ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.

Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

The survey, to be released at 5 p.m. ET on Abu Dhabi Television, found three-quarters (76%) of Sunni Arabs say they definitely will not vote in the January 30 elections, while just 9% say they are likely to vote. A majority of Shiites (80%) say they are likely to vote or definitely will vote, as are a smaller majority of Kurds (57%).

Majorities of both Sunni Arabs (82%) and Shiites (69%) also favor U.S. forces withdrawing either immediately or after an elected government is in place.

The poll also found that of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups, only the Kurds believe the U.S. will "help" Iraq over the next five years, while half (49%) of Shiites and a majority (64%) of Sunni Arabs believe the U.S. will "hurt" Iraq.

Al-Yawer was among the first to cast his ballot, voting alongside his wife at election headquarters in the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad. As poll workers watched, he marked two ballots and dropped them into boxes, and then walked away with an Iraqi flag given to him by a poll worker.

''I'm very proud and happy this morning,'' al-Yawer told reporters. ''I congratulate all the Iraqi people and call them to vote for Iraq.''

"McClellan: I think we've been through this issue. [Nod to Gannon] Go ahead.

"Gannon: Scott, when you talk about the unemployment -- or the jobs being created, is that based on the payroll survey, or the household survey? Because there's -- because of the tax cuts, there's been a tremendous increase in the number of entrepreneurs that have started their own businesses, and those numbers aren't reflected in the payroll survey.

"McClellan: That's correct, yes. The household survey is different from the payroll survey. And the household survey showed that some -- an increase of 496,000 jobs in January alone. So there are different numbers that you're talking about there. And we can look at both. But, again, you're getting into -- you're getting into the numbers here. The numbers that the President is interested in is the actual numbers of jobs being created and the policies that we are taking to create an even more robust environment for job creation."

In his March 10, 2004, column, Froomkin indicated that Gannon has served as a useful lifeline for McClellan amid hostile questioning from less compliant reporters:

But he [Gannon] does keep lobbing those softballs. Sometimes he even brings props. And press secretary McClellan seems to appreciate it.

Yesterday, for instance, McClellan was getting hammered with questions about the 9/11 commission and the possible inappropriate juxtaposition of a visit to a 9/11 memorial with a fundraiser on Thursday.

It was getting ugly. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," McClellan said in response to a jibe. (See the full text of the briefing.)

Then he saw daylight:

"Go ahead, Jeff."

Gannon: "Thank you. First of all, I hope the grand jury didn't force you to turn over the wedding card I sent to you and your wife. (Laughter.) Do you see any hypocrisy in the controversy about the President's mention of 9/11 in his ads, when Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt's campaign issued this button, that says, 'Remember Pearl Harbor'? I have a visual aid for folks watching at home."

McClellan: "You're pointing out some historical facts. Obviously, Pearl Harbor was a defining moment back in the period of World War II, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was strongly committed to winning World War II and talked about it frequently."

Gannon: "So you think it certainly is valid that the President does talk about it and --"

McClellan: "Yes, he addressed this this weekend, when he was first asked about it. September 11th was a defining moment for our nation. We all shared in that experience. And it's important that we look at how we lead in a post-September 11th world. And that's an important discussion to have with the American people, and to talk about the differences in approaches to winning the war on terrorism and preventing attacks from happening in the first place."

Jeff is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University System and holds a Bachelor of Science in Education. He is also a graduate of the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism.

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I am here today as an expert on marriage. I have devoted most of the last fifteen years to research and public education on the marriage issue, particularly the problem of family fragmentation: the growing proportion of our children in fatherless homes, created through divorce or unmarried childbearing.

Marriage is a key social institution, but it is also a fragile institution: with half or more of our children experiencing the suffering, poverty and deprivation of fatherlessness and fragmented families. This is a crisis that was of course not created by advocates of same-sex marriage. But the marriage crisis is intimately involved with how committed we as a society are to two key ideas: that children need mothers and fathers, and that marriage is the main way that we create stable, loving mother-father families for children

Our better tradition, and the only one consistent with democratic principles, is to hold up a single ideal for all parents, which is ultimately based on our deep cultural commitment to the equal dignity and social worth of all children. All kids need and deserve a married mom and dad. All parents are supposed to at least try to behave in ways that will give their own children this important protection. Privately, religiously, emotionally, individually, marriage may have many meanings. But this is the core of its public, shared meaning: Marriage is the place where having children is not only tolerated but welcomed and encouraged, because it gives children mothers and fathers.

Of course, many couples fail to live up to this ideal. Many of the things men and women have to do to sustain their own marriages, and a culture of marriage, are hard. Few people will do them consistently if the larger culture does not affirm the critical importance of marriage as a social institution. Why stick out a frustrating relationship, turn down a tempting new love, abstain from sex outside marriage, or even take pains not to conceive children out of wedlock if family structure does not matter? If marriage is not a shared norm, and if successful marriage is not socially valued, do not expect it to survive as the generally accepted context for raising children. If marriage is just a way of publicly celebrating private love, then there is no need to encourage couples to stick it out for the sake of the children. If family structure does not matter, why have marriage laws at all? Do adults, or do they not, have a basic obligation to control their desires so that children can have mothers and fathers?

I was twenty-two and unmarried when my son was born, just a few months after I had graduated from Yale University

It has nothing to do with marriage," Gallagher pipes up. "I was a single mother for 10 years. You're pretty conscious about trying to make a decent living and take care of your kids. This is not time for gabbing about."

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Committee's 2002 annual conference in Washington D.C. where presenters included William Bennett, Lynne Cheney, Katherine Harris, Chris Mathews, Condoleeza Rice and Tommy Thompson, Coulter said:

"In contemplating college liberals, you really regret, once again, that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be killed, too. Otherwise they will turn out into out right traitors."

"On the bright side, and in conclusion," continued Coulter, "at least college campuses serve as sort of an internment camp for useless leftists in wartime. We know where they are, this way. And, as General Patton said, 'I love it when they come out and shoot at me because then I know where they are and I can shoot the bastards.'"

The three largest conservative campus organizations are the innocuous-sounding Young America's Foundation (YAF), Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and the Leadership Institute which spent approximately $25 million on various campus outreach programs in 2004.

Others include the Ward Connerly-led American Civil Rights Institute, Madison Center for Educational Affairs and the David Horowitz-led Students for Academic Freedom.

According to People for the American Way, a progressive organization exposing the right, the "...right-wing foundations are aware that they must not only control contemporary public debate, but also foster the next generation of conservative scholars, journalists, government employees, legislators and activists."

Conservative foundations "...and others funnel millions of dollars into conservative university programs, university chairs, lecture circuits and right-wing student publications and promote conservative research in the media to legitimize their positions," (www.pfaw.org).

Over the past 30 years, the organized right-wing has built a nation-wide campus network with scores of right-wing intelligentsia and over a dozen conservative student-focused think tanks that now spend over $40 million annually.

In contrast the Sierra Student Coalition, the student-led organization of the Sierra Club, services a network of 150 campus chapters with a staff of three and a budget of $350,000, one of the largest budgets of independent progressive campus organizations.

In 2004 YAF subsidized over 200 campus lectures by well-known right-wing speakers largely through the right-wing National Association of Scholar's chapters on various campuses. YAF, according to its website, was founded to combat affirmative action, feminism, communism and Marxism and also to "counter-balance 'New Left and Communist influence on campuses." YAF provides assistance to students and their organizations by providing guest speakers, organizing and training seminars, networking opportunities, promotional merchandise and other resources.

In 1998 YAF purchased the "Western White House" otherwise known as former U.S. president's Ronald Reagan's California vacation ranch where conferences, retreats and other activities are held in an effort to recruit and groom the next generation of young conservatives. Its National Journalism Center maintains a job bank for college graduates and program alumni who increasingly employed in "mainstream" media corporations. YAF has received over $1.6 million from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, John M. Olin, Sarah Scaife Foundations according to www.Mediatransparency.org, a progressive website clearinghouse that tracks right-wing funding.

ISI spent about $1 million subsidizing a network of over 80 right-wing campus newspapers in 2004 and over $9 million for book publishing and periodicals for college conservatives. The ISI has received over $16 million since 1985 from conservative foundations. The Collegiate Network founded by Reagan's treasury secretary William Simon and Irving Kristol, before recently merging with the ISI, received over $4.3 million from conservative foundations.

