Just Say NO to Orchestrated Outrage

[Originally posted to Facebook on January 24, 2011]

Regardless of what is eventually discovered about Jared Loughner and the Tucson Massacre, the only good thing to come of all this is the discussion of why the state of our politics and media is what it is. It is neither a "right wing" problem nor a "left wing" problem. It is the fact that neither the politicians, nor the media who cover them, have any motivation to be civil, because we've turned outrage into a form of entertainment. WE are the problem. As soon as we add, "...but The Right/Left is more to blame", we've undone any good we tried to do.

Jon Stewart said, "As I watched the political pundit world, many are reflecting and grieving and trying to figure things out. But it's definitely true that others are working feverishly to find the tidbit or two that will exonerate their side from blame or implicate the other, and watching that is as predictable, I think, as it is dispiriting."

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/01/11/jon-stewarts-moving-monologue-on-the-tucson-shootings/

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

[Originally posted to Facebook on September 11, 2010]

I remember I was at home, in our rented house in Lemay. It was a morning during the week, and I had been at my new job at ITT for about three months. Ann was working for MSD. Early in the morning, she called me and asked if I could get on-line, because the network connection was very very slow, and there were an unusual number of planes flying overhead. I couldn't get on-line either, so I went upstairs and turned on the television to CNN.

The first thing I saw was the first replay of a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers, about halfway up. The other tower was already on fire near the top. At the crawl at the bottom of the television display, there was a news update reporting a possible fire at the Pentagon. Soon it was reported that it was a third plane that had crashed there. I wondered how bad this was going to get. I sat down and watched for the next four hours, thinking to myself, "This is when everything changes. We're going to war."

This heinous crime was committed by religious zealots, and all people of faith, of all religions, should take affirmative steps to condemn these infamous actions and ensure that nothing like this is ever perpetrated again in the name of anyone's God.

Ruminations on an Election

[Originally posted on 11/10/2008]

I originally wrote this for an e-mail list of personal friends and acquaintances.  I have decided to repost it here.

This election was a difficult one.

I'm continually surprised by the venom elections bring out in people. At work, I had people earnestly confiding in me that they would move to Canada if Obama won.  Since these folks are obviously conservatives, given when I know of Canadians, I wonder if they really thought this through.  I mean, I wasn't aware that Canada was made up of war-hawk homophobes who hate socialized medicine.

(I had to pause for a moment....I'm mildly amused that the spellchecker in my Thunderbird e-mail client doesn't know about the word "homophobe".  Perhaps some programmer at Mozilla is an optimist.  Then again, it apparently doesn't know about the word "spellchecker" either, which explains the state of Internet message forums....)

It's interesting that an election can make a moderate Republican known for facing down his own party every so often become in the national psyche a warmongering wingnut who is the very embodiment of evil social conservatives and a virtual genetic clone of the Dictator-in-Chief.  Of course, McCain apparently suffered a stroke over the summer, because he decided a totally unknown, less-than-one-term social conservative state governor with a poorly vetted background was somehow a good choice of runningmate, and then decided to go so disgustingly negative in the last month of the campaign as to poison his own well.

It's interesting that an election can make a nearly unknown freshman senator from Chicago known for little else than one speech a leader for the 21st century.  He had is own stroke over the summer, but it was a stroke of genius, forgoing the obviously politically expedient, and historically trumping, choice of a woman running mate and instead picking one of the most astute politicians in recent memory, and risking alienating a big chunk of his own party in the process.  This writer was duly impressed with his ability and determination to not go totally negative.  Not that he didn't tell his share of campaign ad fibs, but better to fudge your opponent's policy stances than some make hay of social connections that even this libertarian can see are tenuous at best.

For the first time since 1988, I did not vote for the Libertarian candidate for president.  This was an extremely difficult choice for me.  People seem to take personal pleasure in informing me that I'm throwing my vote away, or that I'm really casting a vote for the person they're against.  But there was something oddly comforting about my votes.  I could warmly snuggle into the down comforter of voting my conscience, or at least, not voting for anyone who would be part of prolonging the country's problems.  But instead, I did my due diligence, checking as many facts and counter-facts as I could, examining political rhetoric, attempting to filter said rhetoric through the polarizing sunglasses of election year distortions, and trying, in earnest, to vote for the person I thought would be best for the country in the long term.  Should or should not their choices for vice-president be taken into account?  What would *really* happen if they were in office?  What would *really* happen if they died in office and their running-mates took the office?  Who is more likely to do things that coincide with my beliefs?  Who is more likely to actually attempt to do what they say?  And *what* ARE they really saying?

Of course, I've tried to discuss the pros and cons of both the Democratic and Republican candidates, and no matter who I bring up, I've been the subject of no small amount of abuse by people whose idea of political discourse is a harpy's scream at 120dB.  The Internet has become both the best and worst thing to ever happen to American elections.  Truths are available at the touch of a button, and so are lies.  Truths are declared lies and lies are declared truths and there's absolutely no filter whatsoever, so an earnest, sincere search for information on the candidates becomes a bit like being stuck between two squabbling children shouting "am not!" "are too!".

The answers are only obvious to those who have predetermined the questions, and they are self-appointed.  To them, there are no reasonable decisions.  You pick their candidate if you want to be Right.  If, for some reason, through an honest attempt at sorting through everything, you conclude that the other candidate might in fact be a better choice, then you are (a) a moron, (b) a sheep, (c) either a Socialist or a Racist Hater.

So for those people who are so smugly secure in their choice of presidential candidate, just know that not everyone shared your sense of self-satisfied confidence.

And I will never, ever not vote Libertarian again.  It's just been too traumatic.  It's safer to just throw my vote away.

