links for 2008-12-06

Last week, following my annual mammogram at Brigham and Women's Hospital, I was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Sutu (DCIS). While this is commonly referred to as early stage breast cancer, it is technically not cancer but rather pre-cancer, as it has not become invasive. Today, I have had a lumpectomy. This procedure does not require hospitalization. Mitt and I feel fortunate to have caught this so early. And, it reminds us how important it is for women to have regular mammograms. As in all cases of cancer, early detection is critical. Many families are facing medical hardships–our hearts go out to all of you and also our wishes for healing holidays."
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Best Wishes for a speedy recovery

Has Andrew Sullivan lost his mind?
YES he has…..

But the amicus briefs filed before the court grants cert are much rarer, and, accordingly, more influential. Yet this is a tool that liberal groups often fail to use.

The private groups and advocacy organizations that most frequently urge the court to take a case are overwhelmingly pro-business, anti-regulatory, and ideologically conservative. For liberal groups to cede the cert-stage battleground is to forfeit a key phase of the war. When left-leaning groups ignore an opportunity to tell the court to hear the cases most likely to be decided in their favor, they are doing their causes a disservice.

When it comes to irresistible words, “oogedy-boogedy” has few peers.

In the several days since I first used the term in a column describing the Republican party’s “religious” problem, oogedy-boogedy seems to have entered the bloxicon. (New word invented right here, meaning: the blogosphere’s lexicon.) Google produces more than 26,000 references.

Despite its sudden popularity, oogedy-boogedy is nonetheless causing some consternation and confusion. What does it mean and whence does it come? In the Dec. 15 issue of National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru writes that he doesn’t know what oogedy-boogedy means, “but I gather it’s bad.”

Kathleen Parker’s war on religion in the Re-public-an square entered a new phase today. In her syndicated column, she nobly attempted to explain her use of the term “oogedy-boogedy” to describe religious conservatives. It’s not that she is “anti-God.” It’s just that God really shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Religion can inform our values (gee, thanks). But reason, not religion, should inform our public debates.

I hadn’t realized religion and reason were mutually exclusive. It seems Pope Benedict hasn’t gotten the memo, either.
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Enough of Kathleen Parker already

Middle-aged men want younger women, often touting their intelligence and their high income. This is shown in research at Gothenburg University and Oxford University that studied 400 lonely hearts ads to see how men and women choose partners.

Research in the theory of evolution includes a number of accepted theories about how men and women choose their partners. Among the more established ones is that men place more emphasis on attractive appearance, whereas resources and social status are more important to women.
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Across the United States, more than 30 daily newspapers are for sale, and buyers are scarce.

From Los Angeles to New York, leading newspapers have slashed newsrooms with buyout offers, and when those failed to reach budget-cutting goals, with layoffs.

The newspaper industry has been caught in a tailspin for three years, a trend variously blamed on plummeting ad revenues, declining readership, growing competition from the Internet and a deepening national recession.

On Thursday, Colorado's oldest newspaper joined the growing list of dailies on the market. E.W. Scripps Co., owner of the 149-year-old Rocky Mountain News, offered to sell it after reporting an $11 million loss through the first nine months of this year.
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An industry whose time has passed in the internet age.

Salons and spas, including $350 at Escape Skin Care and Day Spa in New York, were the latest unusual expenses to appear in the Republican National Committee’s coordinated expenses account with the McCain-Palin campaign, according to November reports released late Thursday.

Overall, the RNC has reported spending a total of about $180,000 for clothes and various accessories for the family of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Federal Election Commission records show.

As Politico first reported in October, the bulk of that spending, about $150,000, was spent in early September on clothes for the Alaska governor and her family.

The RNC’s post-Election Day report documented another $30,000 at outlets that read like a suburban shopping directory.
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RNC donors will NOT be happy

For a while there this afternoon, President-elect Barack Obama's immensely talented chief speechwriter, 27-year-old Jon Favreau, might have been pondering how to address that question.

That's when some interesting photos of a recent party he attended — including one where he's dancing with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of secretary of state-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and another where he's placed his hand on the cardboard former first lady's chest while a friend is offering her lips a beer — popped up on Facebook for about two hours. The photos were quickly taken down — along with every other photo Favreau had of himself on the popular social networking site, save for one profile headshot.

Asked about the photos, Favreau, who was recently appointed director of speechwriting for the White House, declined comment. A transition official said that Favreau had "reached out to Senator Clinton to offer an apology."
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Well, he is screwed.

A woman who appears from campaign finance records to have been Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s fashion stylist was paid $54,900 by the Republican National Committee, according to a new report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

A charge for that amount to “Lisa Kline & Co.” for “Consulting-Campaign” appears on Oct. 17 in the R.N.C.’s latest campaign finance report. Ms. Kline is a New York stylist whose name had previously appeared alongside some of the much ballyhooed $150,000 in charges for clothing and other “campaign accessories” from luxury stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.
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How would this campaign money been better spent? Recruiting Congressional candidates for one? You betcha.

Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist was paid $68,400 and her hair stylist received more than $42,000 for roughly two months of work, according to a new campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Ms. Palin’s makeup artist, Amy Strozzi — who was nominated for an Emmy award for her cosmetics work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance?” — was paid $32,400 by Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign between Oct. 16 and Nov. 24, the period covered by the most recent reports filed with the commission.
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Profligate spending by the RNC and McCain Campaign.

A federal appeals court refused Thursday to reconsider a ruling that raised doubts about the constitutionality of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military, a decision that could give President-elect Barack Obama a chance to act quickly on his promise to repeal the policy.
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Gays in the military will be forward and center for the Obama Administration – whether they like it or not.

Since I'm a Blogger for Red County, I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm a "Red Guy". If you dig a bit deeper, you'll find that I'm also a "Sales Guy". When I give my "elevator pitch", relative to my Sales role, I typically say that my background is primarily with "technology-based business-to-business systems solutions". With that in mind, I'm sure that the Democrat's superior use of technology in the recent Presidential election, especially the superior use of social media, is a sore point with me. This week, I've seen a couple of very encouraging signs of determination, within the Republican Party, to take an upper-hand in this regard. In both cases, there was a "Little Birdie" involved … the social media site known as Twitter.

Facebook's 120 million users are being targeted by a virus dubbed "Koobface" that uses the social network's messaging system to infect PCs, then tries to gather sensitive information such as credit card numbers.

It is the latest attack by hackers increasingly looking to prey on users of social networking sites.

"A few other viruses have tried to use Facebook in similar ways to propagate themselves," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said in an e-mail. He said a "very small percentage of users" had been affected by these viruses.

"It is on the rise, relative to other threats like e-mails," said Craig Schmugar, a researcher with McAfee Inc.