The ISI's most well-known graduate is Dinesh D'Souza, former editor of the Dartmouth Review, and a current "fellow" at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution. In his 1995 book "The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society," D'Souza claimed that segregation was designed to, "...to assure that [Blacks], like the handicapped, would be...permitted to perform to the capacity of their arrested development." (The Feeding Through: The Bradley Foundation, "The Bell Curve," & the Real Story Behind W-2).

The Leadership Institute's goal is to foster conservatism on campuses and through workshops and other means to train young conservative "journalists." The institute has received over $1.6 million since 1986 from the Richard and Helen DeVos (Amway), the Bradley Foundation and others.

At yesterday's gathering of world leaders in southern Poland to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the United States was represented by Vice President Cheney. The ceremony at the Nazi death camp was outdoors, so those in attendance, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, were wearing dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots. Because it was cold and snowing, they were also wearing gentlemen's hats. In short, they were dressed for the inclement weather as well as the sobriety and dignity of the event.

The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.

...filled with concrete, biblical advice for those serious about saving marriage.

Truth is, a woman gains nothing" by cohabitating before marriage, said journalist Michael McManus, author of "Marriage Savers: Helping Your Friends and Family Stay Married." Whatever their rationalizations, these women "are just being fools. ... Too many women today are allowing themselves to be used as playmates," he said.

Some church leaders, said McManus, have fallen silent on this issue because they no longer believe that sex outside of marriage is sin. Their silence is understandable. It is harder to understand the silence in so many congregations -- Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox -- that still affirm centuries of Judeo-Christian teachings on sexual morality.

"Our church will not knowingly marry anyone who is living together," says Michael McManus, a syndicated columnist who heads the Marriage Savers group.

One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

The problem springs from the failure of both Gallagher and McManus to disclose their government payments when writing about the Bush proposals. But one HHS critic says another dynamic has led to the controversy, and a blurring of ethical and journalistic lines: Horn and HHS are hiring advocates -- not scholars -- from the pro-marriage movement. "They're ideological sympathizers who propagandize," says Tim Casey, attorney for Legal Momentum, a women's rights organization. He describes McManus as being a member of the "extreme religious right."

--With Dutch Muslim extremists threatening her life, Somali-born Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali dove into hiding last November.

Days earlier, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh had been ritually slaughtered in Amsterdam by extremists angered by his film, "Submission," about the abuse of Muslim women. Hirsi Ali, who wrote the film, the killer declared, would be next.

Now, two months later, she has returned to work, resuming her role as a beacon of hope for thousands of Dutch Muslim women. For in the shadows of the famously tolerant and peaceful Netherlands has long lurked a secret it took Hirsi Ali's courage to lay bare: Honor killings.

Because these killings long were kept hidden and unspoken in the Muslim community, the actual number of such murders that occur in Holland every year is unknown, though Hirsi Ali believes it could be as many as 50, possibly more. While Muslims account for less than 6 percent of the Dutch population, Muslim women are 60 percent of those in battered women's shelters. The government was reluctant to talk about the situation, Hirsi Ali says, because they believed tolerance required respecting different cultures and traditions.

CNN founder Ted Turner, never shy about speaking his mind, has compared the ascent of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News to the rise of Adolf Hitler before the second world war.

"Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany than the people who ran against him," he told a conference of programming executives in Las Vegas.

"Just because you are bigger doesn't mean to say you are right," he added. In a typically pugnacious speech, the 67-year-old billionaire also told the audience at the Natpe programme sales market that Fox had become a propaganda tool for the Bush administration.

"There's nothing wrong with that," he said. "It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down, leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff. We need to know what's going on in the world. A little less Hollywood and a little more hard news would probably be good for our society."

Fox hit back in equally confrontational style. "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network, and now his mind," a Fox News spokesman said.

The threshold question is, will Congress -- is Congress willing to say we have a problem. We do have a problem. The math shows we have a problem. And now is the time to act on the problem. And once people realize there's a problem, then I believe there's an obligation for all sides to bring forth ideas. And that's what you're seeing with Chairman Thomas. And I appreciate that. I'm looking forward to my visit with him this afternoon.
(Bolds mine.)

In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.

"The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples" and "educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage," she wrote in National Review Online, for example, adding that this could "carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children."

But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal. Her work under the contract, which ran from January through October 2002, included drafting a magazine article for the HHS official overseeing the initiative, writing brochures for the program and conducting a briefing for department officials.

"Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it?" Gallagher said yesterday. "I don't know. You tell me." She said she would have "been happy to tell anyone who called me" about the contract but that "frankly, it never occurred to me" to disclose it.

Later in the day, Gallagher filed a column in which she said that "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers."

for writing a report, titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?", for a private organization called the National Fatherhood Initiative. That report, published last year, was funded by a Justice Department grant, said NFI spokesman Vincent DiCaro. Gallagher said she was "aware vaguely" that her work was federally funded.

In columns, television appearances and interviews with such newspapers as The Washington Post, Gallagher last year defended Bush's proposal for a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage.

Wade Horn, HHS assistant secretary for children and families, said his division hired Gallagher as "a well-known national expert," along with other specialists in the field, to help devise the president's healthy marriage initiative. "It's not unusual in the federal government to do that," he said.

Why has social work, as a profession, been so uniquely deaf to the cries of children hungering for absent fathers, or to the social science evidence that generally support intact marriages as important for child well-being?

Thirty-one U.S. troops died in a helicopter crash in Iraq and five more were killed in insurgent attacks Wednesday, the deadliest day for American forces since they invaded the country 22 months ago.

Rebels waging a campaign to wreck Sunday's landmark elections, a cornerstone of U.S. policy, also killed 25 Iraqis in a string of suicide bombings and raids.

A group led by al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which has been behind most of the worst attacks in the run-up to the ballot, warned voters to stay away from the "infidel election centers."

It said they would have only themselves to blame for the consequences if they voted. President Bush urged Iraqis to "defy the terrorists" and go to the polls in large numbers.

Iraq's Shi'ites strongly support the elections. A list of candidates dominated by Shi'ite Islamists and drawn up with the guidance of revered cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is expected to win the most votes, cementing their newfound political power.

Women could be allowed to ascend Japan's imperial throne under plans discussed yesterday by a commission set up to consider the succession crisis bedevilling one of the world's oldest monarchies.

The government-appointed team will report to the prime minister by autumn.

No boys have been born into the imperial family for 39 years and Princess Masako, the 41-year-old wife of Prince Naruhito, the heir to the chrysanthemum throne, is ill after a year-long battle with depression. If the succession laws change, the couple's only child, Princess Aiko, three, could become Japan's first reigning empress for more than 200 years.

WILLIAMS: I do listen to Rush. I listen to it from a radio in my office, or depending on my day, if I'm in the car, I will listen to Rush. And he will tell you I've been listening for years. I think it's my duty to listen to Rush. I think Rush has actually yet to get the credit he is due, because his audience for so many years felt they were in the wilderness of this country. No one was talking to them.

[...]

Rush said to millions of Americans, you have a home. Come with me. For three hours a day you can listen and hear the like-minded calling in from across the country, and I'll read to you things perhaps you didn't see that are out there. I think Rush gave birth to the FOX News Channel. I think Rush helped to give birth to a movement. I think he played his part in the Contract with America. So I hope he gets his due as a broadcaster.

* compared U.S. guards' torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison to a fraternity prank, saying the guards were "having a good time," "blow[ing] some steam off" [May 5, 2004];
* claimed that women "actually wish" for sexual harassment, and said he "laughed [him]self to tears" when Media Matters for America documented that remark and other sexist remarks he has made [April 26, 2004; May 5, 2004];
* said: "Hugo, Cesar -- whatever. A Chavez is a Chavez. We've always had problems with them." [March 26, 2004];
* stated, when African American Reverend Jesse Jackson joined Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign: "The Kerry campaign has finally gotten a chocolate chip"; University of Maryland political science professor Ronald Walters described Limbaugh's comment as a "backhanded racist remark" [September 29, 2004];
* said: "John Kerry really doesn't think 3,000 Americans dead in one day is that big a deal" [October 11, 2004]; and
* said Democrats believe "the more deaths in Iraq the better" [December 9, 2004].

On right-wing media outlets like Fox News, personal tales of victimization -- by "liberal elites," professional academics and Hollywood libertines -- abound. Witness the many network news segments that have profiled Christian teens "shut out" of their high schools, unable to conduct public prayer meetings. Consider also the inevitable framing of stories about the pagans who tried to cut Christmas out of the holidays. The right spins these stories, making big agenda issues absolutely personal, and garnering empathy for presumed victims. It does this even though -- as Jon Stewart pointed out on his talk show recently -- the right already controls all wings of government and is powerful in the most classic sense. The right uses these stories because they are effective.

