Ex-President Ford believed in inclusion

Link One of the few Republicans that could be counted as friends was one of our ex-Presidents.

Deb Price writes a column in Detroit News about Ford and his beliefs about gays.

Towleroad reports that a gay couple restored (sort of) the Ford family home and later received a letter of thanks from Ford.

# # #

On another topic, in an interview with Bob Woodward, Ford revealed he thought members of his cabinet Cheney and Rumsfeld and President Bush made a mistake in invading Iraq under the pretense of WMD.

Americans Fatter, Taller, and Thirstier

Link Interesting data from the census. Americans average 8.5 hours daily in the following activities: watching television, using computers, listening to the radio, going to the movies or reading. Assuming the computer part is leisure, this is a lot of leisure time. I would venture that reading time has gone down. (?) Amazing what modern technology has done. 75% of college freshman have a primary personal goal of being financially very well off.

A tough row to hoe: being gay in Egypt

NYTimes piece on the clash of arab culture with homosexuality even in relatively moderate Egypt. I guess I count my blessings living here in the States, and then again, it's still important to fight for our rights here -- if only to make the US an example to follow.

People who don't like intimacy? schizoid?

Link A NY Times article about a psychotherapist who met a severely introverted man who attempted suicide after being pressured to have a girlfriend by his parents at the age of 35. The doctor believed the man just didn't take well to dealing with people. I can sort of empathize -- I mean people can be trouble, but dealing with them is at least interesting, at best fun and at worst frustrating, still nothing worth doing oneself in over. But I digress, the psychotherapist basically disputes the widely held idea that one should force such people to conform to norms by being more "normally" social. He said what was best for this guy was just to leave him be. Seems sensible to me. Plus, maybe the guy was gay.

Marriage too central?

Link NYTimes piece by a marriage expert says marriage has become too central to definition of a fulfilling life. Too much depends on it, and it becomes a reason to be isolated. Friendships have suffered greatly because of it.

Related post: Marriage takes a back seat

Dems take house and senate; Rumsfeld resigns

Some unexpected good news: Rumsfeld steps down.

And the Dems have taken the majority -- albeit barely -- in the Senate as Virginia is called for Webb!

Times Select / Nov 6-12 free (sort-of)

A lot of the articles which I link to from this blog are from the New York Times. Something pretty annoying about the Times is that some articles get placed into the paid portion of the site called TimesSelect after a short amount of time. Not everyone wants to pay money to access the TimesSelect.

Well, so the poor (my case: cheap) man's solution is to read about the article or read snippets of it (or sometimes major portions of it where people have quoted much of it) on people's blogs using a blog search tool such as blogsearch.google.com . You can do a search based on the title in double quotes -- this looks for the words in the particular order matching the title.

The other solution is to read my postings not long after they get posted, so that the 'free' link is still active to the Times. Usually the free link is active for a minimum of a week.

-- updated 11/3

Link Philips is sponsoring Times Select from Monday Nov 6 through Sunday Nov 12.

Also, it appears that you no longer need to log into the Times to read articles. One less password to remember, and blog links will work for everyone, yay!

-- updated 11/8

It looks like with the free preview, you can only see the Editorials which are under Times Select. You can't see the archived materials. Bummer.

Here's some cool editorials:

Frank Rich on Truthiness overtaking reality in news.
Maureen Dowd on Cheney-Rumsfeld.
Thomas Friedman on how Bush sees Americans as stupid.
Paul Krugman on Bechtel leaving Iraq infrastructure in a mess now that its contract is "complete"
Thomas Friedman on how a good outcome is no longer an option in Iraq
Maureen Dowd on the mother party beats the impotent father party

Closeted Mark Foley might have many fellow shut-ins

Link The first is pastor Ted Haggard at the evangelical New Life church with 14,000 members. A male escort says he had a business (sexual) relationship with the pastor for 3 years. The pastor has already stepped down and his replacement has said that the pastor admits some of the charges are true. (BBC News story)

Link The second is the Republican candidate for Florida governor Charlie Crist. A convicted felon says he had an ongoing romantic relationship with Crist.

-- updated 11/4

Link Church finds Haggard committed sexually immoral conduct and dismisses him. Not sure if it means they didn't approve of his having an affair or having gay sexual relations.

Human shields killed

Link I read this stuff, and it really is unbelievable. I don't really know that it's unjustified. It's sort of the reasoning the US went into Afghanistan. If you "harbor" (supposedly Dubya came up with the word, but it's impossible he could ever be that smart) terrorists, you can be killed. I guess to the extent that the Israeli military fired on unarmed women it looks bad. But then again, the women were helping Palestinian militants that fired rockets into Israel to escape.

