Reminder: Antonin Scalia is a Racist Asshole

Antonin Scalia contended today that the key provision from the Voting Privileges Act is really a "racial entitlement." He further contended the growing recognition from the Act (reauthorized through the Senate in 2006 with a election of 98-) reflected increasing anxiety about being known as racist, not really a rising general consensus that restricting voting privileges by race is really a proundly undemocratic and shitty factor to complete. One question: when the anxiety about being *known as* a racist is really intimidating that individuals stop *doing* racist things, then just how frequently do we have to call Antonin Scalia an enormous fucking racist before he changes his ways? (Answer: Cannot compute at this time around. We are going to need to invent some entirely new math, Isaac Newton style, because Scalia's racist assholery is really past the measurement in our current science.)

Monday Blogaround

This blogaround introduced for you by books.Suggested Reading through:Digby: "Highly Sensitive" Secrets [Content Note: Discussion of drones.]Pam: If You're Able To Drive...Jorge: Academy awards "In Memoriam" Snubs Lupe Ontiveros, TwiceJessica: Having faith in Women Is Nice Insurance policy for Texas [Content Note: Discussion of reproductive privileges.]FMF News: First Lady Leader of Columbia Sworn InFannie: Around the "Vibrant" SideFlyover Feminism: Practical Feminism with Sunny CliffordLeave your links and suggestions in comments...

Quote of the Day

"Whenever a physician removes a young child from the lady, that's the biggest organ inside a body. This is a large factor. This is a large surgery. You haven't any other organs within your body which are larger than that."—Republican Alabama Condition Representative Mary Sue McClurkin, who's certainly a genius and clearly tired of the anti-choice classics, so figured she'd drop newer and more effective material.Via Maya, who observes that the fetus isn't a body organ (neither is it a young child), that just about 90% of abortions occur within the first trimester, throughout that the fetus is one of the same size like a smelt, which a "first-trimester surgical abortion takes about ten minutes in most cases does not even require general anesthesia," that is a unique meaning of "large surgery."Whooooooops!

Photos of the Day

U . s . States Leader Obama utilizes a magnifier to experience a game title with children inside a pre-kindergarten class at school Levels early childhood learning center in Decatur Feb 14, 2013. Obama travelled to Georgia to push his intend to ensure high-quality preschool, revealed throughout his Condition from the Union address now. [REUTERS/Jason Reed]Obama high-fives children inside a pre-kindergarten class. [REUTERS/Jason Reed]LOVE.[Aside: Jason Reed—still my personal favorite news digital photographer. Love that guy!]

The Virtual Pub Is Open

[Explanations: lol your body fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]TFIF, Shakers!Belly as much as the bar,and title your poison!Thank you to Imani (follow @AngryBlackLady) for inspiring the title of the week's pub!

Friday Blogaround

This blogaround introduced for you by scribbles.Suggested Reading through:Jamilah: Obama's Chicago Guns Speech and the need for Black and Latino Lives [Content Note: Gun violence.]Maggie Jo: Texas Parental Control Accountability ActRagen: Body fat Criminals of War [Content Note: Body fat prejudice.]Chloe: What Matters [Content Note: Domestic violence.]FMF News: Royal Canadian Mounted Police Under Scrutiny for Abuse of Aboriginal WomenL.Y. Marlow: To Anybody Voting From the Violence Against Women Act [Content Note: Explanations of violence.]Andy: Military Grants First Funeral of Gay Spouse inside a National CemeterySikivu: South L.A. Teacher Activists Leave your links and proposals in comments...

Petition Update

The petition asking the Federal government to prevent while using "spouses, moms, & kids" rhetorical frame that defines women by our associations with other people has become at 2,200+ signatures and counting. Continue the teaspooning!Yesterday, Shaker catvoncat noted in comments:So apparently you are able to go [here] to talk about your reaction to the SOTU speech by highlighting a passage and leaving comments onto it. This can be a different way to get our voices heard about this problem, for individuals who're interested.catvoncat shared her response, that is restricted to 400 figures, here. It was my submission, which you are invited to borrow simply or perhaps in whole, whether it's useful: Central to anti-violence advocacy is regarding women as autonomous creatures, an idea that is compromised by reductively determining women by our associations with other people. By mentioning to "our" spouses et al, the Leader seems to become speaking to males *about* women, instead of speaking to males *and* women. I'm area of the union, too. Why don't you, simply: "We all know our economy is more powerful when women..."Teaspoons ahoy!

Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Guns violence terrorism.]"Before I say to you the way the NRA and our people are likely to Stand And Fight politically as well as in the courts, let us acknowledge that over america, hundreds of countless People in america already are planning to face And Battle to safeguard their own families and houses. These good People in america are prudently on the point of safeguard themselves."—Wayne LaPierre, executive v . p . from the National Rifle Association and professional jackass, within the opening sentences of the piece for that Daily Caller, that I am not connecting because fuck them, but it is simple to locate if you are like doing so.Professional Review of the rest of the article: Obama really wants to take our guns! Crooks! Muslims! "Severe weather. Tornadoes. Riots. Terrorists. Gangs. Lone crooks. They are challenges we are certain to face—not just maybe. It isn't paranoia to purchase a gun. It's survival." We certainly need to assume the worst of each and every other individual, and be ready to shoot These! Liberal media! Second amendment! Activist idol judges! "Bloomberg, Soros, and also the relaxation of the ilk." Give money towards the NRA! Freedom-loving patriots! STAND AND FIGHT!I'm not scared of dying as a result of an Islamic terrorist. I'm, however, very scared of dying as a result of a frightened neighbor amped up by alarmist rhetoric and equipped with deadly weaponry, who shoots first and discovers later I had been walking in the front yard to request if the wandering cat using the homemade collar is the pet.

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

[Content Note: Gender essentialism heterocentrism disablism rape culture.]CNN: The lost art of offline dating.Initially, this is probably not an apparent contender for that Worst Factor, since it almost appears like a run-of-the-mill garbage piece on dating nowadays zzzzzzzzzzz. But you will find a few real doozies, like:Shifting gender roles will also be adding towards the confusion experienced on first dates."Males are almost scared of being becoming going after because they do not desire to be regarded as creepy," Battista stated. "And effective, independent women still want males to step-up. Consequently, it's similar to a standoff."Feminism has destroyed love, blah yawn fart.And, out of the box usual for pieces that lament the digitalization of human connection, there's lots of embedded disablism within the failure to acknowledge how integral online communication could be for those who have disabilities who can't navigate traditional social venues.(See also: People from marginalized towns who're isolated in small cities, et. al.)Plus there is this, based on dating coach and author Adam LoDolce, that has, "to help individuals overcome the anxiety of approaching somebody newInch designed a film featuring his dating advice entitled "Go Speak with Her":"Internet dating is a tool within the tool resource, however i think we like a society are simply because there's still a genuine method to meet people."A genuine method to meet people. Instead of finding someone online, which is not "real."It's absurd that there's still a stigma mounted on meeting people online (and let's note it is a stigma being perpetuated by someone hawking an online dating video for males), whenever a significant quantity of relationships—of the romantic and non-romantic sort—are created online. Iain and that i met online 12 years back in March: I am confident it's legitimate, y'all!However the authenticity of my relationship (yet others enjoy it) is less an issue in my experience compared to understood implications of why online associations aren't "real," that are focused on dishonesty and danger. There is much more hands-wringing about my likely to meet Iain personally because we'd met online than there could have been we'd met in a cafe and I'd agreed to take a date with him. (Roughly: A metric fuckton of hands-wringing versus. none.) But, reasonably, neither proposition was naturally less safe compared to other.Used to do, however, have valid reason to believe Iain: We spoke every day for several weeks before we met I'd his phone number and address, that I'd sent packages he'd received he happily trekked for an internet coffee shop to talk with me via webcam as he did not get one in your own home. What measures he might take to make sure I understood with whom I had been speaking, he required, without my even needing to request. Before we met personally, I understood his parents' names, his friends' names, his pet's title, where he labored, his favorite books, his birthday... More, far more, than I ever understood someone complain about with whom I continued an initial date.And, not so long ago, an individual I seemed to be dating for several weeks, after meeting inside a "possible way,Inch raped me.It isn't, obviously, that internet conferences cannot result in heartbreak as well as danger. They actually can. But so can associations created personally. And creating some false division of "real" and "a fantasyInch associations depending on how one meets stands for the pernicious lie that the stranger inside a coffee shop is axiomatically safer than the usual stranger on the web. Trust isn't established sheerly by closeness.

Enjoy!

In most importance, the #tellafeministthankyou hashtag has presented lots of dingalings, it been absolutely inspiring and beneficial to determine all of the feminist/womanist ladies and males indicating appreciation for each other. Last evening, it had been trending subject worldwide on Twitter.Worldwide.The planet is definitely an ungracious and cruelly judgmental place in lots of ways, but don't forget this moment where a simple idea to exhibit one another kindness and express gratitude converted into a worldwide event. Although we expect more we are able to do it.

Open Thread

Located by an owl figurine.