One public figure understands the power of a sympathetic story. And while many lefties reading this are likely to roll their eyes at the mention of Oprah Winfrey, there's no question that she gets results -- she changes minds, skillfully encouraging her viewers to root for the underdog. In one recent example, a charismatic, eminently likable gay man had just experienced unfathomable loss. In relating his ongoing story, Winfrey made gay relationships understandable to the kinds of Middle Americans who voted against gay marriage initiatives.

The show was about Nate Berkus. (For blue-staters unfamiliar with Berkus, he's a telegenic designer with all-American good looks who appears regularly on Winfrey's home design segments. Her viewers love him -- and his window treatments.) Berkus had been vacationing in Sri Lanka when the tsunami struck, and his partner, Fernando Bengoechea, has been missing since the event and is presumed dead.

Winfrey introduced Berkus, speaking directly to the camera. "For the millions of you at home who've come to know Nate as the sweet, talented cutie-pie with the great big heart," she said, "you should know that he and I have read your letters ... You will never know the depth of comfort those prayers and letters have brought to him and his partner Fernando, who is still missing. [They] are literally lifting Nate up."

As the show went on, Winfrey talked with Berkus about the couple's last minutes together and about how Berkus had managed to survive. She brought others onstage who had met him in the disaster's immediate aftermath, and interviewed his mother and his partner's brother and sister-in-law. Winfrey then urged viewers to give to her Angel Network on behalf of tsunami relief organizations.

Stories like this can convince red-state America that gay and lesbian relationships are equal to straight ones -- the central concept in the argument for gay marriage. Such stories do cause people, in Diamond's words, to replace their previously held values with new ones. Consider these sympathetic responses posted on Oprah's message board regarding Berkus:

Sharon C. of Carrollton, Texas, wrote, "Nate, may God be with you at this hard time. I pray that you will find your friend." Another post said, "You are in my thoughts daily and I pray for the return of Fernando."

DeJane Stephenson, from Kansas City, Mo., wrote, "I know there is no room for joyfulness now, and I pray deeply that God will give you his grace and return Fernando to you. I pray for you and all with you. I pray for your parents and family, and for the Bengoechea family as well. I am so very sorry for your suffering and waiting. God bless to you Nate. God bless to all the children who have lost all of those they love. May angels wait beside you."

Map reading and parking may prove difficult for some women because they were exposed to too little testosterone in the womb, researchers suggest.

The study, in the journal Intelligence, fuels the age-old male myth that women are deficient in these skills.

Scientists from the University of Giessen, Germany, found a lack of the hormone affects spatial ability.

Low testosterone levels are also linked to shorter wedding ring fingers, they say.

The research looked at the spatial, numerical and verbal skills of 40 student volunteers.

Spatial skill is the ability to assess and orientate shapes and spaces. Map reading and parking are spatial skills which men often say women lack. Women tend to disagree.

The researchers also looked at the length of the students' wedding and index fingers.

In women, the two fingers are usually almost equal in length, as measured from the crease nearest the palm to the fingertip. In men, the ring finger tends to be much longer than the index.

For one of the spatial tests, volunteers had to tell which of five drawings could not be rotated so it looked like the other four.

The other test involved the ability to think in 3D by mentally "unfolding" a complex shape.

Overall, men achieved higher scores in the tests than women.

But women with the male pattern of finger length did better than those whose wedding finger was shorter.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you something else you said at the National Journal Forum that raised some eyebrows: "Women are living longer relative to men today than they were in 1940. Yet, we never ever have debated gender-adjusting Social Security. ...But, at some point if the age difference continues to separate and more women are in the workforce and you have more of an equality of pay structure in the workforce, at some point somebody might want to suggest that we need to take a look at the question of whether or not actuarially we ought to adjust who gets what, when, and how."

A gender adjustment--what does that mean?

REP. THOMAS: Well, it was one of my ways of getting people to focus on the issue of age. To move from 65 to 68, which we did in 1983, was a benefit cut. But it also creates hardships based upon the occupation that you have, and it creates inequities on who you are and how long you live. You could just as easily have a discussion about occupations as to when would be a fair or an unfair time to require. We also need to examine, frankly, Tim, the question of race in terms of how many years of retirement do you get based upon your race? And you ought not to just leave gender off the table because that would be a factor.

The top nominees will be listed in March, with Discovery planning a seven-hour, four-night series in the spring about the leading vote-getters and the winner.

The first episode will air in May and will profile a selection from the top 100 nominees. The list will be pared down by further online voting, with the No. 1 choice profiled on the final episode in June.

Pinker appear to imply that economists haven't studied the gender gap or sex discrimination using proper econometric techniques such as multiple regression analysis. But in fact there is an extensive field of research of just this kind, easily accessible in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of Labor Economics and The Journal of Human Resources. I am a little surprised that he didn't place more reliance on this source material, but rather chose to focus on research done by right-wing think tanks. Politically motivated research, both from the left and the right, has an advocacy role and is rarely subject to the same quality guarantees as peer-reviewed research.

A good basic summary of the actual economic research done on some of the issues he addresses is in Joyce Jacobsen's text The Economics of Gender or alternatively in selected chapters of almost any textbook on labor economics, for example Bruce Kaufman's The Economics of Labor Markets.


I'd like to discuss three examples in Pinker's chapter on gender which are problematically interpreted due to insufficient economic sources. The first concerns the IWF study it refers to which found the salaries of men and women in one age group to be practically equal, the second concerns the question why more male than female physicians are independent entrepreneurs and the third the use of the term 'choice' in the context of women's occupational choices.

The IWF stands for the Independent Women's Forum, a conservative group. The IWF study is an empirical study of the wage gap which found that women and men at the beginning of their careers earned essentially the same salaries in the same jobs, and that differences in salary appeared later in the career paths of the individuals. The IWF interprets these findings to mean that the firms in the study do not discriminate on the basis of sex, for they appear not to be doing so with their new hires. That women's earnings lag later in this career the IWF sees as proof that these differences are caused by women's different choices, especially that of choosing to take time from work to have children.

This is one possible interpretation, and Pinker whole-heartedly accepts it. But economists have known for a long time that entry level salaries (which the salaries in the IWF study are) rarely show much difference between women and men or workers of different races, partly because the Equal Pay Act makes paying different amounts for the same work illegal. It is later in the workers' careers that the differences appear. What this means in theory is not always clear. One possibility is that workers reveal true productivity differences over time and are rewarded accordingly. Another for male-female comparisons is that women's greater domestic responsibilities make their labor market participation more sporadic which, in turn, affects their long-term earnings prospects negatively due to, for example, lower probabilities of promotion. Yet another one is that employers who want to discriminate are able to do it only through promotion and other placement decisions (because of the Equal Pay Act and other legislation hampering differential treatment of workers in the same jobs). (The combination of near equal starting salaries and later discrimination is called the Lazear effect.) Empirical research has tried to disentangle these effects from each other in a long list of studies. Some support has been found for all of them.

Pinker uses the statistical fact that male physicians are more likely to be entrepreneurs as evidence of a (possibly innate?) sex difference in risk-taking behavior. This should be interpreted much more carefully, given that recent changes in the US health care sector have made entrepreneurship very unattractive for most physicians. The majority of physicians who are entrepreneurs began their practise some time ago, at a time when few women entered medicine. Both women and men graduating today are much more likely to become salaried workers than entrepreneurs, simply because of the way health care is now financed.

Even more generally, differences in women's and men's entrepreneurship rates can't be assumed to reflect only sex differences in risk-taking behavior without first controlling for other factors which are relevant. These include women's traditionally much more limited access to the financial capital that is needed for starting a firm and women's greater responsibility for caring for children. The latter factor might make women more likely to be salaried workers in order to benefit from shorter and regular working hours, or it might make them more likely to be entrepreneurs in order to benefit from the flexibility of the owner's power in setting hours of work.

In fact, women's general rates of entrepreneurialism are rapidly rising in the United States.

As Pinker points out, it is indeed true that women might choose the traditionally female occupations which also traditionally pay less. It is equally true that women might not do so, but instead are constrained from choosing alternative better paying occupations due to various barriers to entry (such as potential for sexual harassment in traditionally male blue-collar occupations). It is incorrect to assume that the first possibility is true without first presenting the empirical evidence that is supposed to support it.

