Tuesday, October 31, 2006

RNC gay porn money ties / blogactive makes parody video

Towleroad mentions Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman's non-disavowed homosexuality and then talks about money the RNC took from the publishers of the gay porn that hired the 82nd airborne US army soldiers.

-- updated 10/31

blogActive makes a parody of RNC's Harold Ford attack ad.



-- updated 11/3

Link Study shows that negative ads against a candidate you favor will likely cause you to have less enthusiasm for that candidate, while it energizes supporters of the opponent. Seems obvious, but I wouldn't have thought of it without someone telling me.

Monday, October 30, 2006

China Opens First Gay Clinic

Queerty posted this. Shows just how far behind China is on gay issues. It's a little weird that it's just a health clinic just for gays. Shouldn't it be an AIDS clinic or a STD clinic for anyone with an STD? How about something like London's clinic for youth? Still, I can't fault the Chinese for reaching out to the gay community. I probably should praise them!

O'Reilly vs Letterman, Round Two

I liked Letterman's question about the crazy dictator with WMDs in North Korea...



(let's see how long this stays up before DMCA kicks in.)

Saturday, October 28, 2006

NJ ruling a half-step, but shows progress

Link The NYTimes article highlights one unconventional family with 2 dads and 2 moms in NJ and potential benefits of the NJ Supreme Court ruling. Still of course, same-sex marriage advocates are not ecstatic about the shying away from ruling for 'marriage'. Meanwhile Republicans are hoping this good thing for sexual minorities fires up their base. Here's to the day that bigotry no longer works. Hopefully it's Nov 7th.

300m Americans and growing

Link Economist story on American population hilights the reason for its growth and relatively high birth rate (faith / hope for the future, less patriarchy, and spacious houses and land) compared to other developed countries. It's also stunning to hear about brand-new 3-bedroom houses going for $130k which are being built in Houston.

-- updated 10/28

A Time magazine article shows that Hispanics are having the most kids at 2.8 per family while other races are significantly lower at 1.9 per family or less. Now I wonder about the Economist story.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Homosexuality and survival value

Link Economist story on homosexuality in nature and an exhibition at National History Museum at the University of Oslo. One of the interesting questions broached in the article is if you believe in evolution why natural selection didn't remove a 'homosexual gene', if such a gene exists.

Comedy Central content: YouTube complies with DMCA

What is the daily show going to be like without Bush in office?!



-- updated 10/27

Looks like YouTube is taking down Comedy Central content due to DMCA. Seems a major cut to content I find interesting on YouTube, but I think perhaps it's needed so that YouTube/Google will negotiate with Comedy Central to put it back up.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Trust Google to find candidate information?

Link Liberal bloggers are trying to influence Google data to show what they believe are hidden sides of Republican candidates. The article reminds us how people managed to manipulate the Google search algorithm in the past, and that this manipulation continues to this day when you look up miserable failure in Google.

Fake news comes to Iraq

Link Not quite the Iraqi version of the Daily Show or Colbert report, but an Iraqi is on the air with comedy.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Deb Price: Out and accepted?

Link Deb Price of the Detroit News, who writes a weekly column on gay issues, reported that 4.1% of adults identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual in government surveys. With 300 million Americans, this implies around 12 million gay persons in the US, although many straights be reluctant to count any children in that number. Some good news in that number is that it seems more people are willing to stand up and be counted even to the government.

Another interesting statistic -- and personally heartening, since I agree with the new majority -- is that in a NYTimes poll 53% of people now believe being gay cannot be changed versus 34% who believe it can. I guess the missing 13% don't know or don't care.

One other number from the same poll for those ready for more good news: only 37% of people say homosexual relations are wrong and a combined 61% say it's either okay or don't care. Not a stellar statistic, but a near reversal from 13 years ago according to Price.

US Military finally getting the idea

Link It seems there is quite a lot of experience centuries ago in seemingly very different circumstances of insurgencies and how to fight them. The US military has finally decided to listen to some of the doctrines developed way back when. A key point: defend civilians.

-- updated 10/22

Recent news out of Baghdad is that this new strategy isn't working. Not sure if it's because the strategy is worse than what was being done before or if the insurgents have become more determined to fight the Americans.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Venture capital stays local - Trust

Link An interesting request by VC firms is for the startup to be located within 20 minutes of the VC. This definitely gives Silicon Valley startups an immense advantage when looking for capital. The article also mentions other perks of starting a company in the valley. Interesting is the hidden reason behind the 20 minute rule: trust plays a huge role when investing large sums of money, and trust cannot be built without face to face interaction.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Romance and having children

I didn't disapprove right away of the opinion expressed by Pete Wilson that a gay man and a lesbian woman having a child "is a travesty." But I hadn't really thought the issue through completely...