Beijing 2008 ~= Berlin 1936

[Originally posted on 3/16/2008]

Red China really wants you to watch the Olympics.  Really really badly.  They want to prove to you that they are a happy, peaceful, unified country.  They're not really bad, they're just misunderstood.  The Olympics will show just how happy their big happy family is.  Right?

Um....

Apparently, the many areas of Asia conquered by the Communists -- and let's not forget, in spite of the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, China is a Communist country -- haven't been brainwashed into the ChiCom's Big Happy Family (R) (after all, they're now "capitalist" and so I guess they're supposed to be okay) thoroughly enough.  Turns out the nation of Tibet has never really been happy being held at gunpoint to be (a) officially atheist and (b) happily Chinese, and they're picking now to take another shot at calling the world's attention to it.  And it's working. 

For all the noise China makes about how good they are, they're still a Communist dictatorship, attempting to shoehorn in a token amount of free economic activity into a society that is effectively under a Soviet-style dictatorship. 

In a Reuter's news story:

Kang Xiaoguang, a political scientist at the People's University of China who has long studied social stability, said there was very little chance of the Tibetan protests sparking a chain reaction in broader China.
"I think the chances are minimal," he said of the possibility of copycat protests. "This is a localized problem. In the Han Chinese regions there's virtually zero sympathy for the Tibetan rioters, and so virtually zero chance that this will spread."

Why is that?  Because they're not Chinese.  Duh.  Of course, even if they had sympathy, I'm sure they're not aching to be shot at.

The Federal government is either in utter denial, are totally scared out of the minds by them, or are secretly on the take from them.  We know they launch constant, concerted hacker attacks on our nation's computer systems, especially government and military systems.  We know they want to squash the legitimately capitalist and democratic Republic of China (we call it Taiwan mostly for convenience), which we can't bother to have diplomatic relations with.  They're totally useless in influencing the rogue nations they're supposedly friends with (e.g. North Korea, Burma, Sudan).  They control the Port of Los Angeles.  And huge chunks of our manufacturing has been shipped there, where they thank us by poisoning our children with lead in their toys.

But they have the Olympics, so that makes them okay.  How deeply into denial we've all fallen.

More Proof Religion Creates Nutjobs, or Something More Basic?

The world had its weekly WTF moment earlier when a British schoolteacher working at a private high school in Sudan was arrested and threatened with death for permitting 20 of her 23 charges to name a stuffed teddy bear "Mohammad", a name which is also the most popular boy's name in the country.  On cue, religious nutjobs took to the street demanding that Gillian Gibbons be killed on the grounds of "insulting Islam".

Perhaps I should not be continually surprised by the ability of religion to turn civilized, sentient people into murderous knucklewalkers.  But I still am.  This case makes no sense, and makes you wonder what the motives for demanding the death of Gibbons really are.  We are all aware of how viciously misogynous Islam is -- most Judeo-Christian religions are, for that matter.  Nobody demanded the death of any of the students, who were raised in Islam and so should know better, and presumably male, since most Muslim countries pretty much proclaim women to be anathema upon puberty.  The fact that the teacher was female and Western likely also whetted their taste for blood.  I'm inclined to think that had the teacher been American she would be dead already (though I would hope that any American woman would have far more intelligence than to choose to work in a country like Sudan).

So is this really a case of Muslim overreaction, or are there people in Sudan who just want an excuse to kill? 

Supreme Court Clubs Free Speech in "Bong Hits" Case

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been making some interesting decisions. Most of them have been, I feel, correct for the most part, but everyone has been holding their breath over the first boneheaded ruling of the freshly-right-leaning Court. Here it is.

The Supreme Court upheld a school principal's right to confiscate a banner put up by a student solely because it appeared to advocate drug use. The court case out of Juneau, Alaska, upheld the actions of high school principal Deborah Roberts, which included confiscating the banner, which read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus", and suspending the student Joseph Frederick for violating a school policy banning the advocacy of illegal drug use.

According to the Reuters article of the ruling, Frederick claimed the banner's language was meant to be nonsensical and funny, a prank to get on television as the Winter Olympic torch relay passed by the school in January 2002. But school officials say the phrase "bong hits" refers to smoking marijuana, and Morse suspended Frederick for 10 days because she said the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy.

I think we all understand that laws and court cases, especially free speech cases, are usually decided at the fringes of generally accepted behavior.  But this ruling appears to run blatantly into the mundane.  Now, any school official can silence a student for any speech concerning drug use.  This is far too broad a ruling to be reasonable.  Could a principal discipline a student for writing a research paper supporting the legalization of drugs?  After this ruling, it appears so.

What bugs me is not just the ruling, which is absurd.  If the Supreme Court had ruled that the Federal government had no jurisdiction in what is really a state case and is leaving well enough alone, that would at least show a bit of thought put into it.  But instead, the War on Drugs rears its ugly head, as the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts actually said a principal may restrict student speech at a school event when it is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.

The 1st Amendment is one of those concepts in American law where usually it is totally obvious to everyone, in both political parties and on both ends of the political spectrum, that only the most agregious of expression may be restricted.  But this ruling suggests that any Constitutional right may be curtailed if it does not come down on the side of the War on Drugs that the Neo-Cons are on.

This is a scary ruling, boys and girls.

Ron Paul for the Republican nomination for President (for as long as it lasts, anyway)

It's stunning -- bordering on embarassing -- that the 2008 Presidential Campaign is already underway, and it's only June of 2007.  Perhaps this is a reflection of the country's total loss of patience with George W. Bush, though more likely it's a side effect of the presidential primary oneupmanship that could possibly have the first votes cast in December.  Absurd, but I guess that's states' jealousy of New Hampshire more than anything else.  I suppose, though, that this is the closest America gets to an "opposition leader", which most countries seem to have and whose existence they take for granted.