Moreover, Pinker's (and the IWF's) meaning of the term 'choice' needs to be clarified. Most economists assume that if women indeed do choose such jobs they do it at least partially because traditionally female occupations tend to provide the flexibility required to combine caring for children with paid work. So the 'choice' here is not a societally unimportant one (say, like choosing chocolate ice cream over vanilla) and benefits not only the woman's family but the wider society. The costs, however, tend to fall squarely on her and her family alone.

Pinker argues that the reason why so few women choose, say, engineering may be in women's lesser desire for such a career. It is not clear to me why this desire can't be affected by environment as well as genes. During the Afghanistan war, several interviews with young Afghan schoolgirls were broadcast and the interviewees were routinely asked about their career dreams. I was surprised to find that engineering was mentioned almost as often as medicine by these girls. It is unlikely that Afghan girls would have different innate desires from those held by American girls. What is different is probably the cultural emphasis, i.e. we all learn what is expected from us by our culture or religion.

It is not the existence of the gender gap which makes women uncomfortable with the discussion of innate sexual differences, but the fact that such differences, whether real or imaginary, have often been used to restrict women's opportunities on an apriori basis. The history of psychology and medicine are full of examples of this. Because of the possible dire consequences of biased research in this area it seems to me especially important that the source materials one uses are not selected to represent just one point of view.

Washington these days feels a little like Moscow in Soviet times when the government routinely dispensed information to the public and the public routinely didn't believe it. The two main newspapers were the Communist Party organ, Pravda, (Truth) and the Soviet government organ, Izvestiya (News). People used to say, "There is no Izvestiya in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestiya."
...
...who can believe TV news reports when they may turn out to be government-financed videos? Have you ever seen the report on the drug benefits of the Bush Medicare act that ran on 40 local TV stations, complete with the "out-cue": "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting"? The Department of Health and Human Services paid her to play the role of reporter. Or, did you see the report on the antidrug campaign produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, narrated by nonjournalist Mike Morris?

"If they posses the necessary qualifications, women can also run for president," the television quoted Guardian Council spokesman Gholamhossein Elham as saying.

The announcement clears up ambiguities within the constitution about whether only men can hold the post. Under Iran's constitution, the president must be elected from among political "rijal." Rijal is an Arabic word that can be interpreted as men or simply political personalities regardless of their gender.

Iran has denied allowing women to take part in this year's presidential elections.
...
However Elham told a state-run news agency, ISNA, "I have not changed the meaning of the word rejal".

"I never had an interview on such a subject on television, and the article published is not correct", he said.

Offering one prayer, the Rev. Billy Graham said he believed God had a hand in Bush's re-election.

"Their next four years are hidden from us, but they are not hidden from you," said the 86-year-old evangelist, whom Bush credits with inspiring him to reaffirm his faith and give up drinking at age 40. "You know the challenges and opportunities they will face. Give them a clear mind, a warm heart, calmness in the midst of turmoil, reassurance in times of discouragement and your presence always."

You see, the sign shown in this picture is the way to greet Satan in Norway and maybe even more widely:

President Bush's "Hook 'em, 'horns" salute got lost in translation in Norway, where shocked people interpreted his hand gesture during his inauguration as a salute to Satan.

That's what it means in the Nordics when you throw up the right hand with the index and pinky fingers raised, a gesture popular among heavy metal groups and their fans in the region.

For an occasion draped in historical fanfare, and for television talking heads who have filled the programming day discussing history again and again, there's been glaringly little attention paid to one momentous fact: President Bush's historically low approval ratings. Bush is struggling to hit even the 50 percent mark. The latest New York Times/CBS poll out today puts Bush's rating at 49 percent, marking his standing the flimsiest for any president on Inauguration Day, at least since modern presidential polling began nearly 80 years ago. But shhhh, don't tell the Beltway talking heads.

Forced to fill up hour after hour of dead air leading up to Bush's actual swearing in, anchors, reporters, guests and analysts on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and MSNBC all politely shied away from the topic of Bush's dismal ratings. Over the course of four hours of continuous inauguration coverage from 8 a.m. to noon (collectively, that's 24 hours among the six outlets), the topic of the president's (historically poor) approval ratings came up exactly four times, according to TVEyes.com, the continuous television monitoring service.

Be Genuine . . . Be You!
Guys don't like a tease. They hate to be led on. But they do like a good game of chase. Knowing how to be pursued, protected by personal convictions, centered in an awesome relationship with Jesus Christ, will provide the energy and motivation for you to keep living a life that pleases God.

So when that guy from across the room sets his sights on you, be sure that you're a moving target. And always be moving in a spirit of love and concern, ever closer to God

The woman once known as "Jane Roe" has asked the supreme court to overturn its landmark decision that legalised abortion 32 years ago.

Norma McCorvey, whose protest against the abortion ban in Texas led to the 1973 ruling, now contends in a petition to the court that the case should be heard again in light of evidence that the procedure may harm women.

"Now we know so much more, and I plead with the court to listen for witnesses and re-evaluate Roe v Wade," said McCorvey, who says she regrets her role in the case.

...in a strongly worded concurrence, the 5th US circuit court of appeals judge Edith Jones criticised the abortion ruling and said new medical evidence may well show undue harm to a mother and her foetus.

Jones criticized the United States Supreme Court during the Chief Justice Earl Warren era for its lack of prudence, citing cases that created, what Bickel called, a "web of subjectivity" and led to a "national litigation explosion." Jones added that, while America is still the most religious society in the western world, it has been forced to deal with the unrepresentative secularity of the Supreme Court over the years. Still, the Supreme Court has acted prudently in certain cases, and the struggle to maintain judicial prudence is an ongoing fight where victory is elusive, Jones allowed.

The Ways and Means chairman said the entry of more women into the workforce and the narrowing of the gap between men's and women's salaries — at a time when the gap between women's and men's longevity is increasing — meant that Congress should consider whether men and women should get equal Social Security benefits. He did not say whether women's benefits should be adjusted up or down.

"At some point, somebody might want to suggest that we need to take a look at the question of whether or not actuarially we ought to adjust who gets what, when, and how," Thomas said

"Cult of Victimization"

Echidne of the Snakes states in her book, /Conservatives and Domination:
Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression/, that "Conservative
consciousness is the consciousness of victimization...to come to see
oneself as a victim" (pg 15). Nowhere is this assumption of ideological
victimization stronger than on college campuses. The self-definition of
victimhood, in all of its myriad forms, is a foundation in the majority
of College Republican chapters -- where it is actively encouraged and
nurtured.

We feel that the "victim" mindset has no place in your college
education.

Simply stated, victimhood -- in any manifestation-- is dysfunctional.
Remember "dysfunctional" literally means: It doesn't work. When it
comes
to finding a strategy, you want something that works to prevent you from
having a poor college education. Victimhood justifies your actions after
you have failed this first task.

By starting out with the assumption that a conservative student is a
victim, right-wing activists create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead
of encouraging healthy change, (e.g. assertiveness as opposed to
critical thought, social skills instead of anger, personal
responsibility as opposed to blame and empathy instead of emphasis on
self) such claptrap often enable the tenets of victimhood and combines
them with anger, self-righteousness and an intellectually vapid learning
experience. Complaining about “liberal bias” encourages existing
dysfunctional, uncritical and selfish behaviors in conservative students
by giving them confidence that their intellectual skills will protect
them from the backlash of said behaviors. We will go so far to say that
these programs seek to create a "super-victim" who is seeking revenge
--
not prevention.

What you get is /not an effective or functional way to obtain a sound
education./

In fact, the resulting over-confidence, absence of critical thought and
lack of social skills put the conservative students more at risk. Not
only will they be stigmatized by the majority of thinking people, but
they are now risking infuriating a truly intelligent and hostile
liberal. Such a liberal might not just stop at critiquing their
arguments. He or she is, in fact, more likely to engage in mocking them
and subverting their language. Unfortunately, conservative students’
banishment from the mainstream of society will more than likely put them
into a "fringe social area" -- where this kind of predators lurks!

In our minds, the ideology of victimization is a dead end street. It is
predicated on the assumption that you have already lost and have no
power. You the reader must make a decision right now, and that is: Are
you willing to take responsibility for your actions and, by
acknowledging that you do have a degree of power and control over what
happens to you, prevent yourself from receiving a poor education?

