The First Lady is a beautiful dark-skinned woman.

Maybe Disney, the money-grubbing empire, decided that the audience was ready for a beautiful dark-skinned princess. (We have two in the White House, at the moment.)

And if a p.o.c. racist parent won't blow their money (I'm sorry, I mean "his money") on such a film, Disney has hedged its bets with a direct-to-DVD Tinkerbell movie.

... even Buffy (the Vampire Slayer) asked for its audiences to use a bit of intelligence to enjoy the plots. That wasn't sexist b.s., or even close.

Twilight seems to be able to create some imagery - the kind of imagery that gets teenage girls to shell out cash while ignoring the way they are being manipulated. (See the South Park explanation of the Jonas Brothers phenomenon, which SP explains pretty well, for the best recent example.)

I'm sure that your insecure, immature, anorexic teenage niece will love Twilight. They all seem to.

Doesn't mean it is any good, or good for them. They like white sugar, too.

Does that remotely sound like a "justice system"? If you're accused of being a Terrorist, there's not one set procedure used to determine your guilt; instead, the Government has a roving bazaar of various processes which it, in its sole discretion, picks for you based on ensuring that it will win.

Cheney / Rumsfeld had a way of having one meeting after another, with different players, until one group endorsed the Cheney-way. At that point, he would insist that the decision had already been debated, and press forward. (Quite a trick, huh?)

Why does the choose-the-court strategy, for getting the best odds for a conviction, sound like a Cheney plan?

Keef: You've got to get out more, guy!

The "Target" corporate sponsorship is particularly apt.

Hard choices.

Am I supposed to oppose a health care bill that we can build on, in the future, for something that is not as important to me as getting a sick mother or dying neighbor to a doctor?

The key is not getting the perfect bill, it is breaking the mindset that no bill should be passed unless it is perfect. For the opponents of health care legislation, this mindset is perfect to keep it from every getting passed -- which is the real goal, for them.

At the very least, the little girls should get a free pass, when the parents are in a nursing home in a few decades. The girls should be able to drag the parents out of the nursing homes, in wheelchairs, and force them tap-dance on command for studio audiences.

I could continue with the analogy, but need to take a shower after thinking about this for any time. It makes the soul sticky.

What are the odds?

While it is entirely possible for a list to randomly come up as all male or all female in a given year -- since you can't predict who will and who won't have a great book anyway -- what are the odds that ten out of ten are by the same gender?

The top five list: 1 in 32

The top ten list: 1 in 1024.

That's .098% chance. Roughly one-tenth of one percent.

There are so many unspoken assumptions from this learned fellah that I'm not sure where to start.

This assumes that everyone is publishing novels, every last person on the planet. That the population-at-large reflects, in its demographics, the same writing skills as the novelists eligible for this competition.

You have written up a brilliant example of a high school junior's statistics class homework. You showed how to evaluate powers-of-two (choices for male/female) and how to convert the reciprocal of those powers, to percentages.

You haven't shown that the numbers mean anything.

The situation looks icky enough, without lousy statistics from someone quick to show off their doctorate.

"... and so, to reiterate, if any ladies-of-the-evening were offended that I might compare the filth of K-Street to them, I hope they will accept my absolute and heartfelt apology."

Wishful thinking, I admit.

... was painfully close to the truth.

One is sanctioned by the status quo; the other is not.

Violating the status quo is not rewarded, when it comes to endorsement money.

Greg Louganis was gay, and was out, and thereby a violation of the status quo; no endorsements for Greg. Same thing.

Stupid, huh?