What would your reaction be if I told you that a university was going to stop holding fund-raisers for breast cancer research, because it affects only women?  Or no fund-raising was allowed for sickle-cell anemia, because it is “a black person’s disease”?

You’d call me a sexist, a racist, and throw rocks at my head.  And rightly so.

While those statements above might be true for the most part, there are not only exceptions, but there is the idea that any disease that can cause people to die is something we should probably try and cure.

Apparently, though, cysitic fibrosis isn’t worthy of time or effort at Carleton University, in Ottawa Canada.  It seems that some idiot (who, btw, is black) was told that CF is a “white man’s disease”, and thus was not inclusive enough to be a cause the university would support.

According to Bergamini, the motion read that orientation week strives to be inclusive and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts are serving a diverse community.

However, the motion went on to say that “and whereas cystic fibrosis has been recently revealed to only affect white people and primarily men, be it resolved that: CUSA discontinue its support of this campaign.”

I’ll give you a moment to get the gasping and swearing out of the way.  The clenching of fists out of anger and rage, however, you’ll have to work through while I continue.

Read the article folks, and then read the comments, because some are pretty good.

I’ve helped raise money for CF before, so this really riles me up.  Add to that fact that Dean Barnett passed away recently after a long and hard-fought battle with CF, and this just destroys whatever possible sense of understanding I might have been able to muster for these idiots at Carleton.

Carleton University – Where discrimination is bad, unless it is against White Males.

I hate mashed potatoes as made by my family.  Maybe not the way they ALL prepare them, but the version that arrives at the Family Thanksgiving Feast o’ Gluttony fill me with rage, and cause me to wish harm upon people.

See, in general, I love mashed potatoes.  A little lumpy, thick, with a bit of skin?  I will nearly fill my plate (there might be a clue there why I’m 5’8 and around 220 lbs).

So every year for the past 5 or so I have gotten a heaping helping of the white fluffy stuff I see mid-table at this yearly family gathering, and always – like Lewis Black and candy corn – I end up pissed because the damn potatoes have had sugar added to them.

These aren’t a meringue, people.  NO SUGAR!!!!

*twitch*

Thanks for the thoughtful responses to my hypothetical from the other day — and thanks, Patterico, for the shout-out. I’d love to take all the commenters’ engagement as a compliment on my own Deep Thinking, but in truth I know it’s mostly just that the abortion is one of those issues that’s always bound to get a lot of response.

I was going to make this a comment on the initial post’s thread, but it got so long it seemed kinda ridiculous. And I haven’t even started to address the points on Patterico’s (longer) thread yet! Anyway, here goes.

htom @ No. 3 makes an interesting point, saying “it seems a device designed to enable rapists to propagate.” While I hardly think it seems designed to let rapists propagate, I’d have to agree that would be an effect. So let me ask a follow-up hypothetical geared more toward people who would ban abortion right now if they could — especially those people who would make exceptions in the case of rape and incest: If “no-death abortion” were available, would you make it the only option for women impregnated by rapists? Or would you let such women have actual abortions if they wanted them? And since this is a hypothetical, let’s stipulate that the offspring would be no more predisposed to violence than anyone else, and in the case of incest would not be genetically impaired.

JVW @ No. 4 asks who’d pay for the removal and incubation of the fetus. As for removal, let’s say the no-death abortion was exactly the same as a regular one, except more widely available in regions where currently there are no abortion clinics. As far as incubation goes, I’m thinking the situation would be the same as for any conventionally born abandoned baby (so I guess that means the government in most cases, or insurance companies in cases where the baby is claimed by another relative).

DRJ @ No. 9, interestingly, says a no-death procedure would not have caused her to change her pro-choice attitude back when she was in college. She says she’s “closer to pro-life” now, and adds: “My gut tells me that happens to a lot of women after they have children.” I’m going to have a little trouble articulating the next thought, so bear with me, but I’m wondering: Does that necessarily mean that her college, pre-motherhood self was wrong? If childless women do happen to feel differently about abortion than mothers do, should the opinion of women who have experienced motherhood carry more weight? I ask this because I sometimes wonder if a good case could be made in the other direction: that the experience of motherhood is almost prejudicial. I think I haven’t expressed this very well at all. If any of you can divine my meaning and articulate it better, please, by all means!

Dana @ No. 10 says “if those having the current procedure done truly believed there was nothing but tissue and blood being removed, then why even need to develop a system that in essence removes the function and guilt of abortion (to kill what is alive)?” I could be wrong about this — maybe really wrong — but I don’t think most “pro-abortionists,” as Dana inflammatorily calls them, would deny that there’s a death of some sort going on. Is it even scientifically debatable? (I’m really asking; it’s not a rhetorical question.) I mean, even a plant lives and dies. And in many (most?) cases, an abortion does indeed, as the ad has it, “stop a beating heart.” I think the debate is over when a fetus gains the rights of a person.