In what looks to be a record-sized candidate field, even more, I think, than the 62 candidates appearing on the ballot in New Hampshire in 1992 -- 25 Republicans, 36 Democrats and one Libertarian -- there are many angles, views, approaches, and proposals for future policy.  Nobody is bulletproof, and nearly everyone has a significant flaw of some type.  The great thing about that is it produces some wonderful political space opera.

One candidate raising far more than their fair share of eyebrows is Ron Paul.  His political career is singularly unique.  Although a 10 term Republican representative, he is not a Party Man.  His nickname amongst his comrades is "Dr. No" -- a reference to his still-active obstetrics practice (he's delivered over 4000 babies) combined with his unflinching willingness to vote against any bill that does not meet his strict standards for constitutionality.  If you call him a Conservative, think less George Bush and more Barry Goldwater.  It would be more accurate to call him a Libertarian (and in 1988, we did -- officially -- in his only previous presidential bid) because his voting record matches that adjective very well.  His own party has no love for him -- in the '90s the party gerrymandered his district to elect a *Democrat* just to get him out of office, but no Democrat would dare face him.

As pure a fiscal conservative as was ever cast, non-interventionist in his foreign policy to the point that his opponents pose him as "isolationist", yet an ardent opponent of the War on Drugs, the PATRIOT Act, and the only Republican to vote against war against Iraq in 2002.  In the 2nd Republican debate, he sent Rudolph Giuliani into an apoplectic fit for stating that the 9/11 attacks were the result of 50 years of interventionist and imperialist foreign policy in the middle east, the Iraq War being only the latest insult.  The statement so incensed the rest of the Republican Party that some aparatchiks actually wanted to ban him from future debates (which in itself is quite telling about the Republicans in general and neo-cons specifically).  They backpedaled after they realized just how bad they were making themselves look.

He ardently supports limited government, privacy, free speech, free association, free trade, property rights, and gun rights.  He opposes eminent domain, warrantless searches, the anti-flag burning amendment, the national ID card, and secret wiretapping of Americans.  He supports a defensive military, preferring to conquer the world with trade and ideas instead of building an empire, but opposes the UN and the WTO.  He opposes centralization of government power, for whatever reason.  On all of these things, I'm solidly with him.

He's not huge on the separation of church and state, but not because he's a Christian zealot, but rather because he views suppressing all religious expression in public life to be contrary to free speech, expression, and religion. 

His pro-life stance is based on his career as an obstetrician, and although he personally opposes abortion, he has voted against many anti-abortion bills that would curtail other liberties, such as interstate travel of minors to states that permit abortions, and he opposes the death penalty (unusual among Republicans and downright rare among Protestants).  He may oppose federal funds for embryonic stem cell research, but he also opposes the Federal government's attempts to stop states from legalizing assisted suicide.  He opposes Roe v. Wade on the basis that it's bad constitutional politics, and that it's a states' rights issue, not because he seeks to ban abortions nationwide on a religious basis.  He has written, in fact, that "while Roe v Wade is invalid, a Federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid."  He writes frequently and eloquently from the pro-life perspective, but never proposes to use Federal power to impose it on the country.  While I would prefer a pro-choice presidential candidate, at least he doesn't seem bent on forcing his beliefs on the country.

Every election cycle, I vote Libertarian, because that is where my political beliefs dwell.  I don't see it as throwing away my vote, but as voting my conscience.  Ron Paul gives me, for perhaps one brief flicker of a moment, a chance to cast a ballot for someone with a chance of winning, however remote.  I don't think he could possibly get the Republican nomination, because the neo-con imperialist hawks and the lunatic fringe fundamentalist Christians have a shared stranglehold on the party, but I'll enjoy the Ron Paul spectacle while it lasts.

Warriors for Ignorance

It's very interesting to see the drama playing out over LiveJournal's hamfisted handling of their mass deletion of blogs and communities this week. It's always curious when usually well-meaning Internet companies get played by extremist elements. The one "activist group" that is cited in C|Net's coverage of the debacle, is Warriors for Innocence. You would think, as I did, that this group is a watchdog group by concerned people about the real scourge of pedophilia, a condition that truly mentally disturbed people of our society are afflicted with.

But if you look more closely, you find that this organization is, in fact, not an organization at all, and by the writings of their principals, isn't really even all that concerned about pedophilia. What really gets their ire up, apparently, is homosexuality. You would think that a company as savvy as Six Apart (LiveJournal's parent company) would have done its due diligence before taking an action that was totally unnecessary from a legal standpoint and had huge potential to harm their company under the best circumstances. But C|Net had no trouble turning up this tidbit:

"A representative from the group (Warriors for Innocence), who gave her name only as "Sues," said in an e-mail Thursday that "we did not knowingly report any 'fandom' communities or role-playing journals." In posts to her personal blog, Sues describes herself as an ardent conservative who views homosexuality as "sick" and a "twisted agenda" and lumps gays and lesbians into the same category as pedophiles and rapists.

That last part is particularly telling, since many of the purged communities had little, if anything, to do with pedophilia, though did contain references to homosexual practices.  If "Sues" equates homosexuality with pedophilia, it's not surprising they would not shed many tears over missing their supposed target.   "Sues"'s first statement is also disingenuous: One need not lodge complaints about specific blogs, they simply must structure their complaint in such a manner as to ensure they were caught up in the purge.  It also appears that, far from being "a representative of the groups", "Sues" is in fact the principal of the organization, which is made up of no more than a few individuals who apparently share this extreme bigotry against people whose sexual orientation differs from the norm.  There is also apparently evidence linking Warriors for Innocence to the Dominionist movement.

This whole event seems to reinforce my view of extremist Christians, who consider sexual orientation to be equivalent with violence against children and women, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.  That view is that these people, who call themselves Christians but are in fact truly evil, will lie to people, and harm bystanders, in their headlong rush to power over us.  I would propose that companies such as Six Apart take greater care before heeding the advice of seemingly well-meaning "activists".

