Ricci follow-up + swallowing & Tran$former$

Note: Magnanimous Monday will be moved to Tuesday this week as I ran out of time and I am a lame excuse for a citizen of Earth.

The latest thing lighting up the Twitter feeds in Blacksburg, Virginia is the Iran Society’s next protest scheduled for tonight at 8:00 P.M.

In Iran, the election oversight body conducted a partial recount, declaring the results putting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in power valid. Of course, this will never satisfy the Iranian people who are convinced that they were robbed of their votes. FTA:

State television reported that the Guardian Council presented the conclusion in a letter to the Interior Minister following a recount of a what was described as a randomly selected 10 percent of the almost 40 million ballots cast June 12.

The “meticulous and comprehensive examination” revealed only “slight irregularities that are common to any election and needless of attention,” Guardian Council head Ahmed Jannati said in a letter, according to the state TV channel IRIB.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi claims he, not incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was the rightful winner and has called for a new election, something the government has repeatedly said it will not do. “From today on, the file on the presidential election has been closed,” Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said on state-run Press TV.

I believe scheduled activities are a symbolic release of balloons and a candelight vigil.

Speaking of balloons, Up is at the Lyric and I’ve heard nothing but good things, so I’ll probably be heading there after the protest.
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Story Tracking: Ricci vs. DeStefano

One of my most discussed posts was my analysis of the Ricci v. DeStefano court case that many conservatives were using as ammunition against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. My position was that the denial of promotions was legal under the Civil Rights Act as multiple choice tests inherently disfavor minorities. Today, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, decided that the plaintiffs were unfairly denied the promotions, going against what Sotomayor ruled as an appeals court judge. FTA:

On Monday’s ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, “Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.” He was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters “understandably attract this court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them.”

Justices Souter, Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg’s dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday. Speaking dismissively of the majority opinion, she predicted the court’s ruling “will not have staying power.”

"You kids will see! America will never move past its need to be really sensitive about race. Never!"

All right…I’m convinced.

Maybe I simply like the Supreme Court too much. But I suspect that I’ve just been hearing arguments about it for weeks now and this is the final factor that makes me abandon my defense for the original decision. Race was a blatant and solitary decision for the denial of promotions based on the test. More importantly, people who worked hard and played by the rules got completely shafted and to hurt them in the name of diversity undermines what diversity stands for. For the most part, it makes me sad that many of the people who were arguing the point seemed to attack with many vitriolic attitudes against diversity, but that doesn’t mean that they were wrong in this case. I was wrong. I agree with Kennedy.

But I understand Sotomayor’s and Ginsburg’s opinions. And I don’t think it makes Sotomayor any less qualified to sit on the bench as a Supreme Court justice. Here’s hoping.

Further reading:

New Haven Independent article on Latinos siding with the white firefighters

Accurate prediction of Kennedy’s role in the decision

Full court opinions

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In other news…

Mothers-to-be or women who want to be mothers should swallow according to some Dutch researchers and the Journal of Reproductive Immunology.

“While any exposure to a partner’s semen during sexual activity appears to decrease a woman’s chances for the various immunological disorders that can occur during pregnancy, immunological tolerance could be most quickly established through oral introduction and gastrointestinal absorption of semen.”

I could not make this up. Gastrointestinal absorption of semen. I know. For the man in your life, this news should not be hard to swallow. Sorry.

According to a group of Dutch researchers, “exposure to semen provides protection against developing preeclampsia.” That’s from a paper with the catchy title, “Immune Maladaptation in the Etiology of Preeclampsia: a Review of Corroborative Epidemiologic Studies.” Or you could use the subtitle: “Semen is Your Friend.”

http://instantrimshot.com

Well, I for one, am completely convinced. Also, I believe we have found the Nobel prize winners for the next fifty years. Just sayin’.

I mean, there’s some sort of dissenting opinion that says she can’t find any real evidence supporting this, but she’s probably just some chick who doesn’t shave her legs, amirite, guys, amirite?

…Aw, man, I’ve just guaranteed myself singledom forever.
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Transformers 2 has made over $200 million over five days at the box office, putting it behind only behind Dark Knight for five-day gross. Of course, Dark Knight was one of the best franchise films ever. Transformers 2 was the equivalent of watching Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyworld come to life, stomp on its passengers and defecate loudly on their corpses — kind of entertaining, but also horrifying.

"And then, the black guy without the teeth is STUPID. And BOOM! And then one of the Transformers says 'pussy.' And BOOM! Ahahahahaha!"

Critics and people who actually recognize the idea that movies can be both fun and not-retarded are puzzled. But then again, I contributed to that box office total even after word of mouth. I think it was a combination of two elements that are making Michael Bay rich: optimism and timing.

The last movie with ties to a memorable franchise was Terminator: Salvation which came on the heels of Star Trek, which people probably went to see multiple times, thus wiping them of their money. That was a solid four weeks saving up for the new special effects feature. So the timing of Transformers 2 worked in its favor (Terminator was cannibalized by Wolverine).

Secondly, if there were others like me out there, optimism ultimately brought us out of the woodwork to make this blithering mess second to Dark Knight. We’d heard the naysayers. We figured critics were being critics and frowning upon any movie that is based upon a toy line. My moment of realization came during the slow motion explosions in the desert watching Megan Fox mouth words at Shia LaBeouf’s burned scrawny form….this movie was genuinely bad.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Fun. But, on principle, it kind of hurts me that I contributed to Michael Bay’s latest jet equipped with missiles and breast implants.

Still, when you look at the all-time best five-day openers, you don’t find very many positively rated movies:

1. The Dark Knight
awesome
2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
target demographic: six-year-olds and crystal meth addicts
3. Revenge of the Sith
critically crushed under the weight of first two movies and Hayden Christensen
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
incoherent mess
5. Spiderman 3
UGH!
6. Spiderman 2
meh
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
George Lucas’ revenge on cinema
8. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Pretty good
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Best Harry Potter movie to date
10. The Matrix Reloaded
can’t really defend the obnoxiously long fighting scenes and the cave orgy

So the moral of the story is:

Our taste is pretty bad.

Up tonight.