Believe us when we say this is not the kind of question you will hear in
most chapters of the College Republicans.

Summers' third point was about discrimination. Referencing a well-known concept in economics, he said that if discrimination was the main factor limiting the advancement of women in science and engineering, then a school that does not discriminate would gain an advantage by hiring away the top women who were discriminated against elsewhere.

Because that doesn't seem to be a widespread phenomenon, Summers said, ''the real issue is the overall size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was held down by discrimination."

A senior State Department official has notified the Taipei Times that he will no longer speak to the newspaper's Washington correspondent in retaliation for a Times editorial on Monday which called Powell a "sorry wreck of a once principled man."

This reporter received a call on Monday from Randall Schriver, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in charge of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong affairs, complaining about the editorial and saying that he would no longer speak to the newspaper because of it.

Schriver said that the administration does not take issue with newspapers that disagree with the administration's policy, but he said the description of Powell went too far.

It was not clear whether Schriver was speaking for himself or for the administration.

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.
...
He offered three possible explanations, in declining order of importance, for the small number of women in high-level positions in science and engineering. The first was the reluctance or inability of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks.

The second point was that fewer girls than boys have top scores on science and math tests in late high school years. ''I said no one really understands why this is, and it's an area of ferment in social science," Summers said in an interview Saturday. ''Research in behavioral genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialization weren't" due to socialization after all.

This was the point that most angered some of the listeners, several of whom said Summers said that women do not have the same ''innate ability" or ''natural ability" as men in some fields.

Asked about this, Summers said, ''It's possible I made some reference to innate differences. . . I did say that you have to be careful in attributing things to socialization. . . That's what we would prefer to believe, but these are things that need to be studied."

Summers said cutting-edge research has shown that genetics are more important than previously thought, compared with environment or upbringing. As an example, he mentioned autism, once believed to be a result of parenting but now widely seen to have a genetic basis.

In his talk, according to several participants, Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them ''daddy truck," and one ''baby truck."
...
Summers' third point was about discrimination. Referencing a well-known concept in economics, he said that if discrimination was the main factor limiting the advancement of women in science and engineering, then a school that does not discriminate would gain an advantage by hiring away the top women who were discriminated against elsewhere.

Because that doesn't seem to be a widespread phenomenon, Summers said, ''the real issue is the overall size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was held down by discrimination."

The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer. Much of the focus is on the accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites, both declared and suspected. The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids. "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible," the government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told me.

Some of the missions involve extraordinary coöperation. For example, the former high-level intelligence official told me that an American commando task force has been set up in South Asia and is now working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had dealt with Iranian counterparts. (In 2003, the I.A.E.A. disclosed that Iran had been secretly receiving nuclear technology from Pakistan for more than a decade, and had withheld that information from inspectors.) The American task force, aided by the information from Pakistan, has been penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground installations. The task-force members, or their locally recruited agents, secreted remote detection devices—known as sniffers—capable of sampling the atmosphere for radioactive emissions and other evidence of nuclear-enrichment programs.

"The planning for Iran is going ahead even though Iraq is a mess," Hersh said. "I think they really think there's a chance to do something in Iran, perhaps by summer, to get the intelligence on the sites."

He added, "The guys on the inside really want to do this."

Hersh identified those inside people as the "neoconservative" civilian leadership in the Pentagon. That includes Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith -- "the sort of war hawks that we talk about in connection with the war in Iraq."

And he said the preparation goes beyond contingency planning and includes detailed plans for air attacks:

"The next step is Iran. It's definitely there. They're definitely planning ... But they need the intelligence first."

The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls "action teams" in the target countries overseas which can be used to find and eliminate terrorist organizations. "Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?" the former high-level intelligence official asked me, referring to the military-led gangs that committed atrocities in the early nineteen-eighties. "We founded them and we financed them," he said. "The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren't going to tell Congress about it." A former military officer, who has knowledge of the Pentagon's commando capabilities, said, "We're going to be riding with the bad boys."

And at home, reform systems that will say that we have recognized we've got problems for future generations that we intend to deal with. One is Social Security, one is the tax system. As well, I'm mindful of the twin deficits we face. The fiscal deficit -- we will address the fiscal deficit in two ways: one, by submitting a budget that will continue to keep the pledge of cutting the deficit in half by five years, and secondly, addressing some of the unfunded liabilities inherent in the fiscal budget.

I'm taking on three issues: asbestos reform, class action and medical liability reform

The Social Security issue is an interesting issue when it comes to African Americans. After all, the life expectancy of African American males is a lot less than other groups and, therefore, if you really think about that, you have people putting money in the system that aren't -- families won't benefit from the system. And, therefore, it seems to me to make sense, if I were a part of a group of people that were being disadvantaged by the Social Security system, that I'd at least like to have the opportunity to have some of the money I put in the system passable to my family.

O'REILLY: No, but you're not going to lose credibility if you smear people. People like to read smear stuff.

Men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses, new research suggests. Psychologists at the University of Michigan found that men seeking long-term relationship prefer women in subordinate jobs, rather than women above them on the corporate ladder.

The findings, she says, reflect males' evolutionary need for mates who don't pose the specter of "paternal uncertainty". Men may consider subordinate women less likely to cheat on them, Brown explains, and "female infidelity is a severe reproductive threat to males in long-term relationships."

WKVT-AM 1490 in Brattleboro will replace four of its weekday syndicated conservative talk shows on Jan. 17 with programs from the fledgling liberal radio network Air America, which launched in March.

The station will be the second in Vermont to broadcast Air America programs, which include shows hosted by comedian Al Franken and actress Jeanne Garofalo.

The Brattleboro area is highly liberal in its political beliefs and the Air America shows will be a better fit for the station's listeners than the conservative programs hosted by Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, said WKVT program director Peter Case.

"We're calling this a right-to-left switch," he said. "For many years, our programming leaned to the right, but Brattleboro is a very liberal area and our lineup had to reflect that."

A Virginia-based missionary group said this week that it has airlifted 300 "tsunami orphans" from the Muslim province of Banda Aceh to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where it plans to raise them in a Christian children's home.

The missionary group, WorldHelp, is one of dozens of Christian, Muslim and Jewish charities providing humanitarian relief to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian Ocean, taking more than 150,000 lives.

Most of the religious charities do not attach any conditions to their aid, and many of the larger ones -- such as WorldVision, Catholic Relief Services and Church World Service -- have policies against proselytizing. But a few of the smaller groups have been raising money among evangelical Christians by presenting the tsunami emergency effort as a rare opportunity to make converts in hard-to-reach areas.

"Normally, Banda Aceh is closed to foreigners and closed to the gospel. But, because of this catastrophe, our partners there are earning the right to be heard and providing entrance for the gospel," WorldHelp said in an appeal for funds on its Web site this week.

The appeal said WorldHelp was working with native-born Christians in Indonesia who want to "plant Christian principles as early as possible" in the 300 Muslim children, all younger than 12, who lost their parents in the tsunami.

"These children are homeless, destitute, traumatized, orphaned, with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. If we can place them in a Christian children's home, their faith in Christ could become the foothold to reach the Aceh people," it said.

Jan. 13, 2005 | Washington -- A member of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday the agency should investigate whether conservative commentator Armstrong Williams broke the law by failing to disclose that the Bush administration paid him $240,000 to plug its education policies.

Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat, said the agency has received about a dozen complaints against Williams.

"I certainly hope the FCC will take action and fully investigate whether any laws have been broken," Adelstein said at the commission's regular monthly meeting.

None of the other commissioners responded to his statement during the meeting. Afterward, both FCC Chairman Michael Powell, a Republican, and David Solomon, who heads the agency's enforcement bureau, declined to comment.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the removal of stickers placed in high school biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact," saying they were an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

The disclaimers were put in the books by school officials in suburban Cobb County in 2002.

"Adopted by the school board, funded by the money of taxpayers, and inserted by school personnel, the sticker conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others they are political insiders," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said in his 44-page ruling.

Six parents of students and the American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the stickers in court, arguing they violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

Mr. Bush told editors and reporters of The Washington Times yesterday in an interview in the Oval Office that many in the public misunderstand the role of faith in his life and his view of the proper relationship between religion and the government.
"I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person," Mr. Bush said. "I've never said that. I've never acted like that. I think that's just the way it is.