Today in Who Cares

CBS—Cheney blasts "second-rate" Obama nominees:Former V . P . Dick Cheney stated Saturday evening that Leader Obama has compromised U.S. national security by nominating low quality candidates for key cabinet posts by degrading the U.S. military."The performance now of Obama because he employees in the national security team for that second term is dismal," Cheney stated in comments to around 300 people from the Wyoming Republican Party.Cheney, a Wyoming native, stated it had been fundamental to the country's national security that "good folks" contain the positions of secretary of condition, CIA director and secretary of defense."Frankly, what he's hired are second-rate people," he stated.Well. They cannot be Michael "Heckuva Job Brownie" Brown.

In The News

Your family In News Reports correspondent, Deeky W. Gashlycrumb, MD., is off as they provides a Butt Seminar in the Stethoscope Institute.[Content Note: Drones violence homophobia body fat hate.]John Brennan defends the Obama administration's drone strike guidelines throughout the Senate hearing on his nomination to mind the CIA.Meanwhile, the FAA has launched a drone authorization list, showing 81 public organizations which have applied, through October of this past year, for FAA drone authorizations, with regards to surveillance. So That They SAY!Looking continues in California for ex-LA cop Christopher Dorner who's suspected of killing three people.Some Rose bush family emails happen to be compromised and private information published. This really is terrible, because hacking private email options may be the fucking worst as well as since i needed to discover the Rose bush family.Six health classes of scholars in Maryland got an eyeful of "ex-gay therapy" garbage prior to the video was drawn. Gross!Paul Krugman reminds us that austerity is really a terrible, no-good, horrible idea.Meanwhile, austerity measures already are affecting education, food safety, WIC programs, housing, social security, day care funding, aviation safety, and community investment. Whoooooooooops!Viola Davis is fed up with playing a maid. She is the greatest.Rex Reed, who's a terrible jerkbag, lobs vicious anti-body fat bigotry in the amazing Melissa McCarthy in the overview of her new film, Identity Crook.Most dogs visit paradise in England should be microchipped by April 6, 2016.Would you like to take a look at several things fitting perfectly into other activities? Welp, here ya go!

Tweet of the Day

[Content Note: Othering disablism body fat prejudice.]So, this tweet goes round the internets today...Are you currently albino? Then I really want you within my video. Email: musicvideocasting2013@gmail.com&mdash JARED LETO (@JaredLeto) Feb 6, 2013Jordan Catalano Jared Leto most likely thinks he's being super edgy by attempting to put individuals with albinism in the video, but using individuals with noticeably different physiques as substitution for just about any authentic artistic instinct is really fucking tired and tiresome, I can not even think about a metaphor tired and tiresome enough to sufficiently explicate it.The totes edgy auteurs of the garbage typically defend their circus art with a few sanctimonious lipservice to inclusion or the good thing about human diversity or some colossally unbearable routine about how exactly we are all freaks within our own way, however the appropriation of noticeably different physiques may be the complete opposite of inclusion: It's Othering.And most of the people whose physiques are recommended with this specific kind of Othering—the physiques of individuals with albinism, the physiques of individuals with dwarfism, individuals with less (or even more) than four complete braches, individuals with superfat bodies—are people whose physical variations will also be disabilities. To fetishize albinism because of its aesthetic, for instance, delicately elides the health problems that many individuals with albinism face.Defenders of the farcical bid at "inclusion" like to toss out that fetid rhetorical about why individuals with noticeably different physiques accept come in such projects whether it's so offensive, the reddest of all of the herrings. Once the only possibilities for visibility are Othering, those who take individuals possibilities can not be blamed: They are not selecting between "token albino in Jared Leto video" and "lead inside a serious movie whose casting director is available to casting somebody that ends up having albinism, climax irrelevant towards the plot."That's another demonstration of tasking people with finding methods to systemic problems. It's neither just nor reasonable to anticipate one individual to bootstrap a person's method to an entire cultural overhaul in the way we regard physiques like their own. Even the very best teaspoon continues to be just one teaspoon.Further, I understand that you will find, for instance, superfat ladies—always a popular staple of super edgy artists who're gleefully horrified through the exposure of body fat flesh—who happily and happily take part in circus art, who might even think it is personally strengthening. Also it can concurrently be personally strengthening on their behalf and profoundly disempowering for me personally, when i watch a superfat body, noticeably different in the same manner mine is, used and Othered. To become the one that volunteers to experience freak is an extremely different place rather than be the one that watches, powerlessly, hir body implied to become freakish.If Leto and the cohorts aren't thinking about perpetuating the gross Othering of individuals with noticeably different physiques, they need creating projects where being you aren't albinism (or whatever) is not the price of admission, but is rather not really a barrier to participation.Obviously, Leto's newest movie role is really as a trans lady, and so i doubt he will lead the charge on non-appropriative and non-exploitative art.Anyway. This jogs my memory of 1 of my personal favorite movie moments ever, from Residing in Oblivion, by which Peter Dinklage's character takes the film-within-the-film's director to job for using you aren't dwarfism inside a dream sequence: Nick [Steve Buscemi]: Look, Tito, it isn't that large of the deal. It is a dream. Strange unexpected things happen inside a dream. All I really want you to complete is laugh. Can you explain that this type of problem for you personally?Tito [Peter Dinklage]: Why does it need to be considered a dwarf?Nick: What?!Tito: How come my character need to be a dwarf?Nick: It does not need to be a dwarf.Tito: [laughs contemptuously] Then exactly why is he? Would be that the only method for you to get this to a dream—put a dwarf inside it?!Chip: No, Tito, I—Tito: Maybe you have were built with a dream having a dwarf inside it? Are you aware anybody who's were built with a dream having a dwarf inside it? NOOOOOO! I do not have dreams with dwarves inside them. The only real place I have seen dwarves in dreams is within stupid movies such as this! "Oh, allow it to be strange place a dwarf inside it!Inch Everybody goes: "Whoa whoa whoa, this should be a fuckin' dream there is a fuckin' dwarf inside it!Inch Well, I am tired of it! You are able to take this dream sequence and shove up your ass![Tito storms the crew changes irritatingly Nick looks stricken and perplexed and collapses into his director's chair.]Perfect.

