The 113th Congress will have a record-breaking number of female senators, the most in history. And it has created a less auspicious historical footnote.

"We had the first traffic jam in the United States history in the women's Senate bathroom, history has been made," Klobuchar said today. "Five women, five at once."

The issue of bathrooms on Capitol Hill is more immediate than you might think. It was just one year ago that women serving across the building in the House of Representatives finally got a women's restroom just off the House floor. There has been a women's restroom near the Senate chamber since 1993.

Barbara Mikulski, D-Md, the "dean" of women in the Senate, has been the senator from Maryland since 1987 and was in the House for ten yearsoccasional musings on politics, culture and life in general from an american in exile

15 February 2008

The long arm of the FCC

Denied a US visa Amy Winehouse had to perform at the Grammy Awards via satellite. Despite the fact that she was on free British soil she still had to cover up a tattoo of a topless woman before her performance lest those defenders of the purity of American youth could spot the tattooed nipples from 6,000 miles away! For those of you who are strong enough you can spot one of these offensive nipples in the photo above (on her left arm).