This last point of mine is minor in the context of my hypothetical, but I wanted to address it because I’d like to weed out inaccurate characterizations of opposing sides when possible.

To my great surprise, California’s Election Code does not require an automatic recount in the case of close elections; it requires a recount of 1% of the precincts, and nothing more. The Secretary of State has remedied that with a series of emergency regulations (which were upheld by the state Supreme Court in some cases this summer). But there is still a problem.

The plan, described in detail here, says that when an election contest is within “the margin of victory”, there shall be a hand recount of 10% of the precincts; and, if that recount causes a shift in votes equal to or greater than 1/10 of the margin of victory, it is to be followed by an escalating recount encompassing more and more precincts until either everything has been counted or the total variance is back under 1/10 of the margin of victory.

The problem lies with the definition of ‘margin of victory’ used by the Secretary of State’s regulations:

(a) After each election, the elections official shall determine the margin of victory in each contest based upon the semifinal official canvas results, as defined in Elections Code section 353.5

(1) For single-winner elections, the margin of victory is the difference between the percentage of votes won by the candidate with the number of votes needed to win the seat and the percentage of votes won by the candidate with the next lowest number of votes.
(2) For multi-winner elections, the margin of victory is the difference between the percentaage of votes needed to win a seat and the percentage of votes won by the candidate with the next lowest number of votes ….
(3) For ballot measure contests, including recall contests, the margin of victory is the difference between the percentages of votes for and against the ballot measure.
(b) For any contest in which the margin of victory is less than one half of one percent (.5%), the elections official shall conduct a manual tally …

This looks perfectly reasonable and, had I read it before the election, I would probably have said that it was the correct procedure. But it turns out that it misses something important: some ballot measures require a supermajority to pass. For such measures, the correct definition of ‘margin of victory’ is not the difference between the votes cast for and the votes cast against; it is the difference between the votes cast for and the minimum number of votes sufficient to provide the required supermajority.

That distinction would have mattered in this election; Santa Clara County Measure B, the “bring BART to San Jose” tax measure, has passed with 66.78% of the vote. But it needed 66.67% of the vote to pass. The opponents of the measure were not entitled to an automatic recount under the Secretary of State’s regulations … but it seems fairly clear that had the regulations been drafted correctly, they would have been.

I am writing a letter of complaint to Secretary of State Bowen. I don’t think this was deliberate; it looks to me like an honest oversight. But it should be rectified before the next election.

Is this argument compelling?

Consider that a man is a species-being, and the species to which he belongs — the species that defines his nature — is both rational and social. Man cannot live at all — much less live well — except by the mutual protection and mutual support of other human beings. Morality refers to those rules that mankind has learned, both from reason and experience, are necessary for surviving and prospering. The inclination of many men — what we might call the inclination of their lower nature — to take their sex where they find it and ignore the consequences, must be subordinated to their higher nature, which includes the interest of society (and the interest of nature in the species). For in no other species are the young so helplessly dependent for so long. Hence the importance, even for survival, of the laws both moral and civil governing the institution of marriage and of the family. We know that the relaxation of these laws leads to disorder, disease, and death, no less surely in the most advanced cultures than in the most primitive. But the good of the family is not merely self-preservation and survival, but the higher good — the happiness — of all its members, including those whose original horizon may not have extended beyond immediate gratification… (more…)

It seems that mortgages aren’t the issue.  Really.  At least not by themselves.  There are not enough owner-occupied home mortgages in the US to cause all this grief, and certainly not enough non-traditional mortgages, even if they all became worthless

The US Census Bureau’s 2005 American Housing Survey has a fine breakdown of US home mortgages.  A few numbers (All data US owner-occupied, 2005, in thousands of units.  Numbers may not add due to unreported info):

• Total number of owner-occupied dwellings, US:  74,931
• Dwellings owned free and clear:  24,776
• 1st mortgages:  44,652
• Home-equity lump-sum loans:  4,485
• Home-equity Lines of credit: 10,044
• Purchase-money 1st mortgages:  27,592
• Fixed rate, self-amortizing mortgages:  37,392
• Adjustable rate/term/payment mortgages: 3,118
• Loans with private mortgage insurance (PMI):  6,189
• Median line of credit limit:  $50,340
• Median line of credit balance:  $23,701

• 1st mortgages less than 5 years old: 28,319
• 1st mortgages 30-year term:  29,765
• Current interest rate less than 6%:  22,716
• Current interest rate 6 to 7.9%:  18,891
• Mortgages with balances above $300,000:  3,029
• Mortgages refinanced with cash out:  2,375
• Mortgages with loan-to-value above 90%:  2,935
• Median loan balance:  $92,607
• Median refinance cash out: $28,084
• Median loan-to-value:  55.1%

From this we also get the total sum of all US 1st mortgages is $4.13 trillion, with maybe another $400 billion in seconds, lines of credit and home-equity loans (data a bit muddled).

