When John Hawkins ran his first look at conservative women and dating, I sent a note asking if I had missed a memo and not realized it was sweeps week. It was such an odd post that I assumed our sites were being judged on sex appeal that week. The response he got was fascinating. It got picked up everywhere.

I actually can’t believe the first piece was only a month ago, however… And now he’s back with part two.

I’ll excerpt a bit, but you really should go read it all. There’s some great material in there.

Tell me the worst dating story of your life.

I fell asleep on the guy…. [My cousin] had the brilliant idea of setting us up to go see a play… I’m watching it, it’s warm in the theater, I’m sitting next to him and he’s not talking — The next thing I remember, he’s shaking me awake. I think I was drooling on his shoulder. I was out cold. I was so embarassed.

What do you think the biggest thing women have wrong about men is?

We, in our heads, over-analyze everything that the guy did. The reason that he moved to the couch was because there was more room, not because he was trying to get away from you.

What is the weirdest date you have gone on or been asked to go on.

…An Easter brunch where the guy I was dating told me I’d meet all the other girls he was dating, and sternly warned me I had to be nice to them. Obviously I didn’t go to that gathering. I never signed up to be on The Bachelor!

…The weirdest date I ever went on was when I was in college. I was taken, I swear to God I am not making this up, by a guy from my Spanish class to go to the dump and shoot rats with his friends… I didn’t hit any. I am tender hearted. …I really like shooting, but I don’t like shooting living creatures. …But, I did fire off a handgun or two, at cans.

During our trip to London a week ago, Micah Sifry and I were invited to sit in on a live webcast by Brian Paddick who is running for Mayor of London as a Liberal Democrat. The Lib Dems, despite the name, are really not the equivalent of the progressives in this country. That’s really the Labor party. The Lib Dems are more or less a combination of what we might consider moderates and libertarians. Their big hook is fiscal responsibility, environmental responsibility, local control, and empowering the people.

As a result of sitting in on that web chat, and being exposed to London politics for a few days, I’ve really taken an interest in the campaign. Ryan Alexander (who works for Jerome Armstrong’s firm) was the one that invited us to the webcast and sent a couple of web videos along this morning. I thought I’d share not only the vids by Paddick’s folks, but a couple featuring the Tories and the Labor Party as well.

The electoral environment in London is a lot like ours. The Labor Party has been in power for a long time, is held in relatively low esteem by the Brits, and a lot of people are expecting the incumbent Mayor to lose. The current favorite is Boris Johnson – a game show host turned politician.

The election is a form of instant runoff with every Londoner casting a first and second choice for Mayor. If nobody breaks 50%, the top two finishers advance and all the second choice votes are redistributed to the two finalists.

Also interesting to note is the strength of the British National Party. They’re the David Dukes of UK politics. (Check out the welcome video on their home page and count the number of non-Caucasians it features and the subtle “we’ll put you first” messaging to the whities.) Frighteningly, the BNP is expected to pick up a number of local seats in the elections.

Ken & Friends World Tour

More videos after the jump

(Read more…)

A bill on its way to the President’s desk will prevent employers and insurance companies from using genetic indicators in hiring or coverage. The President is expected to sign it.

The legislation’s passage could make consumers and patients more willing to have their DNA tested for disease-indicators, which could swing the door wide-open for so-called personalized medicine in which genetic and genomic data is used to tailor treatments. It could be a major win for genomic testing companies like 23AndMe and Navigenics, who are collecting and analyzing unprecedentedly large amounts of genetic information from their clients.

Genetic testing advocates worried that the adoption of testing would be slowed by the lack of government protection. Surveys appeared to back that sentiment with an overwhelming number of Americans saying they wanted their genetic data safeguarded from employers and insurers.

This demonstrates, to me at least, ‘an overwhelming number of Americans’ have very little idea how little protection they actually have when it comes to hiring decisions. Employers can’t refuse to hire someone based on race, religion, etc. We’ll apparently soon add genetic markers to that.

There is not, however, a prohibition on hiring because you’re overweight, unattractive, wear glasses, etc. etc. etc (Ok, technically DC and a few other places actually prevent discrimination based on personal appearance, but still…) Even if there were, there are a staggering number of other reasons you could cite in defense of your practices. If someone doesn’t want to hire you, they’ll find a legally defensible way not to hire you.

Passing more laws won’t get you around that. Unless you pass a law that says the first person to apply automatically gets the job, someone will always be rejected.

I’m heading to a lunch time meeting today and jumped in the back of a cab. The driver of said cab is clearly agitated. We begin chatting and he quickly explains the reason for his consternation. It seems he’s the target of accusations of racial discrimination.

While doing his rounds one afternoon, he passes a single black woman standing on the side of the road and stops to pick up two white guys. The woman, apparently upset that she was passed over for a ride, notes his cab number and contacts the DC cab commission to file a formal complaint.

“It’s not my fault,” he tells me. “The DC cab fare structure allows me to charge more money for more passengers, even if I’m going to the same place. If I take two, three, four, five passengers to the exact same spot, I make more money. I didn’t pick her up because she was alone, not because she was black. Now I’m accused of being a racist.”

He’s right. The allegation is on the books. He has been labeled a racist by his accuser simply because of the economics of transporting two passengers.

Now, here’s the best part of the story. The accused racist… the cab driver who refused to pick up this black woman…. Well, he’s black, too.

Welcome to racism in America.

I’ve spent most of the last 12 hours listening to various pundits predict this protracted Democrat campaign will weaken the eventual nominee in the fall. Some sort of voter fatigue will befall the electorate who will then be less inclined to vote for the Democrats in November. The Democrats, fractured by the race, will fail to coalesce around the nominee and help McCain win.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say for the record I think this is a bunch of crap.

First, people in this country have incredibly short attention spans. Any fatigue present in June is unlikely to carry until November. It’s just not like us to carry that baggage for five months. This whole notion stems from the fact that nobody has seen a race like this in generations. People are used to these fire-and-forget campaigns. The argument assumes that people prefer that and don’t want something more. I think there is ample evidence, just in the water cooler conversations, that people are engaged in this, have picked a candidate to back (regardless of their party) and want to see who wins.

That’s significantly different from an election plagued by fatigue.

Second, the Democrats will end up with a huge advantage coming out of this. Having been forced to compete in all 50 states, they will have a ground game in all 50 states. They will have built the machinery to compete in places the GOP has ignored for decades either because it was “safe” red territory or because the states simply weren’t on the radar.

Voters in these states will be intimately aware of the Democrat, will have seen countless ads for them, will have seen them in their state. The GOP, by comparison, will have no exposure, name ID solely based on their name, not their message, and no organizers. That’s going to make more states competitive.

I think hopes for Democrat burnout are overstated. I think pundits underestimate the people and the race. Hopefully, the GOP apparatus doesn’t make the same mistake.