I read through the comments on the SFGate blog website and was mostly impressed by everyone else's reasoning on the matter. What I got from everyone else's thoughts was that a stable family is important and romantic involvement is not as important.

I think there is some value to the example of romantic love that parents provides to children for later in life when they go on to have their own romantic relationships. And yet, romantically attached parents doesn't feel like an absolutely essential ingredient, and there are plenty of more conventional parenting situations where this romantic element is severely degraded anyway. (Besides I'm not sure why it is, but isn't there always an eeewwww factor when thinking about your parents having sex?)

There is another point made by some on the SF blog that many marriages end in divorce, of which many are quite rankorous and full of conflict. This platonic arrangement, which Wilson calls, "a travesty", is one where such a negative outcome is extremely unlikely -- there would be no "let's stick out this [awful marriage] out for the kids"...

I guess I would summarize the reasoning as follows: if Wilson truly has an issue with children born without romantically attached parents, then he should have complained loudly about these parents: single moms and single dads through divorce, surrogacy, sperm donation and adoption, about brokeback couples with children, about widows and widowers with children, and about couples with arranged marriages with only platonic relations (having affairs on the side). If he were really concerned about the example of romantically involved parents, maybe he should have complained that heterosexuals shouldn't be having kids until they have been married for 5 or 10 years -- when they are sure their romantic involvement will last past their children's teens -- and when they are 80% sure their relationship won't end in divorce. Why doesn't he think divorce is an experiment gone too far? And why doesn't he ask all those who fit in the categories for non-romantically involved parents to give up their children for adoption immediately for the sake of the kids if it's such a travesty?

(And how about those raising pets? Shouldn't we worry about those pets getting warped, too? :) )

All joking aside, I think the reason why there is such an uproar about this is the fact that Pete Wilson only choose to make his opinion known about the non-romantic gay and lesbian couple and not about these other cases which don't meet his strict criteria. It seems to come from a specific hatred for gays and lesbians which he has chosen to show openly and publically.

Marriage takes a back seat

Link Number of married adults in US has dipped below the 50% point according to the Census Bureau.

A few interesting datapoints:

* 2% of SF couples are male couples.
* 1.7% of Hampshire County, MA couples are female couples.
* Only 26% of adults are married in Manhattan

NGLTF says probably same-sex couples are still being undercounted because of reluctance to reveal that information.

Christians saving the environment

Link An amazing story about a church which cares about the environment and saves money at the same time.

How Eliot Spitzer acted as powerful NY AG

Link Once on TV, I saw a speech by Spitzer and was very impressed. This article shows how he almost took down Merrill Lynch while exposing conflicts of interest of analyst recommendations opposite to internal opinions of companies ML asked its clients to invest in.

Of course, it doesn't hurt my opinion of him that he would sign same-sex marriage into law as New York governor -- at least if the legislature gives him such a law.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

More Jon Stewart on Sexual Congress

Humorous...

Europe worries on Islam

Link NYTimes piece on how even European progressives are becoming concerned about the lack of integration of Muslims into relatively liberal European societies.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Foley issue: what's age-appropriate?

I think youth oriented culture pervades the gay male sphere just like it does the straights. And despite subtle differences, I think gay and straight men will always like youthful looking men and women -- by this I don't mean teenagers, but young adults in their 20s or 30s. Whether they will be successful in obtaining them is a question to ponder, but I want to highlight the many parallels and differences between gays and straights on this topic.

Similarities

The gay male counterpart to the material girl/trophy wife is the young 'boy toy', and just like female prostitutes there are rent boys, who engage in sex acts for money. Just like prostitutes need to be attractive younger women, these need to be attractive young men. I say this to highlight what men of either gay or straight orientation are willing to pay for, what they find valuable -- and it is youthfulness.

There is some biological process also which seems to age the people one finds desirable. I mean I used to like teenage boys -- but that was when I was a teenager myself. But now I don't take to them. I remember as a teenager liking the relatively older Michael J. Fox and Tom Cruise for a time. Now that I'm in my 30's, my eye can still be caught by a 20-something year old. And I could be wrong, but extrapolating that trend, I don't think I will find 60 year old fat, balding guys desirable when I turn 60 myself. I'll still always like men in their 20s or 30s.

I think what hits both gay and straight males might be practicality. Unless you have money and status to be a sugar daddy, what would drive a younger women to engage with an older man? But this practicality probably hits older gay males even harder. Males are even more attracted to appearance than women (who have supposedly a greater weakness for high status males), so an older gay man would have to be extremely rich and probably also reasonably good looking to get the attentions of a younger gay man.