To All Christians Waving Their Belief in My Face

[Originally posted on 1/8/2007]

Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

This, then, is how you should pray:

'Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.'

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:1-8

Funny that a "pagan" has to remind you all of this.

Prove to Me Your Lack of Faith

Got wrapped up in a tangent on one of my previous articles.

I've always been fascinated by Christian scientists (people who are Christians who are trained to be scientists, not the Christian denomination founded by Mary Baker Eddy) who feel compelled to "prove" the historical factualness of events in the Bible. I suppose the logic goes, "this happened, because the Bible says so, but no one believes it because they doubt the Bible, therefore if I can find objective proof that this occurred, people will have no choice but to accept Jesus Christ and the country will become a Christian nation."

These people are misguided, and miss a fundamental point of Christianity, which is Faith. By attempting to scientifically prove that things in the Bible occurred, they are in fact demonstrating their lack of faith in God. Usually these poor louts are folks who have been brainwashed into believing that the Bible is literally true.

In order for the Bible to be literally true, one must ignore (a) its source, which is written in Aramaic, Greek, etc., and thus suspect in translations, and (b) most established scientific knowledge. Bible Literalism, then, plays to those in our society who are the least educated.

So "scientists" who attempt to, for example, find Noah's Ark, or dedicate their lives to Intelligent Design, are doing nothing more than proving they have no faith in God. Which is exactly what their religion tells them is the worst thing they can do.

In addition, they are guilty of the Deadly Sin of Pride, since they feel so certain that they are Right and Correct that their beliefs are the One True Religion that they generally consider themselves to be smarter and -- well, just overall "better" than the rest of us -- that they must expend resources to demonstrate to us just how Right and Correct they are. We will see this, and therefore their particular brand of The Light, and then cave to all of their political demands.

End result: Christian scientists are going to Hell, for God will judge them and punish them for their Pride and lack of faith in Him.

I'm gonna love seeing how a Christian responds to this argument. :-)

Use Your Right Hand or I'll Beat the Shit Out of You

From time to time, for reasons that are vague and probably just the product of a mind naturally prone to wandering, I wonder about the whole argument about homosexuality and heterosexuality, and how we get to become one or the other. If we were to find an answer to that question, it would have profound consequences on our world.


It is one of the issues at the crux of a problem that psychology has been wrestling with for decades, that of the "Nature vs. Nurture" argument. The Nature argument says that we are a product of our genes and biology. All behavior is a consequence of the construction of our bodies. The Nurture argument says that we are born tabula rasa (or as Rush Limbaugh would put it, little skulls full of mush) and we are taught to be everything we are. Without experience, we are no better than animals.

Of course, every psychologist worth their diplomas will admit that it's not an either/or question. We are a subtle, exquisite blend of our genes and our experiences. A third argument suggests that we are a perfect blend or balance of both. Our behavior is equal parts Nature and Nurture, that a traumatic event can strongly influence our subsequent behavior, even if our genetics lean against it, but such an event cannot ultimately make us go totally against our nature.

Some traits of ours are more Nature than Nurture, and others are vice versa. The third argument is just as unreasonable as the first two because, as Carl Sagan once said, "real life is lumpy".

When these ideas collide with axioms from other sources, we have the makings for a fiercely combustible situation. No topic tests this more severely than sexuality. We can see examples where learned behavior goes to an extreme to counteract natural tendencies. In Islam, the Koran teaches that women are responsible for inflaming the sexual passions of men, and therefore must be isolated in society and covered up so that men can lead with a clear head. Women and men are taught this, and accept it for the most part, in a large part of the Muslim world. Part of the beliefs of Western decadence comes from the fact that our women aren't forced to do that. In Western society, of course, we view this belief as ludicrous. Men are responsible for tempering their own passions, and women aren't obliged to hide themselves just because men aren't strong enough to deal with it. The flip side of the Muslim view of women is that Muslim men are so weak-willed that only by arranging their entire society to essentially enslave or imprison half their population can they deal with their lives without becoming uncontrollable sexual ogres.

Our challenge in the Western world, especially the United States, has to do with homosexuality. Here again, Nature and Nurture collide head on. Ask any devout, or at least conservative, Christian about homosexuality, and they will tell you that it is evil and disgusting, a violation of the sanctity of God. Christians are burning up non-trivial amounts of money to counter efforts to allow gay people to marry, because it's an attack on marriage. *How* this is an attack on marriage they're never quite clear about except that letting gay people do anything is apparently an attack on something.

Why do we expend such effort? Because Christianity dictates that it is wrong, and it is unacceptable to them for society to tolerate it. It's not just that they object to society saying it's not wrong, but they object to society not saying it's wrong. In other words, silence on the topic isn't enough. To be a society they're willing to participate in, the law must actively work against homosexuality.

They do attempt to trot out any number of "societal ills" to justify this bigotry -- including that by accepting it we're telling our children that homosexuality is okay. This is a pure Nurture argument. The argument goes something like this: In order to be gay, you have to choose to do so. You have to choose actions that are despicable to society, and therefore you must be evil if you would actually *want* to do that. And since people don't like to be alone, they have to "recruit" new gay people, since nobody would ever naturally be gay.

There's just one problem with this argument. It's been proven that there is a genetic component to homosexuality. How can this be?!? After all, how would gay people pass on their gay genes? It makes no logical sense. Well see, that's where the influence of nurture comes along. For centuries, gay people repressed their preference. They married. They had children. They passed along the genetic tendency for homosexuality. Oh, and they had gay affairs when they thought it was safe. Only in rare moments in world history has homosexuality been considered not unacceptable -- ancient Greece, imperial Rome, occasional enlightened enclaves of Renaissance and Industrial Europe, and in some Modern American and European communities. Famous people in history have turned out to be gay -- some secretly, a precious few out. I personally have heard gay people discuss over and over and over again, that they did not choose to be gay. They simply were. The only decision was in whether to do something about it or not.

