Thorsday Tonic - It's Pi Day!

Today, March 14 (3.14) is Pi Day! The number π (pi) is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, and is approximately equal to 3.14159. It is an irrational number...wait, you can go here to find out everything you ever wanted to know about pi, and here you will find probably a lot more than you want to know!

I don't know about you, but all this talk of pi has made me want to go straight to the kitchen and bake a pie!

Happy Pi Day!


Consider humble pi. It is a number never ending.

It never repeats itself as its value keeps ascending.

Based upon a circle, many men have tried

to calculate the ratio of its width to its outside.

It is called irrational because it can not be made a fraction.

The challenge of its nature has been a call to action.

The number pi has played a role in every life on earth.

From physics to statistics, its always proved its worth.

The tires that you ride on, the table where you dine,

little pi was there throughout its concept and design.

Humble pi is constant - its been a great addition

and quietly serves us each day without recognition.

If you can not appreciate why I hold this number high,

then shame! It is you that should be eating humble pie.

-- Ken Johnson

Uh-oh, but is there trouble in the kitchen? It looks like math whiz Vi Hart has a pretty convincing argument in the debate between Pi and Tau. Yes, that's right, there is a debate in math circles (heh) over Pi! Who knew? Watch this entertaining video and decide for yourself!

Mitt Romney And His "Binders Full Of Women"

Within minutes of the infamous remarks being uttered, this Facebook page was launched. 

“And I—and I went to my staff, and I said, ‘How come all the people for these jobs are—are all men.’ They said: ‘Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.’ And I said: ‘Well, gosh, can't we—can't we find some—some women that are also qualified?’ And—and so we—we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women's groups and said: ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.” Mitt Romney, October 16, 2012.

There are good reasons why the interweb was abuzz last night about Mitt Romney's "binders full of women", all of them pointing to a bad, though perfectly justified, debate outcome for the Republican candidate. While it was hardly the only misstep in Romney's testy, truth-challenged performance, it was the distillation of everything that he - and the Republican party - believes about the intrinsic inequality of women to men that makes him the worst possible candidate for women voters.

Before we take a closer look through the window into Mitt's attitude toward women, let's look at what he did not say in his remarks.

Katherine Fenton, a participant in the Town Hall audience, asked this question:

In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?

In response, Governor Romney had this to say:

Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about (but not nearly enough, apparently), particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.
And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are — are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we — can't we find some — some women that are also qualified?".

"Well, gosh, can't we — can't we find some
— some women that are also qualified?"
Gee, Governor, can we?

(Fact check: Governor Romney succeeded a woman governor, Jane Swift;  his lieutenant governor was a woman, Kerry Healey, and his opponent in that gubanatorial race was a woman, Democrat Shannon O'Brien - (fun fact!) whom Romney portrayed literally as a dog in his ads during that campaign. His claim of not being able to "find" qualified women rings particularly hollow in light of his equally false claim of bi-partisanship).

And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.
I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

(Fact check: 'What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.
They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected'. David S. Bernstein, The Phoenix, October 16, 2012.)

I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.

(Fact check: a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office. Bernstein)

Or, let's have pay equality and improved
access to decent child-care for families
so that parents (usually mothers)
are less burdened and can actually
focus on the careers they love without
being forced to "choose" work or family.

Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort. But number two, because I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce (like, if you really, really, must have women in the workforce and not, you know, at home with 5 or 6 children, right, Mitt?) that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school.
She said, I can't be here until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. I need to be able to get home at 5 o'clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said fine. Let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you.

(For this nugget of horse hocky, Romney plumbed the depths of cultural gender discrimination by conflating two popular myths about the reasons for wage inequality: the myth that female employees are inherently less reliable and not "team players" like their male counterparts and the myth that unless an enlightened employer hands out special privileges and accommodations, women won't even try for demanding, highly-paid jobs, so they don't deserve them. This is a corollary to the ever-popular "women don't ask for equal pay" myth which studies have proven are false).

We're going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I'm going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they're going to be anxious to hire women. In the — in the last women have lost 580,000 jobs. That's the net of what's happened in the last four years. We're still down 580,000 jobs. I mentioned 31/2 million women, more now in poverty than four years ago.

This is not a "women's issue". Bad Republican policies
hurt women, men and the families that both women and
men are trying to support. 

(Indeed. The Great Recession caused by the Bush administration and the financial policies - which both enriched Mitt Romney and continue to be the foundation of his financial vision for the country - have been hard on both men and women. Women, who typically have been relegated to the poorest-paying and least secure jobs (except, at least for now, those in the public sector) have always suffered greater job insecurity. In both single-parent families and in families where women and their partners are struggling together to make ends meet, this is a serious issue for both men and women, and for most American families. Legislation such as the Lilly Ledbetter Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act might have helped prevent thousands of women and their families from slipping further into poverty, but the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, does not support these efforts, and his party blocked them in Congress).

