

"It became apparent during the regulation investigation and the prior interview that this person was compelling his wife to wear the all-covering veil, depriving her of the freedom to come and go with her face uncovered, and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women," he said.

Many Americans from both political parties would applaud the French decision. Others might ask, "What would these kinds of restrictions mean for the Amish, Mormons, or other religious groups that force women into subservient positions?" To which my only possible reply is, "Indeed!" As we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, democracy in the hands of bigots results in medieval government.

Islamist patriarchy has its American parallel. Indeed, a profound misogyny is the element shared by Islamism, Christianism, Hindu nationalism, and extremist American Republican-Catholic sects like the Legionaries and Opus Dei (which are hardly representative of the Church's majority Latin American and Southern European mainstream).

This section of yesterday's New York Times piece on the appearance of extreme martial arts in evangelical churches is but the latest example.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.

“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.” [...]

Men ages 18 to 34 are absent from churches, some pastors said, because churches have become more amenable to women and children. “We grew up in a church that had pastel pews,” said Tom Skiles, 37, the pastor of Spirit of St. Louis Church in Arnold, Mo. “The men fell asleep.”

In focusing on the toughness of Christ, evangelical leaders are harking back to a similar movement in the early 1900s, historians say, when women began entering the work force. Proponents of this so-called muscular Christianity advocated weight lifting as a way for Christians to express their masculinity.

“This whole generation is raised on the idea that they’re in a culture war for the heart and soul of America,” said Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University.

That, they surely are.

Evangelicals charged with abduction

But, fortunately for them, not child trafficking:

The Americans were transported in two Haitian police vehicles — one labeled “Child Protection Brigade” — from the police station where they have been held since the weekend to Port-au-Prince’s main criminal courthouse. Mr. Coq said beforehand that their immediate release was possible, and the police who transported the detainees took their luggage to the hearing as well in case they were to be freed. [...]

But some of the children had living parents, and some of those parents said that the Baptists had promised simply to educate the youngsters in the Dominican Republic and to allow them to return to Haiti to visit.

Ms. Silsby had made her intentions known to child protection officials, human rights experts and Dominican authorities in Haiti, all of whom warned her that she could be charged with trafficking if she tried to take children out of the country without proper documentation.

" I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban..."

Said, Markos, and for evidence of Republican political attitudes, he commissioned a large sample poll by Research 2000. The results, while hardly surprising to regular readers, are truly remarkable.

1. A plurality of Republicans believe Barack Obama should be impeached.

2. They are against gays in the military, by a margin of 79-7

3. Only 42% of Republicans believe the President was born in the United States. A plurality of Southern Republicans, the particularly fact-challenged that drives the national GOP, are birthers.

4. They believe the President is a socialist, 63-21. They presumably didn't believe George W. Bush was one, even though the prescription drug benefit for seniors was granted under his watch.

5. They believe, overwhelmingly (53-14), that "Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama."

6. Southern Republicans are twice as likely to believe their state should secede from the Union than non-Southern Republicans. This is a rare point of agreement between this blog and Southern Republicans.

7. They oppose rules making it easier to form unions, 68-7.

8. They are against gays in the military, 55-26. Republican youth are only marginally more enlightened (47-31), likely because young people who haven't been turned off by Republican social policies form a fairly insane, if tiny group.

9. They oppose gay marriage 77-7 (again, no hope for young Republicans: 74-11)

10. Even more remarkable: gays should not be allowed to teach in the public schools, 73-8. It's 71-9 among young Republicans.

11: "Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world?" Yes, 77-15.

The rest of the poll is just as remarkable.

The base chooses the nominees of their political party. Independents who don't pay much attention to politics and the Beltway media insiders who do, continually float the dream of bipartisanship. But the Republican Party lost touch with reality years ago. Its philosophy of patriarchal, race-based, Southern Christianism supplemented by war and by definition fact-challenged, is now spread more effectively by ministers than politicians.

And this helps explain why there are surprisingly few areas of difference outside of race (and even there only marginally) that distinguish Southerners from the rest of the GOP. How? Why? Because they won. Every member of the Republican base is now formed by white Southern Christianism that gave rise to and funded today's evangelicals. The slaveowners who created the religion would be proud.

The rest of the nation, urgently, needs to know. Good luck with that project.

Thank God

Republicans, fresh off a successful fall spent scaring seniors into believing Democrats would take away their Social Security, go back to their tried and true policy position: actually ending Social Security. You know, "like President Bush tried to do in 2005."

Welcome back, guys! And thanks for not waiting till next January to show your true colors.

The Mormon takeover of California's democracy

Proof of what almost everyone knew already: 1) that the Mormons were the principal fundraisers and organizers of Proposition 8, and 2) that they didn't want anyone to know, since most people hate hate Mormons far more than they hate homosexuals.

Frank Luntz

Outlines the Republican strategy to protect foreign-owned banks from regulation. Always trust the GOP to turn its back on the American people in favor of foreign stockholders.

Idaho Baptists being held for Haiti child trafficking

But they have a defense: the kids were free.

The 33 children on the bus have been temporarily placed in an orphanage in Santo, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince that is run by SOS Children’s Villages, an organization based in Austria. On its Web site Sunday, SOS said at least one of the children, an 8-year-old girl, told workers, “I am not an orphan” and that she believed that her mother had arranged a short vacation for her.

In an earlier posting, SOS said that the children were destined for adoption and that a group associated with the 10 Baptists, New Life Children’s Refuge, advertised adoptions for Americans. But Laura Silsby, 40, who was among those detained, said that New Life Children’s Refuge had paid no money for the children and learned about them from a Haitian pastor, Jean Sanbil of the Sharing Jesus Ministries.

UPDATE: But some Haitian officials were quick to paint the Americans as kidnappers, illustrating how the case was becoming a lightning rod for fears that child traffickers or unscrupulous adoption agencies could try to take advantage of the chaos in Haiti.

The Haitian prime minister told Reuters that “we did not arrest Americans, we arrested kidnappers,” and he said the church members could face serious charges. But the Haitian justice minister and a lawyer for the Americans said there was also a possibility that the group could be returned to the United States.Evangelicals see natural disasters as great recruiting opportunities, and are often met with tremendous success, as in the 1976 Guatemalan earhquake. Child trafficking charges aren't the most auspicious beginning to their conversion effort.