Stop the gay sheep experiments!

Link I agree with Navratilova. Doing experiments on gay sheep to try to make them straight is similar to the electro-shock and hormone therapy of gay humans of decades ago. It didn't work then even when some gays consented to it. And in this case the sheep are not consenting to it. It's homophobic and wrong. Leave the sheep alone!

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Some Mona Lisa secrets revealed

Link Using infrared light, we know that Leonardo changed Mona Lisa's pose slightly and modified her garments.

Down-low prevalence at 9.4%...

Down-low prevalence at 9.4%, more among minorities and foreign born -- the idea being that homosexuality is even less accepted in other countries and minority groups.
Link This is a fairly high number. Actually surprises me. Reference my recent post on brokeback marriages and beards.

-- updated 9/27

Link Interestingly a British study conducted in 1949 reported that 20% of men had homosexual experiences. It seems men were much more experimental in the years of WWII and shortly thereafter, if this study is to be believed. These days studies don't seem to reveal quite such a large number.

Politics and the power of YouTube

-- orig post 8/17

An interesting CS article about how an Indian American caught a Virginia Republican Senator on tape calling him a 'Macaca' and has probably ended the politician's possible Presidential bid by posting the video on YouTube.

-- updated 9/25

Link
Looks like in addition to the macaca remark George Allen is getting into more trouble over racist remarks, a confederate flag, and the revelation that he was unaware or insensitive or unwilling to admit to the fact that his mother was raised as Jewish.

Housing inventory increasing, prices drop

Link From my own observations of for sale signs in my neighborhood, some of which have been up for several weeks, I'd say that there is a definite slowdown in housing in the Bay Area.

Preference given children of alumni

Economist story I didn't know that if you are a child of an alumnus of Harvard you are nearly 4 times more likely to be given admission than a child of a non-alumnus. I got admitted to Harvard (but didn't go), so there! One interesting point made by the article is that Asians tend to get the shaft when colleges use such legacy admission policies.

Dwindling pops: Japan, Russia and Italy

The article indicates it's financial reasons driving down birth rate. Also it is socially acceptable (actually becoming the norm) not to have children. I think it's good for the planet, but still potentially destabilizing. These countries will be forced to allow immigration in order to sustain their economies.

Writer found moral imperative in Star Trek

It's interesting what lessons you can learn from television. I'd forgotten how Star Trek's ethics worked. I knew that no central character would ever be truly hurt or taken out (at least until Spock sacrificed himself in one of the movies). But the idea that we respected other civilizations was a forgotten lesson until I read this.

Fame: did you get your 15 minutes already?

Link In light of my brief skirt with mini-fame, I thought this article an interesting analysis of why people want to be famous. I don't think I would mind being famous, if only to use it to get more dates. Perhaps there's a dubious linkage for me there, however, as women tend to see status as important, but men might only find it important for getting women.

Satire, Irony and Lampooning

(What you haven't signed up for a free NYTimes account yet? What kind of luddite are you?)

Link Among other amusing things, this piece takes us through the Colbert Correpondent dinner speech and reminds us to read the Onion.

Congress clinging to earmarks

Link Corruption in the US Congress is still widespread in the form of earmarks added to spending bills. I already pay enough taxes. I refuse to pay for graft.

Plaintiff in Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas Case Dies

From Towleroad blog:



Plaintiff in Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas Case Dies: "Tyrone Garner, one of the plaintiffs in the historic Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas which struck down sodomy laws in 13 states where it was criminalized, has died, Lambda Legal reports.

In a statement, Lambda's Executive Director Kevin Cathcart said, 'We extend our heartfelt condolences to Tyrone's family and friends and we join them in mourning his passing. Because Tyrone Garner and John Lawrence had the courage to challenge homophobic sodomy laws, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that love, sexuality and family play the same role in gay people's lives as they do for everyone else. That's a colossal legacy and one for which his community will forever be thankful.'
. . ."

Males inclined to cooperate against external enemies aka War

Link Interesting study which shows why men are mentally geared towards conducting wars. Is this why Bush's action in Iraq was so easily approved by Congress? Do we need more women in Congress?

Population collapse predicted in Russia

It seems the end of the cold war has left Russia in a pretty bad state. Who knew that male life expectancy in Russia is at 59 years? Seems to be in worse shape than Japan. NYTimes article

-- updated 9/7

Economist article on the same topic.

