Althouse: At the Late Winter Café...

March 5, 2012

At the Late Winter Café...

... come on in here.

40 comments:

edutcher said...: Listening to O'Really and then Hannity tonight, I find out Sandra's last name is pronounced, "Fluck".

!!????!!!!?????!!!!

Are you fluking me?

As they once said in the Brandenburg Regiment, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?".

Damn!

Talk about a weekend of lost opportunities.; 3/5/12, 8:54 PM
m stone said...: You need a dog.

Not only for the portraiture.; 3/5/12, 8:59 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Stark.

And I second the suggestion about the dog.; 3/5/12, 9:09 PM
pm317 said...: OK, I am officially tired of the Limbaugh and the slut story. Move on.. There are more important things, serious things going on in this world.

And weird things like this -- the man who impersonated W and later Obama is dead at 48. It appears that Obama was offended (yeah, the humorless guy).; 3/5/12, 9:14 PM
edutcher said...: Sorry, couldn't resist.

Icing on the cake, as it were.

PS We can always talk about all the lousy economic news that's coming down these days.

WV "rnisonly" Fightin' words for The Blonde.; 3/5/12, 9:21 PM
chickelit said...: And weird things like this -- the man who impersonated W and later Obama is dead at 48. It appears that Obama was offended (yeah, the humorless guy).

Was the cause of death heart failure?

Anger?; 3/5/12, 9:22 PM
edutcher said...: Apparently at AIPAC, Netanyahu bitch slapped GodZero yet again, reserving Israel's right to strike Iran.

As soon as Zero said he had Israel's back, I didn't doubt for a minute he had already selected the knife he was going to stick in it.

So the old guy from Sayeret Matkal delivered a pre-emptive strike.; 3/5/12, 9:40 PM
Wally Kalbacken said...: edutcher said...

Apparently at AIPAC, Netanyahu bitch slapped GodZero yet again, reserving Israel's right to strike Iran.

Lock and load, everybody. While we can't get Congressional Democrats to authorize the engineering and development for low yield tactical nukes to bust bunkers (seriously engineered bunkers), something tells me Israel had no budget allocation problems int tht regard and they are going to open a can of very special whoop ass on the Iranian facilities, and soon.; 3/5/12, 9:51 PM
William said...: I saw Michele Bachmann on Piers Morgan earlier. She looked strikingly good looking. She handled the somewhat hostile questioning not just with poise but with charm and good humor. I admire Michele, but I had no idea she could be so likeable and human. She never struck me as someone who had much of a sense of humor, but there it was. Maybe there's something about the 18 hour grind of campaigning that leaves candidates looking worn, edgy, and frazzled. Anyway she looked a lot better tonight than at any time I have ever seen her.; 3/5/12, 9:51 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Why do people send along email forwards?

All of them are wrong.

In the last ten years I've received thousands of email forwards. Two have been true, one about Truman and one about what a brown recluse spider looks like.; 3/5/12, 10:01 PM
pm317 said...: I don't quite understand liberals' hostility toward Israel. They seem to have strange predilections.; 3/5/12, 10:04 PM
Sorun said...: No, Michele Bachmann is cuckoo cuckoo bonkers. Just ask Hatboy.; 3/5/12, 10:16 PM
Patrick said...: Freeman,

People send email forwards because people like me don't always have the heart to tell people like my Dad that the email isn't true, or not completely true.

That part of me is not likely to change. For the moment anyway.; 3/5/12, 10:28 PM
wdnelson93 said...: Last week I had the privilege of accompanying a friend to take her Alzheimer's-affected 85 y.o. Mom to visit her Mom's sister. She treats her Mom with such love and compassion - it was such a blessing to see. This week her Mom, who had a great time seeing her sister, has no memory of that visit.

Alzheimer's never stops amazing me. We were gone for 5 days. Went from the cold and wintery north to the warm and sunny south. Spent hours in airports waiting for seats flying space available. Yet as far as Margaret Ann is concerned, it never happened.