Mr. Bush said he has "still got a rigorous agenda" for his faith-based initiative.
The federal government has funneled "about $1.2 billion" to religious groups so far, the president said, and he hopes to improve on that in the next four years.
"What we are going to do in the second term is to make sure that the grant money is available for faith communities to bid on, to make sure these faith-based offices are staffed and open," Mr. Bush said. "But the key thing is, is that we do have the capacity to allow faith programs to access enormous sums of social service money, which I think is important."

Today's Action, courtesy of Care2 is to contact the FDA and insist that they allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill. The FDA has until next Thursday,
January 20 to decide to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-
after pill, Plan B®. The FDA has already found such medication to be safe and effective, and the FDA's own advisors overwhelmingly recommended approving the application.

Yet,on May 6, 2004 the FDA caved in to right-wing
pressure and denied the application. Will the FDA do the right thing
this time and help women prevent unintended pregnancy? Or will
politics prevail again? Your voice matters.

You can contact the FDA at http://www.fda.gov/cder/comment.htm .

This past Sunday, the Eastside Women's Health Clinic in Washington State was set on fire. Among other health services, the clinic provides abortions and so been picketed for twenty years by those opposed to reproductive rights. The investigating agencies have all agreed it was arson, yet amazingly after only a few days and before any suspects are named, they are dismissing it as a "random act." The FBI has even withdrawn from the investigation.

Imagine if this was, for example, an office of Focus on the Family which had been firebombed. The right would be screaming, screaming, about domestic terrorism and the evil liberal agenda. It would be front page news all over the "liberal media." Yet when a healthcare clinic which was an advocate of reproductive rights and has been a target of the right for more than twenty years was firebombed, the FBI and other investigating agencies are quick to dismiss it as random and the media barely gives it a second look? Give me a break.

President Bush administration is backing Uganda's policy on AIDS prevention, called ABC, which stands for abstinence, being faithful and condom use. But at international conferences the United States puts the emphasis on abstinence rather than contraceptives, especially among single people.

"ABC is a good strategy, but it has three parts to it and we need to remind the administration of that," Clinton told the International Women's Health Coalition, which funds and helps women's health projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

"There are so many strategies that we know work and we are not yet fully committed in our government to implementing those strategies," she added.

Clinton noted the administration had cut funds to any organization that provided abortions or advocated counseling or legalization of abortion.

But she said that some 20 million women worldwide risked unsafe abortions every year and about 68,000 in poor countries die from the consequences of such unsafe procedures.

"So I hope we will do more to try to protect against these ill-thought-out policies by this administration," Clinton said...

"I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning ... despite that wonderful peace deal Madeline Albright negotiated with the North Koreans, six seconds before they feverishly began developing nuclear weapons. They're a major threat. I just think it would be fun to nuke them and have it be a warning to the rest of the world."

Nicollette Sheridan of TV's "Desperate Housewives" is the worst of the worst when it comes to wardrobe, according to Mr. Blackwell's annual list of fashion winners and losers.

"In barely-there bombs, she's a taste-free pain. Let's crown her the Tacky Temptress of Wisteria Lane," he wrote in a statement released Tuesday.

Lindsay Lohan was the next target of the acid-tongued critic, who called the starlet "over-hyped and under-dressed."

However, Blackwell gave kudos to "fabulous fashion independents" Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Barbara Walters, Kate Winslet, Annette Bening, Oprah Winfrey, Scarlett Johansson, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Garner and Sheridan's on-screen nemesis Teri Hatcher.

Washington, DC. Today, Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY-28), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Rules joined House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Henry Waxman and other members of the House Democratic leadership in calling for an immediate and thorough examination of departments and agencies under the Bush Administration into their use of covert propaganda.

Last week Rep. Slaughter sent a letter to the Chief Executives of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and TV ONE, demanding that their contracts with syndicated broadcaster Armstrong Williams be terminated immediately.

As reported in USA Today, Williams was allegedly paid $240,000 by the Bush Administration to discuss the No Child Left Behind program in a favorable light as a regular part of his radio and television broadcasts on stations owned by the two broadcast groups.

"The Armstrong Williams incident is a serious breach of the public trust. The American people deserve to know if there are more secret propaganda contracts being funded with their hard earned money," stated Slaughter.

Dozens of federal and local law enforcement agencies and military commands are planning what they describe as the heaviest possible security. Virtually everyone who gets within eyesight of the president either during the Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol or the inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue later in the day will first go through a metal detector or receive a body pat-down.

Thousands of police officers and military personnel are being brought to Washington from around the country for the four-day event. Sharpshooters will be deployed on roofs, while bomb-sniffing dogs will work the streets. Electronic sensors will be used to detect chemical or biological weapons.

Anti-abortion protesters have been warned to leave their crosses at home. Parade performers will have security escorts to the bathroom, and they've been ordered not to look directly at President Bush or make any sudden movements while passing the reviewing stand.

Unlike their mother, the twins opted not to go the subdued, covered-up route. "These are not shy-girl dresses," says James Mischka, who with his partner, Mark Badgley, designed a gown for each daughter. "They wanted to look sophisticated and glamorous but young at the same time." More Hollywood than Washington, Jenna Bush's figure-hugging sheath is emerald silk crepe, accented by jeweled insets and metallic leather banding. "It is very much a siren gown," Mischka says.

Featuring flowy, ruffled silk chiffon in aquamarine, Barbara Bush's gown for the Texas State Society's Black Tie & Boots ball has "more of a romantic feeling," says Mischka. "Sort of like the 1930s, but totally modern because of the bare back and the way the dress is cut" — down to there. Despite the plunging necklines, Mischka feels confident that this time around the twins are "not going to have any wardrobe malfunctions" as they Texas two-step. While dancing with her dad in 2001, Jenna experienced such a red-faced moment when her strapless dress dipped farther than intended.

But most of all, together, we have to rebuild the American community. We will never succeed by treating our nation as a collection of separate regions or separate groups. There are no red states or blues states, only American states. And we must talk to the people in all of these states as members of one community.

That word -- 'values' -- has lately become a codeword for appeasement of the right-wing fringe. But when political calculations make us soften our opposition to bigotry, or sign on to policies that add to the burden of ordinary Americans, we have abandoned our true values.

We cannot let that happen. And we cannot just mouth the words. Our party must speak plainly and our agenda must clearly reflect the socially progressive, fiscally responsible values that bring our party -- and the vast majority of Americans -- together.

With its towering dinosaurs and a model of the Grand Canyon, America's newest tourist attraction might look like the ideal destination for fans of the film Jurassic Park.

The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape by God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of evolution, as scientists insist.

The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs, built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are portrayed as existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific opinion that they lived millions of years apart.

Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah's Ark and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.

More controversial exhibits deal with diseases and famine, which are portrayed not as random disasters, but as the result of mankind's sin. Mr Ham's Answers in Genesis movement blames the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, on evolutionist teaching, claiming that the perpetrators believed in Darwin's survival of the fittest.

Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a "Bible Authority Room" visitors are warned: "Everyone who rejects his history – including six-day creation and Noah's flood – is `wilfully' ignorant.''

At the time, the battle over evolution had been raging throughout the country. It came to a head when 24-year-old teacher John Scopes challenged Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in the state's public schools and universities. His persecution set the stage for a legendary courtroom showdown that pit celebrated Chicago defense attorney Clarence Darrow against Williams Jennings Bryan, the crusading populist, fundamentalist and three-time presidential candidate.

Bryan, the nation's leading anti-evolutionist, made his case in populist terms. In his 1993 book "The Creationists," historian Ronald Numbers wrote, "Throughout his political career, Bryan had placed his faith in the common people, and he resented the attempt of a few thousand elitist scientists 'to establish an oligarchy over the forty million American Christians' to dictate what should be taught in the schools."

Bryan and his fellow Scopes prosecutors won their trial, but the national mockery that followed it did much to alienate conservative Christians from secular society, setting the stage for the culture wars of later decades. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Scopes trial, "Summer for the Gods," Edward Larson wrote about the birth of the right-wing religious counterculture in the wake of the Pyrrhic victory in Tennessee:

"Indeed, fundamentalism became a byword in American culture as a result of the Scopes trial, and fundamentalists responded by withdrawing. They did not abandon their faith, however, but set about constructing a separate subculture with independent religious, educational and social institutions."

Eventually, of course, the religious right emerged from its subculture to renew its attack on secularism. Today, cultural conservatives are mustering almost exactly the same arguments that Bryan made in Dayton 80 years ago.