Sexual impulses are stronger than we give them credit for. Throughout history, gay men have fled to the Catholic priesthood in the hopes of escaping their sexuality. In modern times we are seeing how effective that has been. A boy who is straight and is molested by a gay man may be emotionally damaged by the encounter, but will it make the child gay? It is unlikely, anymore than a girl who is molested by a straight man becomes straight from the experience. In fact, an argument could be made that it would have the opposite effect, if it in fact could have an effect on sexuality at all. A young gay man will no sooner become straight by being bedded by a perfect female specimen than a young straight man will become gay by the ministrations of a skilled gay lover. There's basic nature at work here.

How can homosexuality persist when, in theory, it works against procreation? First it helps to state the obvious, that humans have more uses for sexuality than reproduction. It's not common in the animal world, but there are a handful of species that use sex for social purposes. Actually, they tend to be the most intelligent: chimpanzees and dolphins have both been observed using sex as part of socialization and not a response to a reproductive instinct. But since sexuality is viewed overwhelmingly in our religious belief systems as an animalistic, and therefore not of God, and since Judeo-Christian belief claims we are made in God's image, sexuality is viewed, at best, as a necessary evil, and at worst, a surrender to animal behavior and thus estrangement from God. It's primarily for this reason that there are celibate religious orders, especially in Christianity. (quick note: Yes, there are celibate Buddhists but they tend to be celibate for totally different and unrelated reasons.) But the discovery of chimps and dolphins getting it on just to say "I'm sorry" (apparently humans didn't invent the "sympathy fuck") just blew the basis for that belief into smithereens.

What about arguing it from the other way, that homosexuality is not normal? We tend to use the word "normal" in an abstract sense rather than a literal one. We equate "normal" with "typical". Homosexuality persists in the human population at a rate of somewhere in the span of 2 to 10 percent, depending on how we define "homosexuality", so the numbers alone say that homosexuality is atypical. But there are all sorts of atypical traits, from immense IQ to athletic ability to penis size, to which we attribute high value. We attribute high IQ to high achievement, which we value. We attribute high athletic ability to achievement (in modern times) or military might (in ancient ones), which we value. We have mixed feelings about penis size, since it's sexual, but since every straight male seems to equate penis size with the ability to provide pleasure to a woman (direct evidence from women to the contrary), we value it. Nobody ever gets penis reduction surgery, at least that I've ever heard.

Psychologist have a somewhat different view of "normal", or at least of "abnormal". A trait is undesirable if it interferes with a person's effective execution of life. We characterize "the blues" as normal but clinical depression as abnormal by this definition. Is homosexuality abnormal? Up until the 1950's, the psychological and psychiatric community thought it was. One of the more controversial decisions they made was to rescind that judgment. Why? Because homosexuality in fact did not interfere with a person's life in and of itself, though other people's behaviors in response to it could.

So if homosexuality occurs naturally in humans, and doesn't directly interfere with a person's existence, it can't be "abnormal" per se. And if it's a small portion of the population, it can't be "normal" by that definition. So where does that leave us? Is there something in our human condition that can be said to occupy a similar position, something that is psychologically normal, statistically atypical, and tends to not be learned? As a matter of fact we do.

People have also been left-handed for millienia. The origin of hand preference in humanity, and its impact on society, is the closest analogy we have, and once straight people get past their incredulous initial reaction, I think you'll see it makes perfect sense. We have only recently decided to not view left-handedness as abnormal, though in the past it was also considered "evil" and parents went to great effort to try to make their children right-handed. Left-handed people can operate in a right-handed mode for short periods of time, but once given the chance, will go back to being left-handed with nary a thought. Nobody decides to be left-handed. I know this because when I was a kid, I resolved to be left-handed. I tried for weeks. It simply didn't work. True, left-handed people have a greater tendency toward ambidexterity, but only because it's a right-handed world, and some right-hand skill is necessary to get by from time to time. Measure this against the fairly pitiful performance right-handed people display when presented with the rare left-hand-only situation.

So why are there no nationwide movements against left-handedness? Why no state laws banning left-handed paraphernalia? No religious movements against the evil influence of left-handed people? Oh sure, there are vestiges of such prejudice -- most device are still arranged for righties, and we have expressions like "left-handed compliment". (Neo-Pagans refer to Satanism sometimes as the "left-handed path".) Because being left-handed is not related to sexuality. Well maybe in the case of masturbation, but I'm pretty sure that's not what we mean.

We would not tolerate someone being beaten to death for picking up a bottle with the wrong hand, and yet there are people out there who, if not outwardly then in secret corners of their mind, think that gay people who get the snot kicked out of them that they somehow had it coming. Perhaps by seeing gay people as left-handed in a different sense, maybe the world can become just a little less vicious.

Epilogue to Black Tuesday

Just thought I'd update you on the election and how it came out here....

U. S. Senate.  Claire McCaskill won, helping the Dems take over Congress.  Feh.  My candidate, Libertarian Frank Gilmour, got 2.2% of the vote.

Amendment 2, the Stem Cell initiative.  Passed by a narrow margin, 51.2%.  Oh well, but no biggie.

Amendment 3, the Tobacco Tax Increase.  Failed by a narrow margin, 48.5%.  Yea!!

Amendment 6, Tax Exemption for Non-profits and Veterans groups.  Passed by a wide margin, 61.3%.  Yea!!

Amendment 7, State official pension cut-off (if impeached, convicted of a crime, or removed from office for misconduct, cuts them off from the state pension).  Passed by a gigantic margin, 84.1%.  Yea!!