What we can do to help young women and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers that are looking to find good employees and bringing them into their workforce and adapting to a flexible work schedule that gives women opportunities that they would otherwise not be able to afford.

(Got that, American women? The Guv promises that if you will just quit asking awkward questions about fair pay and reproductive security and let him get back to business, he will create such a great economy that all those employers out there will overlook your deficiencies and special needs and hire even you! Awesome.).

This is what I have done. It's what I look forward to doing and I know what it takes to make an economy work, and I know what a working economy looks like. And an economy with 7.8 percent unemployment is not a real strong economy. An economy that has 23 million people looking for work is not a strong economy.

(Really? "I know what it takes to make an economy work" What is that, exactly? The question was "How are you going to address inequalities in the workplace?" and you have neither answered that question, nor explained how you expect to create your "new economy". Governor, you're a little too long on "just trust me, you don't need to know what I know",  and much too short on specifics).

Actually, Governor, women already know what they need
to succeed: affordable education, wage parity, reproductive
freedom and social support for American families.
Wait, we already have a president who understands that! 

I'm going to help women in America get good work by getting a stronger economy and by supporting women in the workforce.

(You still haven't answered the question, Governor. How are you going to float this "stronger economy" within which, we presume, all boats (even those with flighty female skippers) will be lifted? And, again, what are your new ideas to address pay inequity?).

Mitt Romney may or may not actually "know" what needs to be done to fix the economy and to address the inequalities in the workplace, not just for women but also for millions of men who have also been denied a level playing field in the workplace. He may know, but he has no intention of doing what it will take.

Working toward economic equality for women - and for most men, too - is not Mitt Romney's goal. It never has been his goal, and it certainly is not the goal of his backers in the moneyed elites. This is a continuation of the 47 % narrative. Romney believes that like his 47% who will never "take personal responsibility and care for their lives", women are not getting good jobs because they don't try hard enough to get them. Romney thinks that like the 47% whom he says "believe they are victims...who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing", women want everything handed to them. He barely hid his opinion that women demand special treatment in the workplace - like the right to leave the office before 7 or 8 in the evening to care for small children; forcing employers to provide "flexibility" like fewer than 60 or 70 hours of time spent in the office each week. "See?" the Governor seemed to say, "I did everything for them, while they did nothing to help themselves."

Romney's blindness to the qualified women who surrounded him during the Gubanatorial race itself and then in the office when he was presented with the "binders" containing resumes of a long list of qualified women - gathered proactively by women's groups in Massachusetts and not by his own people at his request as he claimed - speaks to his apparent habit of neither seeing nor hearing women as peers in his professional life. His claim that his record of hiring female staff was due to his efforts to "recruit" women, not to the initiative and qualifications of the women themselves, and his whining that one of his female staffers asked for what he clearly considered to be special treatment (shockingly, she wanted a workday that ended before 7 or 8PM!) speaks to both Romney's disrespect for women's abilities and his dismissal of the workplace challenges of parents. Presumably no male staffer would have dared to talk about family obligations at all, of course. In the conservative Romney culture of rigid patriarchal roles for women and men, it is women who annoyingly demand special treatment to balance work and family, while men at work must behave as if they have no family obligations at all.

Mitt Romney did not misspeak at that private fund-raiser for his wealthy supporters. He really does believe that at least 47% of Americans are lazy takers who sit around waiting for their government to bail them out of their sloth. Last night, as he struggled to sugarcoat his disdain for women and his disinterest in the question Ms. Fenton asked, everything about Romney - his halting, careful remarks, his patronizing demeanor, his refusal to actually answer the question - pointed to a deeply contemptuous attitude not only toward women, but toward all Americans who are being crushed between the competing demands of scarcer job opportunities (thanks Mr. CEO of Bain, et al) and family responsibilities.

The final irony is that, in a bid to secure more women's votes, Romney threw out the bone of pointedly boasting that he "recruited" women for great jobs in his Massachusett's administration. Such affirmative action goes against not only the Governor's own professed views, but it flies in the face of the ideology and agenda of the conservative right wing that supports him. Mitt Romney has attempted to dodge the issue recently, in the latest of his notorious "flip-flops" - although to be fair, his silence on affirmative action (except when holding it out as a carrot to lure women voters) cannot really be called change.  In this case, it is more like concealment of his true intentions while hoping the issue will go away. Too bad that glib tongue ran away with you last night, Governor!

