Silver lining time!

In this first news bit, a scientist has a record of being insensitive. Given his life's work, it seems a bit odd for him to have made a racist remark, but he feels badly about it (though he carefully avoids confirming that he actually said it), and, most importantly, he says that there is no scientific basis for racism.

I like that last bit. If we can all agree that racism is stupid, in significant part, because there is no scientific basis for it, then maybe we can start applying that particular criterion to other aspects of life. Give me a demonstrable, measurable basis for believing something is true, and I might argue with your methodology or the conclusions you're deriving from your experimental results, but at least we'll be attacking each other on a rational basis.

Story two is outside of my usual sphere of interest; I only heard last week that the defendant in this lawsuit existed. It's a couple of celebrities going at each other in the courts, which satisfies two requirements to make me stop paying attention: celebrities and lawsuits. So why am I wasting precious time writing about it? Because the case is so choked with stupidity that the fact that it's gay sex that is alleged here is kind of lost in the shuffle. You read this story and you get so burned out with crap you don't care about that "Oh, and they're gay" just seems stupid and tacky to add on; like pointing out that OJ and Nicole were an interracial couple.