mikeash - for the record, I am not calling you a racist, don't think you are a racist and in no way am implying you are one. It is a pity you drew that line back to yourself as that was not my intent.

I thank you for including the word "basically" in your assertion, as it infers you understand that it does require a leap to connect the dots in my reply to an accusation of racism.

To be clear, '</valleygirlvoice>' was specifically included to define that speech as being an example of someone-else confusing correlation with causation and (this is the critical bit) the ease with which we (all) jump from there to moral judgements and social consequences.