Science behind the Aktins diet

Link It turns out it's not all bulls**t. Looks like protein stimulates more peptide YY production, and peptide YY tells you that you are full.

When the beard is too painful to remove

[NYTimes] An interesting piece on the difficulties of gay men in leaving straight marriages. It is somewhat inappropriately linked to the 'fashion' section, as if anything gay is fashionable -- disturbing stereotype for a serious issue.

-- updated Sep 3

It's probably my still piss poor gaydar, but I think I know of at least a few couples in the above situation and perhaps a couple more in the reverse situation (lesbian woman in a straight marriage). One might wonder what my opinion of such arrangements are. It might be obvious, based on my biases in this blog, that I don't think very highly of them. In fact, in general I think they are wrong and should be ended as soon as possible. Now are there situations where such arrangements may still be acceptable for a time.

One consideration is whether there are children. Perhaps, here is a case where if the kids are still living in the house, disrupting an otherwise harmonious situation might make one hesitate. Still, if an amicable parting can be managed and finances can afford a split, the benefits of getting the gay spouse out of hiding and the straight spouse out of the dark should outweigh the short term pain.

Another consideration might be age and finances. This is speculation on my part, but perhaps an long married couple (not sure how to quantify long) in such a relationship might have developed dependencies which when broken will bring such detriment as far as lifespan or health to the couple that it outweighs the benefits? Still, I am inclined to say some elements of this scenario should be getting rarer. Women now have careers and can survive without being dependent on the man. Divorce should ensure that both are not destitute (if the couple wasn't destitute when together). Also, being gay is becoming more mainstream and common and less problematic for careers and acceptance.

Perhaps the couple has developed an intimate bond, despite the sexual desire mismatch. This I don't think should be an excuse. Because upon splitting up the marriage, there should be benefit to both of a potentially much more rewarding bond (to more appropriate partners) based on truth instead of deception.

And this is where my self-interest comes into play. It might be true that all the good guys out there are married or gay. But there's another thought of mine that many good gay guys get snapped up by insistent women who want to get married to a their favorite guy, a high school or college sweetheart, and won't take no for an answer. If these guys survive the marriage night, they may just end up trapped in these Brokeback marriages. (Hopefully not many end up as Jack Twist did.) In any case, I say break those things up. Guys, you only live once...

-- updated Sep 4

Of course, there is the concern brought up by the article, it's tough to leave the relative haven of marriage and re-enter the dating game later in life. This issue is difficult to answer. It is an adjustment, but one which should bring some reward over time -- hopefully a good mate, for those relationship minded, and perhaps different rewards for those who are not. Simply not living a lie should be some reward, too.

NYT Op-ed: Bush took our optimism

Link An interesting opinion piece. I don't know if people can be turned from optimists to pessimists that easily. But actually there are books which say that optimism can be learned. If that's the case, I guess pessimism can also. I am generally an optimist, but I think I've definitely learned to temper my expectations over these last 6 years of Bush rule.

And news like this about the massive price inflation threatening stability in Iraq don't help.

For a more light-hearted look, check out Jon Stewart dissecting Bush's recent sound bites.

A Hamas figure appears to say something reasonable

Link I think it's encouraging that Palestinians might accept what the outside world might see as a reasonable arrangement (I'll not say compromise, because it was given unilaterally by the Israelis); i.e. a cessation of hostilities and Gaza strip under Palestinian control including the lucrative hot-house farms which Israel had built there.

Plains states drought worst in 50 years or more; Europe sees earlier spring

Link People will argue there isn't any global warming. But I seem to recall one of the predictions of global warming is droughts in the Eastern US, similar to the one the US is experiencing now.

In a separate story, the BBC reports about a study showing spring arrived about a week earlier than it did 30 years ago.

Economist seems to hint, Iran Venezuela unlikely to cut production

Link Suggestive of calling Iran's bluff. Wonder what game theory says.

Clinton extols welfare reform success

Link Of course, Bill is my favorite President (ok, there's the crazy "don't ask don't tell" policy, but I'll overlook that for now). I guess successful welfare reform will be one of his lasting legacies.

Why enemy of my enemy isn't my friend

Slate created a table which demonstrates why it isn't so simple.

US versus China, bad idea; US versus Islam, bad idea

There's an estimated more than 1 billion Muslims in the world. It's behind Christianity at around 1.7 billion. Just as in the old days, the US thought it was wise not to piss off the Chinese who had a 1 billion population, it seems the Americans might have dealt with Muslims the same way.