This is on my mind as people are debating whether infants are persons with the same rights as adults. If the rights of personhood are taken from infants (including the unborn) who have only the potential to become persons (in the opinion of the Left) what rights do the Alzheimers-affected elderly, who by that definition are rapidly losing their personhood, have? And what about the mentally disabled? Who decides where the lines should be drawn?; 3/5/12, 10:31 PM
Wince said...: edutcher said...
Listening to O'Really and then Hannity tonight, I find out Sandra's last name is pronounced, "Fluck".

In which case... Fluke, Hu

Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons
A Georgetown Law Document
Edited by Sandra Fluke and Karen Hu

However, as I discovered today, birth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if "gender reassignment" surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.

The title of the article, which can be purchased in full here, is Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons and was published in the Journal's 2011 Annual Review. I have posted a transcript of the section I will be quoting from here. In a subsection of the article entitled "Employment Discrimination in Provision of Employment Benefits" starting on page 635 of the review Sandra Fluke and her co-editor describe two forms of discrimination in benefits they believe LGBTQ individuals face in the work place:

"Discrimination typically takes two forms: first, direct discrimination limiting access to benefits specifically needed by LGBTQ persons, and secondly, the unavailability of family-related benefits to LGBTQ families."

Their "prime example" of the first form of discrimination? Not covering sex change operations:

"A prime example of direct discrimination is denying insurance coverage for medical needs of transgender persons physically transitioning to the other gender."

This so called "prime example" of discrimination is expounded on in a subsection titled "Gender Reassignment Medical Services" starting on page 636:

"Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered."

To be clear, the argument here is that employers are engaging in discrimination against their employees who want them to pay for their sex changes because their "heterosexist" health insurance policies don't believe sex changes are medically necessary.; 3/5/12, 10:39 PM
MadisonMan said...: I can't decide if I'll watch Idol this year. Decisions, decisions.; 3/5/12, 10:41 PM
Almost Ali said...: Is it me, or is President Ahmadinejad working President Obama like a yard dog.; 3/5/12, 10:50 PM
edutcher said...: pm317 said...

I don't quite understand liberals' hostility toward Israel. They seem to have strange predilections.

They loved Israel until the Russkies started backing the PLO. This was the same time it was cool to love anything Commie (Red China, undergoing the Cultural Revolution, was "beautiful", the students were revolting, Ho Ho Ho was disemboweling anybody who got in his way, etc.).

Sorun said...

No, Michele Bachmann is cuckoo cuckoo bonkers. Just ask Hatboy.

He has the hots for her, but she just can't see him.; 3/5/12, 11:04 PM
chickelit said...: @EDH at 10:39: What does the "Q" stand for in LBGTQ?

Is it quota?; 3/5/12, 11:05 PM
Petunia said...: Boy, the quality of law school journals has sure taken a dive since I was in law school.

I believe the "Q" can stand for either "queer" or "questioning".; 3/5/12, 11:14 PM
Revenant said...: Why do people send along email forwards? All of them are wrong.

I've developed a ritual with my brother in law. He sends me an email forward, I send him the corresponding Snopes link.; 3/6/12, 2:03 AM
Palladian said...: I just re-watched a favorite film and this part of it seemed... appropriate, so I uploaded a clip:

That's a flounder... No, no no.. that's a fluke. That's a fluke.; 3/6/12, 2:26 AM
edutcher said...: EDH said...

Listening to O'Really and then Hannity tonight, I find out Sandra's last name is pronounced, "Fluck".

In which case... Fluke, Hu

Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons
A Georgetown Law Document
Edited by Sandra Fluke and Karen Hu

And they say God has no sense of humor.; 3/6/12, 5:48 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Remember that part in Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where the girl complains to the professor she has writers block and cannot get started? The professor advises the girl to go out to the front and describe the steps to the school house. Describe the brick in the steps. I think it was. That's all she needed to get started and then the girl couldn't be shut up.

