The WaPo finally admits what we've all known.

The e-mail rumor mill is run by conservatives

Will Medicare premiums go up nearly 21/ 2 times over the next two years in order to pay for the health-care legislation signed by President Obama last year? Well, no, they won't. But you might think an increase is coming if you read a chain e-mail that has spread across the country in the past few months. "Send this to all seniors that you know," it says. "So they will know who's throwing them under the bus."

Like the Medicare premium story, these claims are demonstrably false, too. Nevertheless, they are among the players on the thriving underground e-mail circuit, a nonstop carnival of nonsense whose star attractions have included the canard that Obama is secretly a Muslim and variations on the debunked "birther" allegation about his origins.

Grass-roots whisper campaigns such as these predate the invention of the "send" button, of course. No one needed a Facebook page or an e-mail account to spread the word about Thomas Jefferson's secret love child or Grover Cleveland's out-of-wedlock offspring (both men won election despite the stories, which in Jefferson's case were very likely true).

I'm sure that some teahadist will claim that it's a "sign from God" or something.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-...

Okay, I'm a middle-aged white woman, so please forgive me if this strays into racial/cultural problem areas.

However, in observing Hispanic cultures, they respect the wisdom of older women a lot more than Anglos do. In Anglo society, an older woman is seen as a burden on society, a "hag" or someone that has no opinions because she is no longer able to produce children. "Crone" is a bad word, rather than one that denotes wisdom. Look at all of the nasty comments against Hillary Clinton and not wanting to see her age for a prime example. (Note: I was not a Hillary supporter, but I didn't like the sexist/ageist comments against her.) In contrast, Hispanic culture generally has the "abuelita" that the entire family defers to. There might be masculine machismo, but what Grandma says, goes. Obviously, the over-testosteroned white males like Limpballs and Gingrinch don't understand this. After all, Newt's already traded in two wives because they got old. And we all know about Limpball's problems with women. So, when Judge Sotomayor says that a wise Latina woman might be a better judge than a white man, maybe she is coming from a cultural standpoint of valuing the wisdom of older women.