Still, there's a lot not to like about the Muslim faith. In extreme incarnations, they persecute women and kill homosexuals. Iran recently hanged two homosexual youths. They seem inclined to resort to violence to resolve problems including promoting the idea that suicide bombers/killers of 'infidels' will go to heaven. (Another reason it's a Islamist's duty to have a lot of children, and yet another example of war by population. It's very practical that suicide bombers are typically young folks. You don't want people you've invested in greatly -- older wiser people -- blowing themselves up. And by the way, what a nice way to get rid of that black sheep who never listened to you anyway?) By contrast, Christianity most successfully spread because of more gentle persuasion tactics (okay, well at least we've forgotten about how violent they might have been). Islam today is just not a very tolerant religion it seems. Buddists and Christians are saints by comparison.

There is a lot not to like about Chinese government policies including censorship, although by constrast the Chinese seem a lot more humane.

Still, it seems like it would be have been wise to use the same methods that we used on China to deal with Muslim countries. In China's case, we pointed out human rights violations. We told China we would defend the Taiwanese democracy. But essentially we waited for the liberalism of capitalism to take hold. Maybe we would have philosophically liked the communist dictatorship to fall, too, but that would have been very destabilizing and unpredictable.

Now Afghanistan seems a bit more clear cut case where military force was needed. However, it seems to me that Iraq might have been treated the same way as China. It does seem that Saddam (and his likely successor sons) were more corrupt and stupid than the Chinese politicos. But we still had lots of time -- probably years -- before the US absolutely needed to do anything in Iraq specifically and independently. (Probably the UN could have dealt with instability at the time of Saddam's eventual death?)

One might ask, but what about this general hatred of the US being fomented in Muslim countries by Al Qaeda. We need to somehow prevent terrorism from spreading. It seems to me possible that quiet prevention of terrorist activity might be more effective than the more direct attack -- but in the wrong country -- that we are conducting now. The US is a rich country, it could do a lot through financial rewards to convince people to be our friends and the right kind of friends. The ones who try to minimize radical pan-Islamic teachings. The ones who liberalize their religions to be more inclusive and tolerant. Maybe the US should've given money to the more peaceful Fatah in Palestine. But by giving attention to the terrorists and raising stakes by getting directly involved, we are becoming a great marketing machine for the 'successes' of radical Islam.
#

As a side note, the US military put too much stake in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" argument in invading Iraq. One might have thought we should have garnered significant Shiite good will around the world, including in Iran, by toppling Sunni dictator and oppressor Saddam. But clearly this has not happened. The more radical Shiites have made their position clear that unless we renounce our allegiance to Israel, they still don't consider us their friends. And probably there's some natural feeling that they could have taken care of their own affairs. And besides it seems only 'true' Moslim countries can be friends of such countries.

Democrats strategize for a smarter primary

Link Two interesting points from democrat strategy sessions: (1) attempts to officially include gays and (2) idea of punishing candidates who win in states that violate party primary schedule. I.e. New Hampshire might try to maintain influence over the primary by moving up their schedule to beat Nevada and South Carolina. The party may penalize candidates who campaign in states which attempt to do defy the newly determined and more inclusive (read: less WASP-y) early party primary schedule. Here's the NYTimes article on the same topic.

Book written about Iraq failures

Link Economist points out that despite the seeming retread of known material the book shows how badly America mismanaged the Iraq war and it's aftermath.

Adult Americans least likely (except Turks) to believe in evolution

Link There's an interesting graph there. Weird. I never thought the most technologically advanced country would also be the most lacking in it's belief in a fundamental part of science. A harbinger of doom for the country's current pre-eminence.

BBC: Warmer world will cause disasters

Link Scientists say risk increase for disasters as temperature increases. Droughts (including in the Eastern US) and forest losses are projected. Carbon (dioxide) will be released as temperature increases -- sounds like a positive feedback or potential runaway effect.

Turning back the clock: anti-gays want gays labeled "sick"

Gay activists had the sense to get APA to remove homosexuality as an illness in 1974. This was accomplished after studies showed that gays were as balanced as straights in cognitive and emotional studies. Crazy anti-gays want to undo that scientific work today. Link

Men and women think differently

Link Economist story about innate differences between men and women. It's not PC to say so, but the scientific data indicates the difference exists. Several interesting data points mentioned:

• Even primate males generally like trucks and balls and primate females mostly prefer dolls.
  
• Men use more grey matter. Women use more white matter.
  
• Women are better at spelling. Men are better at spatial tasks.
  
• Women can be trained to improve at spatial tasks...
  

The last one is an interesting thing to ponder. Despite the genetic and/or developmental differences, some gaps can be bridged through training...