"Biology," he said, was "laced with Darwinism." He wanted a book that balanced theories of evolution with Christian creationism, and he was willing to turn his town into a cultural battlefield to get it.

"This country wasn't founded on Muslim beliefs or evolution," Buckingham, a stocky, gray-haired man who wears a red, white and blue crucifix pin on his lapel, said at the meeting. "This country was founded on Christianity, and our students should be taught as such."

America's feminist leaders and their critics agree on at least one current political fact: These are daunting times for the women's movement as it braces for another term of an administration it desperately wanted to topple.
"The next four years are going to be tough, so we must be tougher," National Organization for Women (news - web sites) president Kim Gandy recently told supporters. "Our health, our rights, and our democracy are teetering on the brink."
NOW, the Feminist Majority Foundation and numerous like-minded groups campaigned zealously against President Bush (news - web sites), contending that his economic agenda would inflict disproportionate harm on women and that his potential judicial appointments could jeopardize abortion rights.
To the feminists' dismay, Bush not only won — but he sharply reduced the Democrats' "gender gap" edge among women voters. Republicans also increased their majorities in Congress; new GOP senators include several staunch foes of abortion.
Many of the conservative activists and organizations that cheered the GOP triumph — and now claim expanded influence in Washington — are stridently anti-feminist. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, for example, recently referred to NOW as "The National Order of Witches"

Bush, of course, can make a strong case that he respects women — his new Cabinet will likely have four, including Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, and women for years have been among his closest political and legal advisers.

Beyond Washington, meanwhile, women are making impressive professional gains — as big-city police chiefs and university presidents, for example. They now comprise roughly half the enrollment in U.S. medical schools. And though a wage gap persists, woman now earn 80 percent of what men do, compared to 62 percent in 1980.

To both journalism and blogging, credibility is essential. What are the areas of common ground shared by these very different approaches to handling news and information? Can journalists who also blog do their work without conflicting standards? Might bloggers adopt standards and a transparency that will elevate their credibility? Our purpose is to bring together a small group of smart and thoughtful people to ponder these and other related issues, which will result in a published report and - we hope - will mark the beginning of an on-going and very important dialogue.

With the internet, this arbiter function is lost. Every man [sic] can be his [sic] own I.F. Stone now. Stone used to say that you could always find the truth in the newspapers, but it would often be in a short paragraph on page sixteen. Most of the damage that bloggers do to the established media doesn't come from independent reporting, but from displacing the copy editors by highlighting stories the editors wanted to downplay.

On the right, the blogosphere has been incorporated into their message machine. (Indeed, the political blogosphere was really invented by a guy named Drudge, wasn't it?) They feed and are fed, without explicit direction. They know what they are supposed to say and it filters up down and around talk radio, cable news and into the mainstream. We all know how it works. This is why only a right wing freelance political blogger was invited to the conference --- the mainstream of both political parties are really only aware of the bloggers who have been pushed to the forefront by the Mighty Wurlitzer. Just as they are only aware of ... so many things that have been pushed to the forefront by the Mighty Wurlitzer. It's the essence of our political weakness.

People who promote Judith Miller, but fire Robert Parry, really need to shut up about credibility. "Credibility" is just the conventional wisdom -- if you disagree with it, you're not credible. (Scott Ritter knew as much about the facts of Iraqi WMD as anyone did, and he was right when almost everyone else was wrong, but do you see him on TV any more, or read him in the NYT? No. Not credible.)

The quality, capability, or power to elicit belief: "America's credibility must not be squandered, especially by its leaders" (Henry A. Kissinger).

n : the quality of being believable or trustworthy

Bush quoted all the numbers for the tsunami in speeches this week: 150,000 lives lost, including 90,000 in Indonesia; perhaps 5 million homeless; millions vulnerable to disease. That stands in hypocritical contrast to the refusal to count the Iraqi civilians killed in his invasion over false claims of weapons of mass destruction and the crime-ridden chaos of an occupation that did not plan on an "insurgency."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Iraqi commander Tommy Franks both said, "We don't do body counts." Then, right in our faces, Powell said civilian casualty figures were "relatively low." Central Command spokesman Pete Mitchell hailed the invasion for its "unbelievably low amount of collateral damage and needless civilian death." Paul Bremer, Bush's former civilian reconstruction envoy, said, "We have freed people with one of the great military battles of all time, in a period of three weeks, with almost no collateral damage, very few civilian deaths, and they are now free."
The White House left the counting to journalists, doctors, think tanks, and human rights groups. The numbers range from conservative guesses of 3,200 in the first few weeks of the war and occupation estimates ranging from 15,000 to 100,000. No matter if the number was 3,200 or 32,000, this atrocity of silence makes the torture in Abu Ghraib pale in comparison.

The two traditional American values that I think -- that I know -- have to be discarded are, first, unbridled consumerism resulting from our sense of being in a land of unlimited resources. Historically the United States has viewed itself as the land of infinite bounty, endless fields of grain. But now we're in a world that does not have unlimited resources, and we have to come to grips with that.

And the other long-held American value is the value derived from the United States' relative isolation. George Washington in his farewell address warned Americans about the danger of entangling alliances, and for a couple of hundred years the United States was able to function well because we were separated by oceans from any country that might damage us. But now the oceans don't separate us from countries that could damage us. Now, even desperately poor countries like Afghanistan and Iraq can raise absolute hell with our economy -- as well as killing a few thousand people in the process. So the other long-held value with which we have to come to grips is our sense of isolation. We're not isolated anymore. We have to engage with the rest of the world -- not in order to be charitable to them but for our own self-interest. It's much cheaper to put a few tens of billions of dollars into world programs for public health and environment than to throw $150 billion into Iraq and $100 billion into Afghanistan, when there are about 20 other countries waiting to become the next Iraq and Afghanistan. We can't afford it.

U.N. peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo exchanged eggs, bread and a few dollars for sex with girls they were meant to protect, the United Nations watchdog agency has said.
Soldiers would regularly have sex with girls as young as 13 in rundown shelters, in the bush near the military camps and on the bare ground behind buildings usually just after dark, a report from the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight (OIOS) said Friday.
Many of the girls were raped and had lost their families in a recent civil war, the report said. Forced to support themselves, they were desperate for food and money.

The U.N. can punish its civilian staff but military personnel fall under the jurisdiction of their own countries. It can only ask the host country to repatriate accused soldiers and punish them at home.

The OIOS report stated it had planned to name the countries whose troops were guilty of sexual abuse but the U.N.'s Department of Peacekeeping Operations prevented it.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations said he would not "name and shame" the nationalities as it could jeopardize cooperation from countries which contribute troops to peacekeeping missions.

Sources familiar with the investigation said allegations have been made against soldiers from South Africa, Uruguay, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia and Nepal.

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.
Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

A pro-family group is accusing homosexual activists of using popular children's TV characters to indoctrinate young children into their lifestyle. Specifically, the group is questioning the intention of a new children's video featuring those characters.

SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney the Dinosaur, Arthur, Dora the Explorer, JoJo, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Big Bird, Bob the Builder -- those and many others are among the characters starring in a music video remake of the 1970s song "We Are Family" that is designed to promote diversity and tolerance in the classroom.

A special DVD version will be distributed to 61,000 public and private elementary schools nationwide, along with lesson plans for teachers. Distribution of the DVD is being donated by FedEx.

Ed Vitagliano, a researcher for the American Family Association, questions the motives behind the project. The problem, he says, is that it is an "open door" to a secondary discussion of homosexuality.

Where democracy refuses to die

The media was pro-government. In much of the country, the election machinery was controlled by the ruling party. Voter fraud was rampant. But the people of Ukraine will not surrender.

forced a challenge to the quadrennial count of electoral votes for just the second time since 1877
Bush's Election Day triumph over Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., was never in doubt. After a near four-hour delay to consider and reject a dispute over voting in Ohio, lawmakers in joint session affirmed Bush's 286-251 electoral vote victory — plus a single vote that a "faithless" Kerry elector cast for his running mate, former Sen. John Edwards (news - web sites), D-N.C. A total of 270 votes are needed for victory.
"This announcement shall be a sufficient declaration of the persons elected president and vice president of the United States for the term beginning Jan. 20, 2005," Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), who presided over the session, read without emotion when the final votes were tabulated.
In a drama that was historic if not suspenseful, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (news, bio, voting record), D-Ohio, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., formally protested that the Ohio votes "were not, under all known circumstances, regularly given." That, by law, required the House and Senate to convene separately and debate the Ohio irregularities.
Boxer, Tubbs Jones and several other Democrats, including many black lawmakers, hoped the showdown would underscore the problems such as missing voting machines and unusually long lines that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods, on Nov. 2.
"If they were willing to stand in polls for countless hours in the rain, as many did in Ohio, than I can surely stand up for them here in the halls of Congress," Tubbs Jones said.