Why the Republican gender gap mirrors women's pay disparity, Moira Herbst, The Guardian, September 6, 2012.

Mind the Binder, David. Bernstein, The Phoenix, October 16, 2012.

Presidential debate transcript, questions, October 16, 2012. Politico staff, October 16, 2012.

Mitt Romney to Gubanatorial Staff: "Find some women that are qualified", Christina Wilkie, HuffPost Business, October 17, 2012.

Mitt Romney's "Binders Full of Women" Comment Sets Internet Ablaze, Marlow Stern, The Daily Beast, October 17, 2012.

ETA:

Mitt Romney's Binders Full of Women is a Trapper Keeper Full of Lies, Sarah Jones, PoliticusUsa, October 17, 2012.

In Debate, Romney Struggled on Substance, Ezra Klein, Washington Post, October 17, 2012.

Romney and the Women Who Still Don't Love Him, Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, October 17, 2012.

The frat boy bully Mitt Romney is coldly furious that he was schooled by that ... oops!  Is that a camera?

Economic Specifics - Reproductive Rights Are An Economic Issue

The Republican War on Women:  It's real.

This election could literally be pivotal for women.

9 Clues That Reproductive Policy is Economic Policy, Valerie Tarico, HuffPost Politics, October, 11, 2012.

Anybody who says that talking about reproductive rights is a distraction from talking about economics is not running the numbers. On October 4, a study of 9,000 women showed that access to free contraception radically dropped the rate of unintended pregnancies, two-thirds of which according to the Guttmacher Institute are paid for on the public dime. Unintended pregnancies cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated 11 billion a year in obstetric costs and neonatal care. But that's just the beginning...  Valerie Tarico.

For Women, Reproductive Rights Are Economic Issues, Christine Adams, The Baltimore Sun, September 17, 2012.

Even when times are good, a woman who faces multiple unwanted pregnancies during her child-bearing years has little time to appreciate the security that a burgeoning economy with good jobs promises. There is no factor that more strongly correlates with rising educational attainment and economic advancement among women than the new availability of birth control in the 1960s, along with access to safe and legal abortion since the 1960s and 1970s. For most women, contraception is our greatest health concern and expense during our childbearing years. Again, what is more "real" than that? Telling women that their health insurance will cover everything except birth control is like telling a diabetic that her health insurance will cover everything except insulin and the other necessities of diabetes care and then berating the patient when she becomes seriously ill from a lack of access to insulin. Christine Adams.

Contraception is an economic issue, Amanda Marcotte, Slate, September 27, 2012.

The reality is that, for women, reproductive rights and protection from discrimination cannot be separated from "jobs and the economy and raising their families." Women need their rights protected in order to hold down jobs and raise their families. Two recent news items show how it's more important than ever for women to have their rights protected, for economic reasons above all... Amanda Marcotte.

Hiding Pregnancies: Reproductive Freedom is an Economic Issue, Robin Marty, RH Reality Check, October 8, 2012.

Birth control is expensive. Day care is expensive. Children are expensive. Yet somehow people continue to argue that reproductive rights aren't an economic issue—like unemployment, household debt, or housing...Those who can least afford to get pregnant unintentionally are the ones who most need access to contraception. When being pregnant affects your ability to find work, how can you see reproductive health care as anything other than an economic issue? Robin Marty.

Romney/Ryan Too Extreme on Women's Health, ENews Park Forest, Fact Check, October 12, 2012.

As Congressman Ryan highlighted last night, he and Mitt Romney are too extreme on the critical issue of women’s health. In the House, Ryan worked with Todd Akin to narrow the definition of rape and outlaw abortion for rape and incest victims. And Romney-Ryan believe women’s health care decisions should be put into the hands of their employers, would defund Planned Parenthood, and endorsed the Republican Party platform that includes a constitutional amendment to ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

Veep Debate Reveals Hints of the GOP War on Women, Amy Gehrt, Gatehouse News Service, October 16, 2012.

Whomever wins the White House will hold the fate of a host of other women’s issues in his hands, too. In the past two years alone, there have been nearly 2,000 anti-choice provisions introduced in legislation. Among other things, Republican lawmakers have attempted to redefine rape, supported a bill that would let hospitals watch a woman die rather than perform a needed abortion and tried to take away all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. South Dakota GOP members even attempted to make it legal to murder doctors who provide abortion care. Even the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act has been stalled in Congress — all because protection was expanded to include gays and American Indians. Amy Gehrt.

The Hits, They Keep on Coming, Stephanie Schriock, HuffPost Politics, October 16, 2012.