To visit this in context of a recurrent theme on this blog, could a gay guy be trained to be straight? There have been attempts to force this conversion in the past, electro-shock therapy etc. Even when conversion was the desired outcome of the patient, it was rarely if ever successful.

I'm not sure, but I suppose some things just aren't really trained, they're more like instincts. I mean when you like the way something looks -- take the recent BMW 5-series, some people like it, and some people are repulsed -- it's not readily changeable. For example, if you dislike the car, although people could try influence you to see their point of view about high trunk-lids being strong, bold, and attractive, it would likely not truly change your mind. Just not your cup of tea, maybe?

West Point thesis challenges gay policy

Link Surprisingly the paper won an award from the military academy. Kudos to Mr. Raggio.

Who hit first and who hit harder

Link The author of Stumbling on Happiness notes how human nature and the rules of 'legal' retaliation have helped to escalate conflicts in human history.

NYTimes Op-Ed: Reasonable Doubt

Op-Ed Contributor: Reasonable Doubt: "Baruch Spinoza's life and thought have the power to illuminate the kind of events that at the moment seem so intractable and overwhelming."

An interesting piece on religious intolerance. Now some people will claim that I'm intolerant of religious people. I'll admit I feel a certain contempt for believers who have contempt for non-believers. But this is purely a defensive reaction. I have never advocated elimination of marriage rights to believers or abolishing of church groups or churches.

# #

Another Times article mentions how one pastor lost 1/5 of his congregation by trying to unlink Republican politics from his church.

Washington Court Upholds Ban on Gay Marriage

Washington Court Upholds Ban on Gay Marriage: "Some in the majority of the 5-to-4 decision said the state legislature was free to extend the right to marry to gay couples."

A not entirely unexpected defeat for same-sex marriage advocates. Still, it was rather a close call. The reasoning of some in the majority still is the procreation aspect. I've already mentioned in a post on the New York state case how that reasoning is terribly suspect. As the dissent mentions, the real motivation appears simply to be animus against gays and lesbians.

-- updated 7/27/2006

Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large suggests going to the legislature to get same-sex marriage accomplished. Interestingly he expresses his guilt at enjoying the benefits of marriage while excluding gays and lesbians.

NYTimes: One day in Ramadi

Link Despite the deaths and killing, the Times story holds some humor. Makes it a little easier to imagine what being in the US Army in Iraq can be like. The tactic is different -- it seems to be winning over the populace by protecting them. That is going to be a long slog. Unless the insurgents give up for some reason or we can trust the lesser armed and armored Iraqi police, I don't see an end for awhile.

A likeable Republican?

Link I suppose it isn't the kiss of death coming from me, but the words of respect coming from Hillary Clinton towards South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham might just be. In any case, here's one Republican who has some workable (and, as it happens, non-religiously grounded) ethics.

Iraqi Sunnis do about face, want Americans to stay

Link A very tenuous situation indeed. Let's hope the Sunnis are honorable. I can foresee bad things if US forces stand between Madhi and insurgents intent on civil war and not minding destruction of US forces. They may want to use American soldiers as shields, but the soldiers better be aware of possibility of a dagger in the back.

-- updated 7/18

Sectarian violence the Bush Administration and most Americans didn't anticipate going in?

CS article on Hizbullah

Link Christian Science Monitor article gives some perspective on the Hizbullah. An interesting point is that Hizbullah has been trying to capture Israeli soldiers for some time.

--updated 7/17

CS Monitor notes that the civilian casualties from Israel's attacks may be causing public opinion among Moslim states to move towards Hizbullah.

Middle-East Powder Keg

Link This is the first credible place I think for a start of a third world war. We must have learned something from the first two. I think we should try to find jobs for all those unemployed Islamic militants or potential militants. Something to keep them distracted from this stupid cycle of violence against Israel.

I think there have been books written about why Islam has become radicalized. A wikipedia entry (go to Recent History section) hints at some possible reasons. One was the development of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Here America is actually partially at fault. It gave support to the Taliban to fight the Soviets. The other is Israel's continuing flourishing despite Islamists declaring her an avowed enemy. After reading this entry, it seems to hint at possible near-future collapse in radical Islam, this could be the last gasp and this may be why they are so desperate to strike now. If they did not strike the Moslim population might become contented and happy and there would be no more need for these militias. So I guess we just need to try to make the people of these states happy so that they will shut down these militias of their own accord.