So what does this all mean?

Near as I can tell, assuming that the housing stock isn’t completely Hollywood sets, there is nothing at all wrong with this picture.  It looks quite healthy and normal, with no obvious red flags.  I had been looking for things like massive lines of credit, or high numbers of unconventional loans, etc.  Don’t see them here.  Unless this changed radically between 2005-2008, mortgages don’t begin to account for the financial crisis we are in.

If every last mortgage in the USA was a total fraud and worth zero dollars, the most anyone would be out (as of 2005) would be about $4.5 trillion.  Yet the feds are already in for seven and a half trillion dollars, with more to come.  Lately they have said that buying up the mortgage paper won’t help and they need to shore up the banks directly.  Small wonder since the mortgage data seems, um, safe as houses.

No, it seems the problem lies more in what happened when Fannie/Freddie and the banks created mortgage-backed securities, turned them into a alternate currency, and then wrapped them in a poorly-engineered system of derivatives and other hedges.  The system broke with the perturbations exceeded the permissible range and then positive feedback took over and pegged everything to zero.  But that’s just an engineer’s guess.

But it does not seem like it was the mortgages themselves.

Read this article, but don’t expect any mention of rampant UN peacekeeper abuse around the world. It even quotes the UN saying this (yes, they seem to quote the UN directly – not the Secretary General or even a UN official):

The UN says at least one in three women will be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.

It has called on leaders and people around the world to address what it said was a “global pandemic” of abuse.

Women between the ages of 15 and 44 are at greater risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, traffic accidents, war and malaria, says the UN.

It says violence against women has been reported in every international or non-international warzone and that half of all women murdered are killed by their current or former partner.

No mention in this article of the admitted, extensive, and pervasive abuse by UN peacekeepers. None. No mention of Islam. But there is this -

In Iraq, women have seen their rights eroded “in all areas of life,” according to the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women, Yakin Erturk.

Iraqi women’s rights, in particular, have eroded in recent years. Something should be done! Give the UN more access to them!

Is Thursday merely a family feast?

Cicero wrote gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. Thankfulness cuts down bitter complaining attitudes. Thankfulness is the opposite of entitlement. Thankfulness forces us to remember how we have benefited from the sacrifices of others. This thankfulness requires humility, admitting that we really do not deserve the blessings we have received. Thankfulness takes nothing for granted.

I think that without thankfulness it is impossible to truly appreciate anything.

Enjoy your turkey, but talk to your family about what it means to be thankful. Make it explicit.

Richard John Neuhaus writes

The question is asked whether atheists can be good citizens. I do not want to keep you in suspense. I would very much like to answer the question in the affirmative. It seems the decent and tolerant thing to do. But before we can answer the question posed, we should first determine what is meant by atheism. And, second, we must inquire more closely into what is required of a good citizen.

Before commenting, please read the rest of the article at First Things.

Alan Colmes will be leaving Hannity & Colmes at the end of the year.

I’m actually very sorry to hear this, because, ironically, I find Mr. Colmes to be one of the best people on FoxNews these days.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I think he is a man who came to his stance on issues due to thoughtful consideration.  Lord knows I don’t agree with much of what he says, but he seems like a decent guy, and someone of an opposing viewpoint with whom you could talk in a reasoned manner, and not have it devolve into name-calling and accusations of racism.

“I approached Bill Shine (FNC’s Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it’s bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I’m proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years.”

He’ll keep his radio show on FoxTalk, and he’ll stick around as a liberal commentator (though frankly even though he’s on the Left, he is at worst a small “l” liberal, and not some wacko like Pelosi or Reid), but no longer will he be sitting beside Sean Hannity.

I hope he ends up with his own show on Fox.   I think he still has a lot to offer the network.

It is an old saw that professional tolerance-teachers, almost all of them, harbor foxes in their bosoms that eat anyone who disagrees. Show me the most adamantly liberal professor at any university, and I will show you the likeliest candidate for dean of illiberal arts and letters. The critics of Lyndon Johnson who specialize in Johnson’s inhumanity are beginning to display towards him what can only be described as attitudes such as are prerequisite to barbarism …. I do not like Mr. Johnson, but I do not believe him capable of any intentional cruelty in Vietnam. But the spirit of some of his critics is the spirit of the VC.
On the Right, April 2, 1968

h/t: KJL

In my own teaching I go to almost absurd lengths to assure my students that the information I present to them is as unbiased as I can possibily make it.  That’s not to say that I won’t that I won’t interject a “Well, I disagree, but some very smart people argue…” on occasion, but I take pains to set aside my editorial comments from the facts, theories, and arguments I present.

So it appears that CitiGroup is next in line to benefit from planned incompetence, as they are about to receive a generous, expansive care package from Congress – to the tune of $306 Billion.