A person's emotional maturity might have a impact on desirability of that person to a rational gay or straight man, and this is where older might be better. Anyway, I think it makes sense, but I kind of doubt how many men can be completely rational when it comes to attraction?

Differences

There does seem to be less of an outcry about sexual abuse of boys compared to girls. There is the somewhat sexist idea that boys can fend for themselves. The idea is that boys are naturally tougher, and they might not allow unwanted sexual behavior towards them. Whenever you hear about a female teacher having sex with underage male students, it's mostly the end of a joke on the Tonight show. It's just not a big deal -- it seems the boy must have enjoyed it and wanted it the reasoning goes. [NYTimes article on this shows that psychologists believe it will seriously warp the kid.] Of course, this doesn't really apply to gay male pedophila since there's still the idea of penetration or other things distasteful to straights. And while there's no physical equivalent of victim losing his virginity, it's still perhaps rightly considered something like rape. Note: in the Foley case we aren't talking about even a physical meeting, but definitely harassment.

Gay males even today largely live without the counter-balance of marriage and children, despite a large number, maybe even a majority of gays and lesbians wanting a marriage option. My honest opinion is that straight society helps cultivate "age-appropriate" desire in older men. Older men naturally feel desire for protection of their own daughters and adjust their stated opinion of what is desirable to them to an age older than their daughters. Gay men don't have this pressure unless they have adopted children or children from a previous straight marriage.

But then there is the closet. This might be the unique downfall for old gay and possibly Republican males. Unable to acknowledge their true sexual feelings, an old gay male in the closet sneaks around trying to satisfy their needs and the easiest prey is the vulnerable and naive interns and pages.

Conclusions

So... an older gay male finds youth and youthful appearance attractive, just like his straight counterpart, is less restrained by the conventions of marriage and children to develop his desires for older men, but still is restrained by practicality and potential accusations of pedophilia and harassment.

But the further gay challenge of the closet appears to be creating males so desperate for sexual contact that they are willing to sacrifice their careers for some young intern or page.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Fl Rep Mark Foley (R) resigns...

Link Pretty weird stuff. The representative apparently sent sexually inappropriate e-mails to underage male interns. Now that this has been revealed he had to resign. A byproduct of the harassment revelation is another apparent revelation that the unmarried Foley is gay -- and a Republican -- one of those people who can say: my whole life was a lie. Now isn't that satisfying?

I guess I'm still not beyond schadenfreude. He got what he deserved.

-- updated 10/2

Foley now has checked himself into rehab. The standard lawyer tricks. Oh and by the way, Foley now acknowledges he is gay. Dubya's reaction.

-- updated 10/3

Now Foley's lawyer says Foley was molested by a priest as a child.. As if this is an excuse. Next, he's going to say that this made him gay.

-- updated 10/4

Jon Stewart gives some perspective on the Republican blame games:

OPEC getting its act together quietly

Link It seems even the Republicans cannot get OPEC to keep oil prices down coming down the stretch in an election year. Good for OPEC. I hope alternative energy can thrive at around $60 a barrel. And just a little reminder for the voters on failed policies...

-- updated 10/5

I read a BusinessWeek article where Saudi Arabia was for lowering oil prices. But this NYT article seems to contradict that. OPEC now does not announce a price target or intentional supply modifications. A barrel of oil went up $2 yesterday.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Eric Schmidt: Average blog has one reader

As reported by John Battelle's blog, Google CEO Schmidt said the average blog has one reader -- the blogger himself or herself. Crap.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

LA, NY lead cohabiting male couples

Link talks about rising housing costs, but also mentions:

"...The data also showed that, among couples living together in Manhattan, about 17 percent were unmarried in 2005, compared with 10 percent nationwide.

Manhattan appeared to have the second highest number of male couples living together, following Los Angeles."

The last sentence doesn't mean a whole lot because LA metro area has 18 million people while New York area has 22 million, but this includes Newark, Bronx, Queens and many areas outside of Manhattan. It makes no sense to compare the huge LA area to the much smaller and although denser, still less populated Manhattan area. For reference, the SF Bay Area including San Jose and Oakland only has 7.2 million inhabitants. Now if they said male couples per 1000 inhabitants, then this would start making some sense. I suppose that since this is a NYT article, they had to say something about NY.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Condi: I don't remember warning from CIA

Link It seems a bit suspicious that she denies such a meeting took place while others say it did. But she doesn't say no, it never took place, she just says she doesn't remember it. In my opinion this should be interpreted that it did take place. She just prefers not to remember it.

-- updated 10/2

Link The dispute continues with White House records showing the meeting did take place.