An Op-ed by Thomas Friedman describes the (obvious) problem: the moderate Moslim is an unarmed one. The radical one is the armed one. Even though moderates might outnumber the radicals, getting the moderate to police the radical one requires some doing. I think there is a tempermental disadvantage. Still, as Friedman states, it needs doing or else these fledging democracies are going to fail.

Another author suggests an overall strategy similar to what I advocate above, but not in such simple terms. That is to examine how to show Moslim states that participating in international community and the wealth of benefits involved is worthwhile. He mentions game theory and non-zero sum games (wins points with me).

Kenji Yoshino: NY Ruling Attempts to Camouflage Discrimination

Link Nicely worded rebuttal to NY appeals court ruling which states that heterosexuals need more help with parenting and that's why they need marriage. He makes an apt analogy to previous "out of the kindness of our manly hearts" defenses of discrimination against women decades ago that women were too delicate to be lawyers and should stay at home to run the household.

More older brothers, more gayness

By now everyone has read this or heard this. Essentially a statistically significant study was conducted showing that with more older brothers the percentage likelihood of a boy being gay increased from 2% to 5%. Now 2% is pretty low. I was just thinking that with smaller families in developed countries, this means that there are less gay males being born than before in percentage and perhaps raw terms. A little sad from my single gay male numbers perspective...

Reasonable straight people might conversely say that's a good thing because being gay is admittedly more difficult for a person in today's society than being straight. But this is a poorly thought out (if also rather insensitive) response. Being gay is difficult because society makes it difficult. If society accepted being gay as "just part of the mysterious nature of the natural world", it wouldn't be difficult and in fact maybe it would be slightly celebrated. It's rare and unique and different and fun. Similar reasoning holds for wishing for a 'cure', wishing gay people were not gay -- Xmen3 plotline musings.

New York appeals court ruling cites children

Link It was disappointing to hear that the New York court ruled against same-sex marriage. Several have faulted the reasoning of the court however. The main thrust being the tenuous linkage between marriage and its requirement for children. I can point out a few flaws in those arguments (some of which I have stated before on this blog). (1) Gays can have children without being married. Straights can have children without being married. Straights (and Massachusetts gays) can be married and not have children. All these 'other' combinations are possible. If we want to help children of gays have a stable family, shouldn't we allow marriage for gays? (2) People can always disappove of how others raise children. This does not automatically allow them to seek to prevent these others from having benefits of marriage. Children and marriage are relatively distinct things. I disapprove of Christians raising their children to be homophobic bigots, but that still doesn't give me reason to prevent Christians from getting married. (I don't worry that children of Christians are permanently warped by the experience. Probably they'll be tramatized by their parents and become decent human beings because of it.) But actually gays have an excellent track record as parents. I haven't heard any horror stories about gay parents. I've definitely heard horror stories about straight parents.

Ideas & Trends: The Lonely American Just Got a Bit Lonelier

Ideas & Trends: The Lonely American Just Got a Bit Lonelier: "Americans are not only lacking in bowling partners, now they're lacking in people to tell their deepest, darkest secrets."

The article mentions that much of this lack of connection is blamed on lack of time. Everyone is so busy with their own lives and problems. I guess I would admit that this sadly is true in my case as well. DVDs, TV and Internet are pretty poor substitutes for living breathing human companionship, however, they can be easily banished when the mood strikes whereas banishing your human friends can lead to problems.

I suppose this loneliness is no so much a problem if that is the choice people are making consciously. I am reminded of the quote from Sister Wendy (a person on TV), something like: Loneliness: it needs. Solitude: it has.

The other thought is the possibility that people generally make poorer friends than in the past, sort of the "don't make friends like they used to" commentary. Without much of a real reference point, I'm not sure. Perhaps, I should ask older people about this. People have spoken about lack of civility in society in general. Is it that younger people aren't very considerate anymore? Or were they always that way? I'm sure I'm a poor examplar of the 'good friend' traits. Whenever I see an old Hollywood movie or read something from Ms. Manners, I think: I'm not so good..

Insurgents offer of halt of attacks perhaps not a trick

Link I think people might be skeptical of this, but the insurgents don't want to die either. They seem just to want life to get better with possibility of jobs for themselves. Some game theory person should get in there and do some smart negotiations and end this useless war.

Buffett gives generously to Gates charity

Link It is nice to hear that a key goal of the foundation is an AIDS vaccine. Let's hope the extra money takes some research there.

Religious freedom versus same-sex marriage

Does freedom of religion mean adherents of a religion can believe whatever they want? Maybe within reason.

