National Review columnist John Derbyshire has made a name for himself saying really stupid things. Like when he lamented America's Hispanic "invasion," or called affirmative action "hideous," or criticized Virginia Tech victims.

His latest insane claim: Society would be better off if women didn’t vote. No really, he thinks that. The statement comes from the chapter "The Case Against Women’s Suffrage" from We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism.

When pressed about this view on a radio show yesterday, he replied:

(The) logic of that chapter, that chapter five in my book, rests on the proposition that women voting is bad for conservatism, and as a conservative, of course, I think that’s bad for society.

A ridiculous statement, of course, and one that does his party zero favors. The GOP is floundering; the last thing it needs is some bonehead publicly suggesting gender inequality as a party antidote.

So why provide him a high-profile platform in a major right-wing publication? News flash, Repubs: What's bad for conservatism is people like John Derbyshire.

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Mother Jones's San Francisco office is located right downtown, on a fairly calm street near the financial district. So when I stepped out for my lunch break today, I noticed there was an unusual amount of commotion just a few doors down. As in, three fire engines, a couple dozen police cruisers, tons of yellow tape, and three helicopters hovering above. Some of the surrounding buildings had even been evacuated, but despite this, about 50 other people stood casually on the sidewalk, snapping pictures with iPhones and Blackberries, just 100 feet away from several fully-equipped firefighters.

Curious, I wandered closer and one of the firefighters told me a suspicious looking man had been seen holding a loosely wrapped package very gingerly. The man gently placed the package into a newspaper vending box, closed it, and walked away. San Francisco is famous for its eccentrics, but just to be safe, the San Francisco Bomb Squad used a remote control to move a robot toward the package to X-ray it for any dangerous materials. About 10 minutes later, the firefighters' walkie-talkies buzzed in unison. They had been informed that nothing was found.

The three helicopters buzzed away and policemen took down the yellow tape, opening the street again. As I walked back to the office, I passed the bomb squad standing around the robot. One of them glanced at me, looking cheerful he didn’t have to deal with a real bomb, and asked if I’d like to take a picture of the hero, “Wall-E”. Naturally, I said yes. Wall-E may not be exactly DARPA material, but hey, the little guy got the street open again in 10 minutes. Maybe they should order a few of him for the TSA.

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Sure, San Francisco's Golden Gate Park hosted some of the biggest names in bluegrass this past weekend, on six different stages for three days straight. But I was lucky enough to catch Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings last Thursday at the Fillmore before all that madness began.

It's always a toss-up whether music with such reverence for subtlety will get drowned out by a drunken crowd in a standing-only venue like this one. But the country-folk pair cut right through any misgivings their audience might have had about the music being too soft or too twangy; at times they were both, and the crowd went crazy for them. The pair played a handful of Welch favorites, including "Red Clay Halo" and "Revelator," and with voices intertwined, so accustomed to one another's intonations, their harmonies sounded more like one voice than two.

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There were two distinct personalities in attendance at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival this weekend. One was comprised of old bluegrass standards and quick-tempo banjo melodies popular among the older crowd of free spirits. The other, favored by the twentysomething folk enthusiasts in skin-tight jeans, was a hip hybrid of blues riffs, funky instruments, and alternative style. Though noticeably distinct, the two personas were married by the unbeatable combination of light beer and cheap bourbon.

The crowd that came out to hear Doc Watson’s signature old-school flatpicking seemed less energetic than the audiences for the Old 97s, Gillian Welch and Galactic, which all market a watered-down variety of the pure stuff to a younger audience. Although he remains a legendary fixture of bluegrass, a surprising number of onlookers sitting near me at the festival's Banjo stage were surprised to hear Doc was on the schedule, even as he took the stage. But Watson, despite being 86 years old and blind for 85 of those years, knows how to get a festival crowd excited; he's been entertaining people for more than half a century, after all.

For Watson, music is a family affair. He played almost exclusively with his son Merle for 15 years, until Merle's untimely death in 1985. For the past two decades, Doc has played with a number of close friends, notably David Holt, with whom he shared the stage yesterday. Holt is known for his plucky banjo solos and narrative songwriting style. Doc was also joined by his grandson Richard, who announced to rousing and emotional applause that he recently became a grandfather, which makes Doc a great great (!) grandfather. The importance of Doc’s family in his music was most apparent when he crooned the mountain love song "Shady Grove" in honor of Rosa Lee Carlton, his wife of 64 years. And Doc gave his late sister Ethel a callout when he introduced his penultimate tune, "Sitting on Top of the World," a popular 1930s tune about a boy trying to cheer himself up after his girl leaves him.

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