Economic freedom is the measure of the roadblocks governments put in place that prevent their citizens from achieving success. Not surprisingly, countries with the greatest economic freedom enjoy strong economic growth. Unfree countries, conversely, do not.

Trade policy,
Fiscal burden of government,
Government intervention in the economy,
Monetary policy,
Capital flows and foreign investment,
Banking and finance,
Wages and prices,
Property rights,
Regulation,
and
Informal market activity.

Economic freedom is the measure of the roadblocks governments put in place that prevent their citizens from achieving success.

________
Sully's a pussy.
But then again why call him something he'll never see?

________


Fuck off. I knew this would degenerate into gratuitous gay bashing only reserved for right-wing gay pundits and not for heteros who've wrote much worse. And you things are going to help those like me? I never thought it.

Oh, and fuck off again while you're at it.
________

You're right, the pussy comment was gratuitous gay bashing. But I have no problem bashing his politics.

________

The bow-tied wearing conservative pundit got into a public tussle last fall with comic Jon Stewart, who has been critical of cable political programs that devolve into shoutfests.
"I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp," Klein told The Associated Press.
He said all of the cable networks, including CNN, have overdosed on programming devoted to arguing over issues. Klein said he wants more substantive programming that is still compelling.
"I doubt that when the president sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues," he said. "I don't know why we don't treat the audience with the same respect."

The Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, will be hosts of the youth concert, where the teenage singer JoJo will appear along with Kid Rock. The Kid, as he is called, notably said at a party during the Republican National Convention that if he were president he would never get caught having sex in the Oval Office but would instead install cameras in the Lincoln Bedroom.

There's only two types of men Pimps and John's
There's one type of bitch and that's a hoe
God damn hooker this is my world
...
Pimp of the Nation, I could be it
As a matter of a fact, I for see it
But only pimpin hoes with the big tush
While you be left pimpin Barbra Bush
What's up granny First name Annie
Dried up kunt and a saggin fanny
The highlight of your sex adventures
You wanna suck dicks take out your denchers
A show of life is all I'm givin
Old Pimp young hoes is how I'm livin
...
One nation under a pimp
Gettin Paid cuz suckers is pussy whipped
One nation under a pimp
Gettin Paid cuz suckers is pussy whipped
One nation under a pimp
Gettin Paid cuz suckers is pussy whipped
One nation under a pimp
Gettin Paid cuz suckers is pussy whipped

"Matthew 7:21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works?
23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
24. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
28. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
29. For he taught them as [one] having authority, and not as the scribes."

One of the aspects of feminism that I've always found particularly amusing is the way in which it dances around a basic and apparently universal fact of life: most women don't like to work* and they won't if they can avoid it by having sex instead. Although I suppose it's remotely possible that an early feminist capable of long-range strategic thinking may have known the likely economics effects of doubling the size of the work force and hoped to use falling real wages to force women out of the home if they wished to maintain a normal standard of living.
...

*Work is defined here as something that you would never consider doing of your own volition unless someone paid you to do it. Taking care of your children, washing the car and doing the dishes may not be fun-filled leisure activities, but they are not work.

President Bush has succeeded in opening the checkbooks of five federal departments to religious organizations. Now he's setting his sights on money doled out by the states.
The goal is to persuade states to funnel more of the federal money for social service programs that they administer to ``faith-based organizations.''
Federal regulations now allow federal agencies to directly fund churches and other religious groups. Bush acted alone to rewrite these regulations after failing to persuade Congress to change the law.
Partly as a result, in 2003, groups dubbed ``faith-based'' received $1.17 billion in grants from federal agencies, according to documents provided by the White House to The Associated Press. That was about 8 percent of the $14.5 billion spent on social programs that qualify for faith-based grants in five federal departments.
That's not enough, said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. An additional $40 billion in federal money is given out by state governments, he said, and many states do not realize that federal rules now allow them to fund these organizations.
``We're on the sunrise side of the mountain,'' he said.

Also advancing Bush's initiative: a drug treatment program that is just getting under way. Called Access to Recovery, it gives drug users vouchers to take to any organization they choose - including those that rely on a religious conversion to break the addiction. Because the program uses vouchers, it can legally fund explicitly religious activity.
``Many people have overcome addition through faith transformation,'' Towey said. Counselors in these programs won't have to meet the same medical standards that drug treatment counselors typically must, he said. ``There's going to be standards in place, but also, in addition to science, some faith.''
That's what worries people like Lynn.
``Some of them are not qualified to do this work,'' he said, ``particularly in areas where medical expertise is needed but is no longer apparently necessary.''

"We have previously held that grooming and appearance standards that apply differently to women and men do not constitute discrimination on the basis of sex," Judge Wallace Tashima wrote for the majority.

He cited the precedent of a 1974 case in which the court ruled that a company can require men to have short hair but allow long hair on women.

...the casino's appearance standards were no more burdensome for women than for men.

"Harrah's fired Jespersen because of her failure to conform to sex stereotypes, which is discrimination based on sex and is therefore impermissible under Title VII,"

Hearings on Bush's selection for Attorney General will begin shortly. Today's action is to contact your senators, regardless of whether they are Democrats or Republicans, and tell them that you expect them to reject Mr. Gonzales. No one who believes that torture is ok or that the president is above the law should be serving as the Attorney General of the United States. Here's a list of contact information for U.S. Senators:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

"My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency," she told voters.

Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time

Everyone else is represented in Washington by a rich and powerful lobby, it seems. But there is no lobby for the people.

Of my two "handicaps", being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.

Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deep-seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

I don't measure America by its achievement, but by its potential.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the chief architect of Pope John Paul II's traditionalist moral policy, has long been a bugaboo for liberal Catholics. But they had stopped worrying that the German might one day ascend to St. Peter's throne. His hard-line views and blunt approach had earned him the epithet of panzerkardinal and too many enemies. Well, their worrying may now resume. Sources in Rome tell TIME that Ratzinger has re-emerged as the top papal candidate within the Vatican hierarchy, joining other front runners such as Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan and Claudio Hummes of Sao Paolo. "The Ratzinger solution is definitely on," said a well-placed Vatican insider.

promises "a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea" if President Bush fails to appoint "strict constructionist" jurists or if Democrats filibuster to block conservative nominees.

"Let his colleagues beware," [name deleted] warned, "especially those representing 'red' states. Many of them will be in the 'bull's-eye' the next time they seek re-election."

James Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the new Democratic leader, said Democrats had allowed 204 judicial appointments to move forward in Mr. Bush's first term.
"[name deleted] needs to take a moment to focus on the facts," Mr. Manley said.

David DiMartino, a spokesman for Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, said the senator was already an opponent of abortion rights and had never supported a filibuster of one of Mr. Bush's appellate nominees.

A Spokane woman trying to divorce her estranged husband two years after he was jailed for beating her has been told by a judge she can't get out of the marriage while she's pregnant.
The case pits a first-year attorney who argues that state law allows any couple to divorce if neither spouse chal-lenges it against a longtime family law judge who asserts that the rights of the unborn child in this type of case trump a woman's right to divorce.
"There's a lot of case law that says it is important in this state that children not be illegitamized," Spokane County Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine told The Spokesman-Review newspaper.
Further complicating things, Shawnna Hughes claims her husband is not the child's father.
The bottom line, says Hughes' attorney, Terri Sloyer, is that there's nothing in state law that says a mother can't get a divorce if she's pregnant.
"We don't live in 15th century England," Sloyer said. "I am absolutely dumbfounded by it."
Hughes' husband, Carlos, was convicted in 2002 of beating her. She separated from him after the attack and filed for divorce last April. She later became pregnant by another man and is due in March.
Her husband never contested the divorce, and Court Commissioner Pro Tem Julia Pelc approved it in late October.
However, the approved divorce papers didn't note that Hughes was pregnant. Sloyer filed amended papers to correct the omission, and the next day, she spoke with Bastine by phone. Bastine said he planned to rescind the divorce and then did so following a Nov. 4 hearing.
"It's not the child's fault that mom got pregnant," Bastine said. "The answer is, you don't go around doing that when you're not divorced."