Many religious beliefs cannot be validated today. Resurrections, healings, miracles. Most everything is interpreted from books. These books might have biases from the writers. Over time, these religious works would be likely be purposed to fit the need of the time. In the beginning there is a need to grow the power of one religion over non-believers, secular humanists, or other religions. Someone probably had an idea to prohibit contraception as well as homosexual behavior in order to increase birth rate of Christians. (I guess it was quite obvious that sex between two men or two women never resulted in children.) In the old days, more people simply meant more power. Therefore increasing Christian population was the reason behind prohibiting homosexuality. Political entities in Europe eventually probably didn't mind sustaining these beliefs. England needed fighters for its Empire. Germany needed more soldiers for it's world domination. Obvious right?

Today Christianity is no longer the fledging religion it once was. In America, Christians are the majority. They are the 800-pound gorilla to borrow the old internet boom days business analogy. There are plenty of Christians, and even some Christians have come to allow contraception. (Also, countries generally have enough population these days except Japan, some European countries, and Russia, but I digress.) Besides allowing contraception, there are other examples of Christianity changing over time to meet practicalities and becoming more 'civilized'. Anti-semitism, slavery, anti-native americanism, and anti-miscegenation were widely held beliefs earlier in America even when Christians were practically the only people on the North American continent. I don't think one can claim that Christians did not participate in these discriminatory activities or that some churches did not perpetuate such bigotry. I do credit that these forms of discrimination are mostly no longer tolerated in churches. I think it a matter of time before Christians see the light that being anti-gay is no more a fundamental tenet of Christianity than racism.

So, what of the argument that allowing same-sex marriage is discrimination against Christians? Well come on, folks. Christians don't rightly believe Buddists, Muslims or Jews will be saved. Surely practitioners of these other religions are sinners. But Christians don't try to prevent them from getting married. It isn't considered discrimination against Christians that Buddists, Muslims or Jews get married. One might argue, being gay isn't a religion, but being persecuted by other religions sure gives being gay religion-like credentials. Eventually the 800 pound gorilla religion is going to have to realize that claiming a small minority religion is harming them by getting married is not consistent and is unreasonable.

Why sane people follow Christianity? (updated)

(Read this post before? Skip to the bottom for the update)

-- posted April 2

I was pondering this question. There's a lot that doesn't make sense and is very arbitrary about Christianity. If Christianity made sense, why is Jesus a white guy? There are more Indians and Chinese in this world than white folks. Why did the christian god only show up to this subset of people in the world if he created all men and women. Why allow billions to struggle without his message. Not very compassionate. Why was god a man and not a woman? Arbitrary? Sure god isn't fair. Jesus the prophet had to be one of the races and sexes. But certainly it shows kind of a favoritism, maybe even racism and sexism. From a logical and scientific perspective, religion does not stand up to scrutiny. Why 10 commandments? The convenient coincidence between the absolute rules for human behavior and the number of human fingers is rather disturbing. Did god think man could only track as many rules as he had fingers? Anyway, if it's not already apparent, it seems a whole lot of bulls**t to me.

My question is why do people today still believe in it, and invest in this. Perhaps it's a cultural tradition. If one were to look at the religions of the world as viral entities, one would say that the ones which succeeded did have something special in them. There might have been something beneficial to society in them, even though they might have some bad elements in them as well.

Key elements to survival of Christianity: (1) It is programmed to spread. Somewhere ingrained in many religions is the idea that other religions are wrong and that others in the world -- any place in the world -- need to be converted or sometimes killed, (2) there are actually some benevolent and beneficial elements of all religions which provide stability to society: compassion, help others, do not do bad things: murder, adultery, and (3) a good story about what happens after death.

In fact in Christianity, 2 and 3 are linked. In other words, if one is good the reward is a nice afterlife story. In a way, one might want a lot of people to believe in Christianity even if one doesn't believe in it oneself. I mean, it provides this law and order element which says if you do bad things in life you will be punished after you are dead, even if you aren't punished in life. Even (and especially) bad stuff no one else knows about will be punished.

Let me just say, the current scientifically supported end-of-life story -- which I believe by the way -- is that after you are dead there is nothing. Another option for some scientists is to say that one doesn't know what happens after death to 'spirit' if they think something like a spirit exists. A Christian heaven or hell is rather too arbitrary to scientists, I think. No reason to believe heaven or hell exists. Still it's pretty tough to support a spirit as separate from body. Consciousness and even unconsciousness have been tied to portions of the brain. Once the brain is not functional (massive cell-death), it's difficult to say that 'spirit' would live on. Most probably it's gone, too.