Forcible rape. I don't think many people would have guessed that it would be one of the defining phrases of the 2012 elections. But, there's not much about today's Republican Party that any one of us could have seen coming.
Todd Akin, House Republicans, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez. The hits, they keep on coming.
For the sake of American women I wish I could say these instances were outliers. But they're just not. This is a Republican Party that has more than 200 members who co-sponsored a bill to redefine rape so that some are worse than others, and continues to support a constitutional ban on abortion - with no exceptions - in its national platform. So it's getting harder for them to argue that the Todd Akin's of the world don't fall right into line with their political views. Stephanie Schriock.

The Faux Mommy Wars, Dahlia Lithwick and Jan Rodak, Slate, April 20, 2012.

A few precatory observations on this language of choice: For one thing, it has become so bound up with the fight over reproductive rights in this country that it never really means just “choice” anymore. You can almost hear the silent “unfortunate” that precedes it every time it’s mentioned in political discourse. For another, not all women have all the choices they are alleged to be pondering. Most of us simply don’t have the luxury of a “choice” to stay home, or a choice to work part-time. Most women, like most men, do what they have to do. “Choice” is usually a misnomer, especially during a recession, for women as much as it is for men.
But talking about women in the language of choice is also a political trap. Because it suggests that while men are free to optimize their lifestyle decisions, women are always forced to “choose.” Men may design their lives. Women’s lives are a sequence of impossible trade-offs, made even more complex when they must mesh with the custom designs of the men with whom they marry and co-parent. Dahlia Lithwick and Jan Rodak.

Mr. President, May I Suggest Some Debate Questions?

The Presidential debate tomorrow night will be watched with some anxiety by supporters of both the President and his challenger, Mitt Romney. The President's supporters will be anxious that he show a more agile response to the Governor's barrage of evasions, half-truths, misrepresentations and outright lies. The Governor's supporters will be anxious because they know quite well that a strategy of bald-faced lying will only work for awhile before the people are on to you - and in the absence of any actual substance to the candidate or his non-existent plan details, there is no Plan B for Romney/Ryan.

You shocked the president with your
disrespect of the democratic process,
but he is on to you now, Mitt Romney.

In the first debate, the President appeared to have been caught off guard by Romney, the apprentice Gish galloper*. (*I say that Mitt Romney is merely an apprentice Gish galloper because in this one arena, even mendacious Mitt is outclassed by his running mate, Paul Ryan, the most skilled liar ever to cast his malevolent shadow across the national stage.) It is not easy for a sincere debater who expects a principled exchange of ideas to recover rapidly from the shock when confronted with an opponent who displays such profound disrespect for the American people. Mitt Romney made a farce of the debate, and in so doing, he communicated his utter contempt for the American public who were tuned in hoping to hear some substantive points about the candidates' respective visions for the future of our country.

While many of his supporters were disappointed that Barack Obama seemed thrown by Romney's blizzard of blarney, is it really so disappointing to realize that the President holds the process whereby the people decide whom to select for office in such high regard that he did not anticipate such outrageous disrespect on the part of his opponent for the people, the office and the truth? President Obama underestimated the depth of Mitt Romney's contempt for the democratic process - not to mention for the American people - before the first debate. He should not underestimate it again.

Have you got it yet, America? Mitt has
no plans to tell you people anything.
Mitt said, "Trust me" and you darn
well better do it! You expect answers?
Who do you think you are, anyway?

Presidential and Vice-presidential candidates have been releasing their tax returns to become a part of the public record dating back to the F. D. Roosevelt administration. We have been frequently reminded that even Mitt Romney's father, George Romney, released 12 years of tax returns as a good faith gesture of full disclosure to the American people, even declaring that "one year could be a fluke".  Apparently, the son did not inherent the integrity of the father. Governor Romney obviously feels entitled to unquestioning trust from the American people - both the 47% he doesn't care about, and the rest that he claims he does still care about (though they are not allowed to ask him about his taxes, either) -  he refused without explanation to provide the tax information, and has clearly communicated his feelings that the American people have no right to know his private business. He argued vociferously in the past for full disclosure from his opponents in various political races, but he is coldly furious that anyone would dare to question him about the same things. That Romney feels entitled to special privilege and aristocratic immunity from the prying eyes of the hoi poloi has been made abundantly clear. He also lied about the precedent for full tax return disclosure by persons running for high office, and has continued to evade the question, plead special status and point-blank refuses to comply.

