The color blind society / You can help to halt a murder

Maybe some day.

Frances Diep, Scientific American:

Compared with white American researchers, black American researchers are a third less likely to have an early-career National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funded, according to an NIH-commissioned study published August 18 in Science. It’s a thorough study, experts say, but it leaves one major question unanswered: “Why?”

The difference persists even among black and white scientists who went to similar graduate schools, took part in the same NIH scientist training programs, have earned the same number of grants previously and have published the same number of scientific papers. “We have left no stone unturned in trying to find some explanatory variables,” says Donna Ginther, a University of Kansas economist and lead author on the study. Ginther and her colleagues found the effect after examining grant applications from 40,069 scientists, submitted between 2000 and 2006.

And from The Guardian, a letter from attorney Katherine Black regarding death row inmate and her client Duane Buck:

Dear Governor Perry,

In 2000, the Attorney General of the State of Texas concluded had violated the United States Constitution by using the color of Duane Edward Buck’s skin as a factor for the jury to weigh in favor of sentencing him to death.
…
To repair the integrity of the criminal justice system, then-Attorney General (now United States Senator) John Cornyn made solemn guarantees to the public that the Office of the Attorney General would take unprecedented steps to ensure that no death sentence obtained in such a constitutionally-offensive manner would ever be carried out.
…
In Duane Buck’s case, however, Texas broke its promise…

Perry refused this appeal. Instead, the Texas Supreme Court had to step in and force the state to stay the execution.

But Rick Perry is not a racist. He’s entirely color blind. In fact, he’s totally blind.
_____________

Added: Amy Goodman has a column on the impending judicial lynching of Troy Davis on September 21st. You can add your voice to that of Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu to stop this state murder here.

Maybe Italy could use them as collateral for the Chinese bailout

While we’re waiting for more phone hacking revelations…

(Image of Kristina and Katarina Knezevic from here)

John Hooper, The Guardian:

Silvio Berlusconi was on Thursday braced for a tidal wave of new and reportedly compromising allegations about his private life as prosecutors confirmed the conclusion of an investigation into the supply of prostitutes and other women for parties at his Rome residence.
…
Against a background of concern that Italy risks being dragged into a Greek-style debt crisis, rumours have been circulating that investigators recorded the prime minister as he made a grossly obscene reference to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. The chancellor’s co-operation is vital to resolving the debt crisis on the euro zone’s southern flank.
…
Police this month arrested the alleged purveyor of women for Berlusconi’s parties, Giampaolo Tarantini, and his wife, on suspicion of blackmailing the prime minister through an intermediary. In a deposition, Berlusconi insisted he made voluntary payments to the couple because they were in a “very difficult situation”.

The prosecutors believe more than €500,000 (£438,000) was handed over.
…
It was reported this week that a witness had told prosecutors in Milan that Berlusconi was, as he once claimed, in a long-term relationship.

The witness, a Moroccan belly dancer, named his live-in girlfriend as a Montenegrin, named Katarina. The weekly L’Espresso identified her as Katarina Knezevic, 20, a former “Miss Montenegro”. It said she had a twin sister.
…
Berlusconi mentioned an unidentified lover to rebut claims of wild parties at his home outside Milan. But the witness, who said she was a reluctant participant in “Bunga Bunga” sessions, confirmed the claims
…
The Moroccan woman also described how a female associate of the prime minister, who is now a member of the regional parliament of Lombardy, had been one of two who dressed as nuns before stripping down to G-strings while pole dancing.

Now, this might be just an excuse for a wan grin on a slow news day. But as it happens, Italy is the linchpin in the world not coming to an end thanks to the debt crisis.

Larry Elliott, The Guardian:

Fears of a deepening of Europe’s debt crisis have prompted the world’s leading central banks to pump US dollars into the financial system, in a co-ordinated action designed to boost market confidence.

The Bank of England joined the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan on Thursday to announce that they would flood money markets with dollars over the coming months.

They really need the Chinese to cover Italy’s debts, or the whole thing will unravel. Having Italy’s PM enveloped in a lurid scandal at this particular moment is probably not going to help things.

Racist Tea Party Figure RS McCain Freaking Out Over Palin-Rice Sex Story

We all were wondering how the Totally Not Racist members of the GOP’s Tea Party/Koch Bircher wing were going to react to the report — confirmed by Rice himself — that Sarah Palin and the very black former callege and pro basketball player Glen Rice had been going at it like minks almost right up to the point she married Todd Palin.

Now we know, thanks to TBogg, who reads Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest Robert Stacy McCain so we don’t have to:

Stacy gets all het up about this possibly because it occurred in the late eighties which means it probably was accompanied by a bow-chicka-wow-wow soundtrack (…as did all sex in those days, kids. Ask your parents. Over diner.):

What a pathetic travesty to see Joe McGinniss, who gained national fame for The Selling of the President, reduced to such a lurid and digusting (sic) excuse for “journalism.” What possible purpose could his claims serve, except as a vile personal smear on a Republican politician who is also a wife, mother and grandmother?

But wait…. What is wrong about a young single healthy white woman wanting to get her badunkadunk bonked?

Oh, I get it.

Stacy is afraid that Sarah’s commonsense conservative heartland, perfectly reasonable, don’t-have-a-racist-bone-in-their-bodies, nosiree bob, fan base might be put off their feed a touch by the image in their heads of  a lithe young Sarah Palin grunting and heaving, her breasts swaying to an almost hypnotic jungle rhythm, as her  white body is ravished while mounted reverse cowgirl style upon the massive black member of an almost Kenyan.

Hell, I’ll bet that Nathan’s — erm, Stacy’s — fantasy life has been immeasurably enriched thereby. To the point where he’s likely buying hand lotion (or Astroglide) by the truckload right now.

By the way: FDL’s invited Joe McGinniss, the author of the book wherein this and other revelations about Palin may be found, to a FDL Book Salon on September 25. Be there as he’ll be in the comments thread ready to take any and all questions.