So, would you like to see a simple bowl of miso soup? It's miso and water. The link is to a photoset, and I taught spellchecker that photoset is a word. I figured, what the heck.; 3/6/12, 5:55 AM
Triangle Man said...: I can't imagine miso soup without dashi, but it certainly looks tasty.; 3/6/12, 6:42 AM
HT said...: Please tell me I have missed the promises that the comments section's appearance is soon to be fixed.; 3/6/12, 6:47 AM
KCFleming said...: While some are just gossip, forwarded e-mails often serve as the modern form of the urban legend.

Like Aesops's fables, the narrative imparts a moral, whether a cautionary tale, pointing out trolls under bridges, mistrust of authority, or other classic advice.

I read them to decipher the moral, one usually as old as the hills.

Debunked or not, they go on and on.; 3/6/12, 7:30 AM
Curious George said...: What I hate most about Wisconsin winters. Not the cold. Or snow. The endless days of clouds. IIRC a few year ago we had 30+ days of no sunshine.; 3/6/12, 7:59 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: The robins have arrived. The cedar waxwings are excited and the male gold finches have already obtained a slight glint of gold. Spring is on the way!; 3/6/12, 8:09 AM
David said...: 65 and sunny in coastal South Carolina today.

(Wait until July, though.); 3/6/12, 8:12 AM
chickelit said...: Curious George said...
What I hate most about Wisconsin winters. Not the cold. Or snow. The endless days of clouds. IIRC a few year ago we had 30+ days of no sunshine.

3/6/12 7:59 AM

Clouds are part of the antidote to global AGW. Would you rather have the warmist's models be correct?

If it's any consolation, it's cloudy in SoCal too.; 3/6/12, 8:13 AM
chickelit said...: Al Gore: "I was right, but clouds go in my way"; 3/6/12, 8:15 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: I've developed a ritual with my brother in law. He sends me an email forward, I send him the corresponding Snopes link.

This is what I do.

I agree, Pogo, that these are modern urban legends.

My favorite may have been the one exhorting the reader not to exit her car to retrieve a twenty dollar bill on her windshield lest a mad kidnapper snatch her up.

Why the kidnapper would have gone to the trouble with the bill to lure her back out of the car, rather than snatching her before she got in, was not explained.; 3/6/12, 8:18 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: If anyone hasn't seen it, TrollHunter is a gem. Available for instant streaming on Netflix. No, I'm not kidding.

I'm a huge fan of silent film, and I finally saw The Artist. Very nicely done, excellent performance by the lead, awful plot.; 3/6/12, 8:43 AM
Hagar said...: Re. the Ms. Fluke imbroglio, does anyone remember what Mr. Issa's hearing originally was supposed to be about?; 3/6/12, 8:47 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Facebook status update from Huckabee:

I am pro-life. If you are pro-life, I encourage you to LIKE this post and SHARE it on your Facebook wall. Let's end abortion!

Bill Gates has promised to prevent one abortion for every Like this status update receives and to provide a free year of contraception to an impoverished law school student for every Share.

or

"Here, dogs! Steak!"; 3/6/12, 8:48 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: "Abortion is wrong. I'm going to put a paper plate in my yard to show that I hate abortion. Put a paper plate in your yard to show that you hate it too. Let's end abortion!"; 3/6/12, 8:51 AM
James Graham said...: Hmmm.

Lots of comments about everything except the well-done photo. Beautiful composition! A frame-able keeper.; 3/6/12, 9:20 AM
Almost Ali said...: Lots of comments about everything except the well-done photo.

It's only one frame in the continuing epic. And in this particular scene, viewers are waiting for the infamous Mendota fox to appear - that is, as soon as Chip Ahoy flushes him out.; 3/6/12, 3:51 PM
Rusty said...: That looks like a Bruegel painting.proommi; 3/6/12, 5:20 PM