Again triggered to get off my hinder and post by a post by ldragoon.

Last time I was at Barnes and Noble, I saw a book titled "The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About--Because They Helped Cause Them." Yes, with emphasis in the title and everything. Bad sign, that.

So, perhaps the biggest environmental catastrophe us liberals don't want you to know about? When women take hormonal birth control, some of those hormones are carried out of her body in her urine and pass into the water supply, where they are affecting the reproductive abilities of aquatic species downstream.

1) I thought everyone already knew about that. Guys, there's this problem with widespread birth control use I don't want you to know about, that's why I just told you about it. I don't know any reliable links, or I'd direct you to those. Because I don't want you to know about this.
2) You know, there's always trade-offs and you need to make apples to apples comparisons. Hormones in water supplies in amounts that effect ecosystems are a problem. Over population among humans is also a problem. Which do you suppose causes more damage overall, the amount of hormones a woman taking birth control pisses into the ecosystem over her lifetime, or the three extra humans beings she would bring into the world on average without them and the damage they would do over their lifetime, not to mention the extra humans they would then produce?
3) If you consider the existence of birth control to be "liberal", then YOU'RE A FUCKING WINGNUT! Iain Murray = wingnut. George W. Bush = wingnut. McCain = likely wingnut, because you don't pause like that when you actually don't know about an issue, you pause like that when you know what you want to say will royally piss someone off.

On top of that, I'm probably heading into a political debate with my mother. She sent me a political joke that was a bit too conservative for my taste. I wrote back "Dare I ask who you plan to vote for? Or should I just say that I'm voting for the one who isn't a mysogynistic war-monger and leave it at that? ^_~"
If she wants to get into it, I'm just going to ignore her. I can NOT deal with her ignorant hypocritical shit right now.

You know what else?

Link-hopping off of ldragoon's "Spec Fic Wank" post, I find a mention that James Watson is racist. James Watson... Oh, Watson and Crick DNA double-helix Watson.
Yup, he's racist. You know what else? He's sexist, too. And much of the work he's credited for was actually done by a woman named Rosalind Franklin. But, you see, she didn't have a penis, but she wasn't really pretty and feminine and ladylike either. So Cambridge didn't really want her getting credit for the discovery of the decade. So they just kind of gave her research to the guys without asking her or giving her credit. And she was even nice enough to die before she could make a big stink out of it.
Sadly, someone can be a brilliant scientist and still be a huge wanker. My reading suggests that James Watson is very much a product of his times -- and unfortunately those times were the 1950s.

A Harry Potter Observation

First, let me lay out an assumption. Line up all the Harry Potter books in order. It is a fact that the final length of the first was dictated by editorial decree (i.e. Rowling was forced to cut it down to have it published.) There is a large increase length at book 4, without an equivalent increase in actual significant content. Therefore, I'm going to assume that, with book 4, the editor was no longer exercising significant creative control over the content.

Now, with that established, let's look at racism in Harry Potter. Not what the books are supposedly about or the message you're beaten around the head with, but what is actually found in the books themselves.
Book 1: Racists are jerks. So are snobs.
Book 2: Racism is The Huge Evil! Racism causes death and destruction and horrible horrible things! On top of that, slavery is absolutely wrong and slaves are miserable.
Book 3: You shouldn't judge people without hearing their side, or make assumptions just because of their bloodlines. Also, chronically ill people have to put up with a lot of crap and discrimination on top of their illness.

Book 4: French people are worthless and pathetic. Slavic people are walking bricks. Foreigners and non-English speakers in general can be a big pain in the butt. Slavery's actually a good thing in most cases, and people who are traditionally slaves like it better that way, even if they have the rare bad owner. Only nutters in that group want freedom, but we guess they can be OK as long as they know their place. [Anyone remember Dobby asking for less pay than Dumbledore offered? Because, you know, he knows his place.] In any event, they're happiest when they're doing menial labor.

Hmmm.... I don't think this says good things about Ms. Rowling.