CEO Romney, where are your tax returns?  Why have you so haughtily refused to explain to the American people why you, but no other candidates for high office in recent history, should be exempted from this full disclosure? The argument for personal privacy, while possibly valid, can only hold water if it is applied across the board. Why do you feel that you are entitled to maintain secrecy around your financial dealings?  When ordinary citizens apply for a mortgage, they must release their tax returns to a lender and other related agencies. Why do you think the American people have no right to this information about you, when you are interviewing for the highest public office in the land?

We're on to you, Mitt. (via allhatnocattle)

On leaving office, Governor Romney purged the State of Massachusetts' records of his gubanatorial administration. Why did you do that, Governor? What possible reason could you have had to spend nearly $100,000 of taxpayer money to wipe his record away? Where can the American people find information about the records which were purged?

After promising "transparency" at the Salt Lake City Olympics, Romney ordered key documents pertaining to the financial oversight and inner workings of his governing apparatus there destroyed. Why?  Governor Romney, you want the American people to hire you for the highest public office in the land: where is the record of your former work?  Where are the gubanatorial papers from your tenure as Governor in Massachusetts?  Where are the records of your performance as chief executive in charge of the Salt Lake City Olympics? What are you hiding?

Bishop Romney, in 2008 you claimed that your religion will not be a factor in your decisions if you are elected, yet as a devout Mormon how will you square that with church doctrine which insists that the only ultimate authority on earth is the president of the Mormon church? Furthermore, the Mormon Church has a teaching that lying in the service of the church is morally justifiable, on the grounds that a Mormon has the right and the duty to obey a higher authority (the leadership of the church and its interpretation of God's will), and no duty to obey manmade laws or rules if they conflict with the Church's best interest. You have proven that you are willing to lie about your business record, you are willing to lie about the President's record and you are willing to lie about your plans for the country. Do you believe that your lies are morally justifiable according to your religious beliefs? What are the implications of that for a Romney presidency?

Wall-to-wall obfuscation: is that all you've got, Mitt?
Bad news, my friend. The American people are on to you.

Bishop Romney, you expect people to "trust you" when you refuse to answer questions or give specifics about your claim that you will be working for 100% of the people - yet what reason do we have to trust you? Why can't we find plentiful examples of your charity or concern for people outside of your church? Every single "story" at the RNC convention and just about every story before and since then involved families inside the Mormon church. Most of us are pretty willing to help out members of our own communities. The true test of leadership is how willing you are to help people to whom you do not owe any debt or religious allegiance. Where is the evidence that you possess that kind of character?

Bishop Romney, at the RNC convention you deliberately presented a bland picture of a kind of generic "Christianity" which was in no sense an accurate reflection of your Mormon faith. Referring to the male leaders of the LDS church as "pastors" instead of by their actual titles, "bishops" was a misleading strategy to appear more like the conservative Christians that you are courting for their votes.  Pretending to be afraid of "going to hell" - which you know is an actual fear of Protestant Evangelical Christians - was a dishonest ploy to ingratiate yourself with the conservative Christians who worry that you are not "one of them".

Even some of your fellow Mormons are on to you, Mitt. 

But, there is no hell in the LDS belief system. There are only the three degrees of glory and outer darkness. As a recipient of the Second Anointing, you have been guaranteed the Celestial Kingdom. While your non-Mormon supporters may not know this, your LDS supporters almost certainly do. It is possible that their consciences, like yours, are undisturbed by lying - even lying to the entire American people in the quest to win the highest office in the land - when you can almost taste the victory of ultimate power. But I think you underestimate the character of your fellow religionists. Some Latter Day Saints recognized what you were doing and they were appalled.

"Mitt Romney and the other Mormon speakers spent the entire evening trying to make Mormonism sound like just another Christian religion. It was deliberate misrepresentation, and the joke about going to hell was part of it." (ex-Mormon commenting on the presentation of Mormonism by Mitt Romney and his campaign). reported by Lynna, at Pharyngula.

Bishop Romney, are you trying to deceive even your own conservative Christian base by pretending to share their core beliefs and practices? Why? Could it be that you know that if they knew who you really are and what you truly believe that you would lose their support? If even your own base would not support the true Mitt Romney, then how can you expect the majority of the country to support you? And if you have to lie to secure the support of your base, then how can the country ever trust you?  If you will even lie to your own base, what does that say about a future Romney presidency?

These are just a few of the dozens of questions to which many Americans would like a straight answer.

A few other bloggers have more words of advice:

How Joe Biden Broke the Gish Gallop, The National Memo, October 15, 2012.

More Debate Suggestions For Obama, Andy Ostroy, HuffPost Politics, October 15, 2012.

Good luck, Mr. President.

Mitt Romney believes that he is above regular Americans.  How dare we demand to see his tax returns!
We are on to you,  Mitt Romney!