Robin Givhan mounts a defense of paying disproportionate attention to the outfits of political women:

It is not sexist to have noticed that Sen. Hillary Clinton delivered her convention speech dressed in head-to-toe mango. Only an obstinately unaware person would have ignored this question: Senator, why are you dressed like a tropical fruit? One assumes it was to ensure an eye-catching photo for the history books and to underscore her “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits” legacy.

There’s some real truth to that and, obviously, if John Kerry had shown up on stage in an orange suit his fashion choices would hardly have been ignored. But to observe that is to overlook the point that, of course, Kerry wouldn’t show up on stage in an orange suit or a red one or a green one or anything other than the standard conservative (in a fashion sense) male “I’m a serious and important person” uniform. A woman in politics could choose to dress consistently in the same kind of drab colors that her male colleagues choose, but that would be noteworthy in its own right. And if she chooses not to do so, then her bold colors become noteworthy. What’s sexist here isn’t noticing a bright orange suit, but the set of differing conventions and expectations about what male and female politicians should do — conventions that all-but-ensure a higher overall level of scrutiny will be given to women’s wardrobes.

Very funny video (via Alex Tabarrok) about the case for rationalizing the spelling of the English language. Obviously, readers of the blog will know that I’m a bit spelling challenged. But I say: It’s not my fault, nobody could spell this crazy language correctly!

Beyond myself personally, I’ve heard it said that the extremely high degree of regularity in Finnish spelling helps contribute to that country’s very high literacy rate. I’m obviously not in a position to assess that claim, but it is unquestionably true that English is harder to learn to spell than are many other languages (certainly harder than French or Spanish, the other two languages I have some familiarity with) and that presumably has some impact on the education system’s ability to teach kids to read and write. It strikes me as a subject that’s probably worth some inquiry.

Paul Weinstein of the Progressive Policy Institute (the DLC’s think tank) is a fellow train enthusiast and has put together an excellent policy report making the case for substantial investment aimed at creating several new high-speed rail corridors in those parts of the country where we have cities spaced the appropriate distance apart. California, where the state is moving ahead with HSR plans would seem to be the most-promising candidate at the moment though there are several other good options.

To anticipate the usual objections briefly: Yes it’s true that high-quality passenger rail networks in Europe are dependent on public subsidies. But driving and flying also depend for their viability on publicly subsidized infrastructure. What’s more there’s nothing wrong with that useful infrastructure projects ought to be subsidized. The question isn’t whether to subsidize things, it’s what to subsidize. And across a certain range of distances, HSR is speedier than flying. And because train travel is more pleasant and rail stations tend to be more centrally located than airports, trains are a better option even for trips where they’re slightly slower. If we had an appropriate rail network, not only could HSR-appropriate trips be accomplished more effectively (and in a more environmentally sound way) but it would allow our air travel network to focus its resources more tightly on the kind of trips for which flying really is the most appropriate solution.

Got back to DC just in time to get seriously Hanna’d during a perhaps misguided effort to leave the house:

While contemplating the storm, and the additional storms down the road, ponder Joe Romm’s post at Climate Progress about how, yes, global warming is making storms fiercer and will continue to do so unless we do something.

Google hasn’t released a Mac version of Chrome yet so I haven’t gotten a chance to try it yet, but via James Fallows I see they’ve definitely come up with the best user guide I’ve ever seen for a program.