Proposition B, Increase in state minimum wage.  Passed by a wide margin, 75.9%.  Oh well.


All told, not a bad election for my votes.  As for the Democrats in charge of the Congress, we'll see I suppose.  At least it will be different.

It's Hold Yer Nose and Vote Day

Yuck.

It is the 4-times annually day I call Hold-Yer-Nose-and-Vote Day, also called Election Day.  The last time we had an election, I was apparently one of 38 people in Jefferson County who voted a straight Libertarian ticket.  This year, they've abolished straight-party voting, so I will actually have to go and dig up the candidates, because I don't want to get into the middle of the whole Jim Talent / Claire McCaskill senate thing and get something on my shoe.

We also get to vote on, well, I don't know what the hell we're voting on, and by the sound of it the proponents and opponents don't really seem to know either.  It's called Amendment 2, and it's become the target of a fair amount of national debate.  Amendment 2 *claims* to protect stem cell research in Missouri.  I'm not sure why it's necessary, to tell you the truth, and it's filled enough with weasel words that who the hell knows what it will really end up doing.

The proponents of Amendment 2 say it will ensure that Missourians get access to the same cures (that word comes up a lot in their speeches) as other Americans if they come from stem cell research.  This has me scratching my head, seeing as a state cannot regulate medical practices.  The regulation of medical treatments is regulated by the FDA, and so it appears to be an empty gesture in this regard.  The proponents have been saying the fundie wacko wingnuts have been trying to ban those cures in Missouri.  But even if they managed to do that, it would be unconstitutional, albeit only after a huge legal row where it would be challenged and have to go through the Federal court system. 

Problem is, there are no cures.  We're talking about being able to do stem cell research.  Ain't no treatments or cures even in existence yet, but the rhetoric from that side seems to be as strident as if the fundie wacko wingnuts had proposed to ban aspirin or something.

The proponents of Amendment 2 also say that the measure would, at the same time, ban cloning.  Well, I'm not against cloning.  Maybe that puts me in the minority, but from a legal perspective I'm not sure why banning cloning is so damned important.

The opponents of Amendment 2, the aforementioned fundie wacko wingnuts, swear up and down that it really actually enshrined cloning in the state constitution, explicit wording to the contrary.  They claim that the scientific name of the procedure is protected, but "cloning" -- which does not have a set defined medical or scientific definition -- is banned.  So they say that down the road, the "real" cloning technique name will be protected, and they'll turn around and say "well, the ban on cloning actually isn't enforceable because nobody can agree on what cloning is, so it's so vague as to have no meaning".  Ironically, having seen some of the governmental clusterf8cks of legislation in the past, I can see how this complaint might actually have merit.  One thing I've learned about government is that what the law says isn't always what the law says, and usually the outcome is not what was intended.

With this whole Senate thing, man what an ugly campaign.  They've stopped slinging mud long ago and have been chucking cowpies for some time now.  Jim Talent is the incumbent Republican, and while I'm not too keen on Republicans, he doesn't appear to be a total lying sack of dren.  He says in a letter back to me that he thinks current anti-trust regulations will preserve network neutrality on the Internet.  I think he's wrong, and terribly naive, about that.  That or he's a lying sack of dren and he's on the take from the telcos.  Claire McCaskill has her own problem: She married someone in an industry she is charged with regulating.  As Secretary of State she regulates nursing homes in Missouri.  Then she married the biggest nursing home operator in the state.  Shortly after that, audits of nursing homes came to a screeching halt.  Can you say "blatant conflict of interest"?  The rest of the mud being slung, I really don't care much about, as it's the same crap Republicans do anyway.  I don't care about her vacation house and whether or not she paid taxes on it, because Republicans typically have good enough tax lawyers that they don't either, especially if they're savvy or wicked enough to gain national public office.  But the nursing home conflict of interest thing does bother me.  Please, please let there be a Libertarian candidate for the Senate race, or I might actually have to write myself in.

Amendment 3 is a massive increase in the cigarette tax.  I oppose this, even though I am a non-smoker.  I experienced what happens with this sort of thing out in Oregon.  Out there in 1998, Proposition 44 jacked up cigarette taxes, with the proceeds to go into the Oregon Health Plan, a relatively new plan for people in the gap between health insurance and Medicaid.  They said it would cut medical costs long-term by making people quit smoking to avoid the tax, and it would raise money for the OHP so they could expand service.

The problem was, it worked too well.  People quit smoking in the *short-term*, while it was supposed to cut health care costs in the *long-term*.  Do you see where this is going?  The OHP expanded but the cigarette tax money never came in because -- doh! -- people quit smoking!!!!  So the folks who run the OHP declared a funding emergency!  They need more tax money to replace the money that they thought they would get from (their assumption) knuckleheaded, addicted smokers who would pay the tax because they were knuckleheaded and addicted.  They didn't count on people ACTUALLY QUITTING SMOKING!!!!!

So, Amendment 3.  They're claiming that the money is going to campaigns against smoking.  Well, that's okay....if people quit smoking because of it, they won't need as much money for quitting-smoking campaigns.  Kind of a self-contained thing.  Problem is, I've also heard rumblings that it will go to help poor Missourians who don't have health insurance.  Doh!  Right now, it's just mentioned as "oh by the way it will also do this", but rest assured if it passes, the new Missouri Health Plan will suddenly spring to the forefront of the discussion.  If the same things happens and what did in Oregon, people in Missouri *will* quit smoking.  Will there then be an outcry for more money to support the suddenly flagging Missouri Health Plan, just as what happened in Oregon?  They say only cigarette smokers will pay the proposed tax, but if history repeats itself, the smokers will have the last laugh as we all end up paying more.

And by the way, what the heck happened with all that money from the big Federal tobacco settlement? 

I will be so happy when tomorrow gets here.

