Sunday Morning News Crawl

Starting with this story, about the difficulty of black women attempting to meet and form relationships with black men. It's more of an observation about the article, really, which I think is somewhat retarded to begin with. Note this stat:

According to the 2000 census, black men enter interracial marriages at a higher rate -- 9.7 percent -- than any other race and sex except Asian women. That's twice the rate of black women.

So to be clear here, Asian women make up the highest percentage of mixed-race couple partners, followed by black men. The woman who is the focus of the article goes on to say that

She sees the breach between black men and women as a vestige of slavery. The legacy, she says, has created an "unhealthy independence" among black women and a level of irresponsibility among black men."

Ok. So what's the excuse for Asian women? Now that I look at it, there's an odd disconnect in the statistics quoted: Asian women enter into the most interracial relationships, yet black men and women are quoted as the "most uncoupled demographic in the United States."

Never mind, I just figured it out - the difference between Asian men entering into mixed-race couples and black women doing so must be greater than said difference between Asian women and black men - hence there are relatively more Asian men available for a given number of Asian women than there are black women for black men. This would seem to point to the simplest solution for people; quit limiting yourself by race. But who am I to judge another's quest for romantic happiness?

In the world, Dick Cheney's back to reminding America that the world is a scary place. Thankfully we have GWB and the Republicans protecting America, fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, compared to the thoughts of some Democrats that we should "cut and run". How's that going again? Oh, right. Worse than ever ("Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the military assault to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.").

A thought: if you added up all the dead and wounded from Iraq, how do the numbers compare to the WTC attacks? You know how Cheney is always saying another attack is coming, another attack is coming, another attack is coming? I have news for you, Mr. Cheney: the war your administration has prosecuted amounts to another attack; you just shipped America's youth out of the country so we wouldn't have to see the awful truth. You've done a better job than any terrorist ever could, for not only have you killed and maimed thousands, you've killed and maimed thousands of America's youth, its next generation. Dulce et decorum est, indeed.

Moving back towards the business side of politics, take a glance at this story mentioning 52% of Wall Street's political donations this cycle have gone to Democrats, a flip of the normal donation relationship. Now, companies tend to donate more to one side for 2 reasons: they're reasonably sure that side is going to win, or they believe that side will deliver the legislation they prefer. That's why in the past decade or two, Republicans have gotten the lion's share of their funding; their corporate tax-cutting platforms dovetail nicely with the largely ephemeral profits that Wall Street companies make. Every industry is the same, with periodic realignments as different platforms come to dominate the two parties; for example, KBR (or its parent company) was one of the largest contributors to Lyndon B. Johnson's career, back when the Democrats ruled the south, 30 short years ago. So which is this: is it just a one-off bet, or could this be the start of a realignment in American politics? I'm guessing it's the former, but time will tell, I suppose.