Daily Dose of Cute

Sophie: Snuggly little cuddle-bunny.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Hooverphonic, "Renaissance Affair"This orchestral arrangement of the song is among the the most amazing things I have heard.

The Virtual Pub Is Open

[Explanations: lol your body fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.](See things i did there?)TFIF, Shakers!Belly as much as the bar,and title your poison!You should also tip your bartenders!

Open Thread

Located with a rutabaga.

Daily Dose of Cute

Livs.

In The News

Your family In News Reports correspondent, Deeky W. Gashlycrumb, MD., is off as they moves into his new evil lair apartment.[Content Note: Terrorism hostility to agency misogynistic violence.]Chuck Hagel wasn't super throughout his confirmation hearing. I suppose individuals are surprised at this? Has nobody met Chuck Hagel before?Two dead yet others wounded, some seriously, following a suicide bomber hits the united states embassy in Ankara, Poultry.Congress, probably the most ill-outfitted group in the united states to deal with technology issues, will fight over internet privacy in 2013. I am sure they'll make best wishes choices!The Department of Health insurance and Human Services is anticipated to announce today that religiously affiliated companies "will have the ability to opt from supplying their employees with insurance policy for birth control methods" within an exception towards the birth control mandate. Talking about good choices!Within an actual good decision, Congress passed a brand new law being an amendment towards the National Defense Authorization Act which "imposes an excellent along with a prison sentence as high as 5 years on individuals in prison for delivering women younger than 18 overseasInch for female genital cutting.Hawaii legislators, in the request of Aerosmith the almighty Steven Tyler, have suggested legislation "to safeguard celebs from paparazzi, giving famous faces energy to file a lawsuit over undesirable beach photos along with other pictures around the islands." It's strange in my experience that we should have laws and regulations to safeguard anybody from the undesirable photography! How come people so terrible?! Do not take pictures without permission, you knuckleheads!It is really an actual headline on the planet: Hillary Clinton Requires a Relaxation, How Strange Is The Fact That?Japoneses researchers have recorded the very first real-time video of ideas developing within the brain. Neat!Want. Wanty-want-want!

Obviously

What—did you believe James Franco wasn't likely to synergy with director Christina Voros to film a documentary about Italian megabrand Gucci and it is creative director, Frida Giannini? You are so strange.Which was always going to take place, because James Franco.In other Vital Franco News, James Franco would, "underneath the right conditions," have sexual intercourse onscreen. So, its you who've been wondering if James Franco could be prepared to have real sex onscreen for the Untitled James Franco Sexytimes Project, the reply is: MAYBE!"I'd say underneath the right conditions. You will find lots of conditions," he stated, with co-director [of Interior. Leather Bar.] Travis Mathews by his side. "Who's involved? Both behind-the-moments, behind your camera, while watching camera."..."It's difficult to place some types of sex in film," Franco stated. "Now, I possibly could kind of realize that whether it wasn't very easy to place other sorts of things in film, like violence. Clearly, there's some strange standard here that's just irrational."I would create a sincere joke saying thanks to Professor Franco of Necessary Findings at Focal points College, however I recognized which i will have a existence that sometimes requires not recording each and every bit of Vital Franco News, and there's a powerful possibility which i skipped he's really employed like a Professor of Necessary Findings at Focal points College, and that would cause me to feel look silly.[H/T to my pal Todd for that Gucci link.]

Open Thread