Thais, be careful and stick to your ideals

CNN and other world media are reporting that Thailand has fallen to a military coup.

This is a sad day, anytime a functioning democracy is unplugged by armed thugs.  Yes, they claim rampant corruption in the government.  After all, they don't want to be compared to their thug neighbor, Burma.  (Screw the military fatheads there, by the way, I won't call it 'Myanmar' any more than I was inclined to do what Pol Pot said and call his country 'Kampuchea'.  We all know how <i>that</i> turned out.)  But they did the ultimate cowardly thing, and waited until the prime minister was out of the country.  This tyrant, Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, didn't even have the cojones to do it with his boss in the house.

What caught my eye in the article was something in the first paragraph of the Reuters report (which appears on Yahoo! News, where I saw this originally): "The Thai army took control of Bangkok on Tuesday without a shot being fired, dismissed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, revoked the constitution and promised a swift return to democracy after political reforms."

What's wrong here is "revoked the constitution".  This is a common misconception among tyrants and enemies of the people.  A democratic constitution cannot be "revoked", nor can it be "suspended".  Nor bent, folded, spindled, or mutilated.  The United States Constitution cannot be suspended.  Wanna know why?  Because if a mechanism existed to do so, every time an election, a decision, a judgment went against what someone wanted as the outcome, they would be looking for that button.  Saying a national constitution is "revoked" is akin to saying it didn't matter in the first place. 

Constitutions are not a "let's see if this works out" kind of thing in a democracy.  It is <i><b>everything</b></i>.  The Thai army thug claims "rampant corruption".  By whose measure?  From what the news article said, the duly elected leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, was re-elected twice.  When his government was questioned, he <i>volunteered</i> to have elections taken again.  A rational person would conclude that Mr. Thaksin has this democracy thing figured out to a fault (what American president would dare to call an early election just to show he really deserved to be there?) and that he figured on winning the election a third time.

The Thai opposition, though, claimed that "he had skewed neutral bodies such as the Election Commission in his favor and boycotted the poll. That rendered the election result invalid."  This statement also speaks volumes.  The Thai opposition party, the so-called "Party of Democratic Reform", is in charge with the army.  In a democracy, this is anathema.  So one must wonder what they meant by "neutral bodies".  Certainly not the military, apparently.  They also assumed that since elections have been coming out against them, the Election Commission must be biased in some fashion.  This is another misunderstanding: as the Democratic Party in America has had to come to grips with, you're not "correct" by default, and so losing elections does not mean everyone is out to keep you down.  So when Mr. Thaksin cheekily called a third election early (and he was either overly optimistic or kinda dense to do so, really) the opposition really didn't want to lose a third time.  The best way to make an election seem invalid is to not show up.  This is the third mistake in judgment by the opposition.  In America, elections are valid even if only 8 percent of registered voters show up.  We raise our own local taxes with such ridiculously low participation with alarming regularity.

Militaries in democracies are always dicey things.  Any military is, by definition, <i>not</i> a democracy by necessity.  Militaries have efficient chains of command, and we would like to think that advancement in the military is merit-based.  That's a dream, of course, but any country with sense and a conscience should try.  And who is selected to run the military should be someone who is sworn to uphold that country's constitution, and not take judgment into his own hands whenever he thinks the country isn't being run right.  Democracy does not exist because the military deigns to permit it, but because the people will it to be so.  The purpose of the military is to keep other countries out so the people can run this democracy stuff.

Anything that smells of mixture between military and civilian makes me nervous.  America set a horrible precedent when they named the former head of Military Intelligence the head of the CIA.  It was, in my mind and heart, an unforgivable mix, especially considering that this person did not resign their commission in the military.  When you look around the world, you see daily proof that this intermingling is a bad idea.  (It's also a really bad thing when two family members run both the military and the government, but that's a different story.)

A couple of paragraphs in the CNN article on this caught my eye as well, such as this little gem quoting a press release from the coup perpetrators:  "The armed forces commander and the national police commander have successfully taken over Bangkok and the surrounding area in order to maintain peace and order. There has been no struggle," the coup announcement said, according to The Associated Press. "We ask for the cooperation of the public and ask your pardon for the inconvenience."

<i>Pardon the inconvenience?!?</i>  "We're really sorry if our tanks screw up morning rush hour."  So this is apparently a <i>polite</i> coup!  Oh, well that's okay then.  If I'm a Thai citizen, what am I supposed to think of this?  As long as it doesn't get in my way, the forcible turnover of my duly elected government is just a minor annoyance.  Just keep the armored personnel carriers out of the McDonald's drive-thru....

And CNN makes this off-the-cuff observation:  "Sonthi, who is known to be close to Thailand's revered constitutional monarch, will serve as acting prime minister, army spokesman Col. Akarat Chitroj said, according to The AP. Sonthi is a Muslim in this Buddhist-dominated nation, AP reported."

Things that make you go "Hmmm".  (See my previous blog entry for relevance.)

So what happens now?  The response of the international community will be very interesting.  Will they roundly condemn this act of subversion, as they should?  Or will they use the fact that Mr. Thaksin is wealthy as a rationalization for his removal?  The United States government should pull out the stops, cutting off this rogue government and insisting that Mr. Thaksin be restored to office, and suspending diplomatic relations until they do so.  We tolerate this crap far too frequently.

America is a beacon of freedom and democracy.  It is exactly times like now that we should use our might to set a good example, and refuse to deal with countries that just don't get it.  If Thais get this democracy thing, they should call for Mr. Sonthi's execution as a traitor.

Violent religion threatens more violence over accusations of violence

It's times like this that I marvel at the sheer idiocy of people in the world.

Pope Benedict quoted a medieval writer who criticized Mohammed for spreading Islam "by the sword", and Moslems worldwide were outraged.

Of course they were. Muslims exist to be outraged. Outrage is their normal state of being. Mostly over not having what they want, which is for everyone to be Muslim. As a group, Muslims are pretty outrageable. Most Americans outgrow the typical Muslim response to criticism by the time they're 3 years old.

When Muslims were outraged over the (mostly factually accurate) cartoons of Mohammed that ran in several European newspapers, they did what Muslims do -- they got outraged. They got outraged enough to kill several hundred of their own people and then blame everyone else for it. What was really telling was when a few smartass Muslims decided to get back at us, and draw their own cartoons!! The shock! The horror! Ho hum. Excuse me, Mr. Ayn-Ghatta Klu, your cartoons were pitiful. They're nothing compared to the cartoons we draw about our own leaders. Heck not even anything compared to some of the cartoons that get drawn about Jesus Christ. And we almost never kill anyone in response.

I've figured out what's wrong with Muslims. The entirety of Islam, from Morocco to Indonesia, has an anger management problem. And the solution is simple: More pornography.

In America we understand this. Heck, Europeans downright embrace it. In Scandanavia, where the pacifism runs to the point of trying to be neutral in World War II, the age of consent in many places is a mere 13. Who the heck has time to be outraged when they can only type with one hand? Here, you notice that people have either their gun or their penis in their hand at any given time, but not both. Why? Well, it would look ridiculous to try holding and shooting both at the same time, not to mention a coordination problem. Most Americans own guns, this is true, but their first option in terms of actual deployment is usually the penis.

In the Muslim world, the most idiotically primitive of them cover their women from head to toe. They also are the most repressive, and the most violent when they don't get what they want. Cover up women less, and civilizations get more civilized. Heck, the most stable, prosperous Muslim countries are those that let women dress the same amount as men. I think the correlation is clear: Without porn, men can only get their jollies with guns.

Now, somewhere along the line a non-violent Muslim person (I'm sure there are at least several dozen in the world) will read this and be offended. Rings empty with me, buddy boy. Because I'll ask you the same thing I ask idiot fundie Christians in this country: Where's your voice? Where's your criticism of the nutbags getting all the press coverage? Silence equals endorsement. Ultimately most Christians will only believe something if everyone else around them believes it. If they're criticized, they'll run crying to their fellow fundie wingnuts for emotional support. But if their fundie wingnut friends are not there, they might -- just might -- think to themselves, "if I'm the only one thinking this sack-o-hammers shit, maybe I'm wrong after all". Then there will be just a little less violence in the world.

Richard Nixon, in explaining why people supported him with all visible evidence to the contrary -- as well as tin-foil beanie babies like Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed -- claim the existence of a "silent majority". Well, I would hypothesize that Islam has a "silent majority" as well, and it's high time that they set aside for a moment the observation that American and western Europe have been dicking with them for the last 500 years and think, "maybe we should clean up our own mess first". Muslims bitch about Israel because it's trendy, it's easy to get accepted by your fellow insane Muslim neighbors, but your real problem is your own religious leadership. If Islam is not a violent religion, then prove it. Do something about it.

What I propose is radical, because while I think that the vast majority of people don't really think much about religion at all, they should be horrified at what the people claiming to govern them have done to them in the Middle East and elsewhere. Sure, Sharia looks good in the short term, not unlike the War on Drugs and War on Terror here: eliminate crime, restore order, end chaos. It's easy. It requires no thought or self control. The problem is, once its proponents actually get into power, they tend to concentrate on their real agenda, which is shoving their religious views down their throats -- by the sword if necessary.

C'mon guys, when the Pope quoted it, the problem was not that he quoted it and you got your big spiritual wedgie. The problem was that 500 years later, most of the rest of the world nodded and said, "huh, yeah even back then violent Islam was an issue". Of course, violent Christianity was a problem for a good long while, but for the most part, they stopped it. You must have missed the memo on that. So for the record, let me say it: You can stop being violent now.

It's not like Americans aren't familiar with the phenomenon. Bill Clinton campaigned on the economy, and then the first words out of his mouth were "gays in the military" (WTF?) Convince people to let you into power by telling them what they want to hear, then when you're in charge, do what you want. George W. Bush told Bob Jones University inmates that he wanted to delist Wicca as a religion recognized by the Armed Forces, then utterly ignored it in office, choosing to concentrate on other things like ignoring all inconvenient foreign intelligence and practically inviting 9/11 to happen.

Iran got to experience this first hand. President Athingamabob ran on helping the poor, then once elected, shifted his attention to the important task of building nuclear bombs. I'm sure the Taliban looked pretty good in the aftermath of Soviet occupation, right up to the point before soccer fields stopped being used for soccer and started being used for beheadings of women impudent enough to show bare ankles. Somalia is right on the cusp of getting to learn this lesson the hard way. The Islamists there are pasting the warlords (who at least took care of their own gang members), and as soon as they unite the country, they'll get to the more important task of pasting the general population. Somaliland (the northern part) got a clue and self-organized -- and the Western leaders of the world had better get their heads out of their asses and recognize them as an independent country and stop worrying about the impact on the global mapping industry -- and hopefully will spare the fate of the south. The south will get the Taliban treatment. And guess what, Al Qaeda and every other sociopath will beat a path to Mogadishu and we'll have to invade them too. Sigh, will people never learn?

So Muslims of the world, if you really believe the shit being spewed by your muftis, then you get what you deserve. But do us a favor and keep it in your own country, and don't get all indignant when you threaten us and we come over and kick your asses. You're lucky the fringe elements in this country didn't push The Button after 9/11 and turn the entire Middle East into a plate glass parking lot. Violence begets violence, but if America isn't going to stop first, it's your obligation to be mature Men and Women and just say no to any violence in Islam, rather than throw yet another histrionic temper tantrum.

And anyone who threatens to kill me over this article, well, you prove my point.