Anyway, I think the simple but useful tying together of good behavior to a good afterlife story seems to be key to survival of Christianity. Most people tend to be afraid of death. I read a study in Men's Health where huge numbers of people believe in heaven even beyond the numbers of strongly religious. I think people are just chicken-shit. It's a nice idea that there is a heaven; it means you can avoid thinking really about death as an end. So, instead of facing reality, people will take the trouble to go to church on Sunday and get the exhortations to be good and compassionate or not, depending on the church. And maybe I agree it's something people need to be taught in a simple way. If one had to teach morality to children without the support of web of religious belief, it might be hard. You'd need to set up something like: treat others as you would like others to treat you. It's simple, but would children understand that? Who's going to police something so simple? Maybe better not to rely on that. Simpler and better to set out real prohibitions which would be punishable upon death or in life. Plus, Christianity certainly has a nice afterlife story. Nice to think that grandma is up there looking down upon me instead of being eaten by worms.

I read somewhere that Europeans -- the place where Christianity took hold first -- do not attend church very much, far less than Americans anyway, and this is a reflection of how much they believe. I take it to mean that the Europeans have figured out they don't need Christianity to prevent people from doing bad things. The Americans are just too afraid of their neighbors and other people. No way we Americans can trust anyone to be good. And then I think it indicates Americans are probably the more scared of death than the Europeans. Americans are just the most scared people on the planet I guess.

-- updated June 19, 2006

So, here's another conspiracy theory... Why do some Christian sects proscribe usage of contraceptives? They need as many children of Christians as possible to spread the religion. Priests know it's difficult to get the rhythm method perfectly, but if on average every Christian has say 5-6 children before getting wise that this anti-contraception stance is rubbish, the church has just proliferated the faith that much more. It's an early Chinese idea -- and now well known RTS gaming strategy -- of overwhelming your enemy through birthrate. People are going to say they knew this was the strategy already, and I'm pointing out the obvious. Well, it wasn't obvious to me until I thought about it.

King George

The one good thing (although not unequivocally good, more on that later) that this administration did which I can remember is to give to the international AIDS relief funds in Africa. This it seems was due to relentless efforts of Bono. He put George W. in the role he likes to play, King. Bono, the famous rock star, bends to beg and kneel before the king to ask him to show his infinite mercy and to very lightly try to revive the king's sleeping conscience. Oh, and by the way, you're supposed to be a Christian king, right? Perhaps, a la Hamlet, a little theatre -- a reminder of the legacy of death Bush as already created -- helped Bono to bring that conscience to light. But perhaps it was just petitioning the king which did the trick.

Here's the catch. Bush decides to tie the funds to programs which emphasize abstaining from sex. A nice try, but it's simply not practical. Even the Pope now says that we should allow couples with one partner having AIDS to use condoms.

I guess even Bono can't work miracles.

Hawking Says Humans Must Colonize Space

Interesting thought to try to save the human race. I think that humans would get their just desserts, if human shortsightedness is the cause of their own demise. It seems possible now that humans would not last the millennia because of human inflicted destruction and poisoning of their home planet.
--
It's something out of the cold war age, this idea of colonizing some place else because we've made such a mess out of Earth. It's not that I hope the human race gets wiped out. It's just that human nature doesn't seem geared in that direction, at least not right now. People (myself included) are far too selfish to think about future generations with any seriousness. They just have assumptions that scientists will solve the problems without any sacrifices on their part.
--
Slashdot: "
Hawking Says Humans Must Go Into Space: "neutralino writes 'The Associated Press reports that astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wants humans to establish colonies in space in order to ensure the survival of the human race. At a news conference in Hong Kong, Hawking said that 'It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species. Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.''
"

Republican hidden agenda revealed

Krugman makes several points in his Op-ed piece (Times Select). But one is a restating of the scapegoating theme I've mentioned before on this blog. Essentially, the Republicans get re-elected making a big stink about terrorist threats, gays, and God. Once elected they go to work trying to make the rich richer by cutting income taxes, estate taxes, capital gains taxes and getting rid of liberal policies: safety nets for the poor and old, and handing money to cronies in big business in the form of removing environmental regulations and starting wars. If people really cared about Christianity and God, what ever happened to helping your fellow man. How can we start wars, killing many innocents and our soldiers -- none of them children of members of Congress and most of them from poor backgrounds -- for trumped up reasons? Perhaps deep down, the Republicans are two faced hypocrites? They really don't believe in God and Christianity like me, but just put up a fake storefront to enrich themselves. I'm not an expert, but seems we have a few big sinners in office.

LATimes: Allow gay men to make blood donations

LATimes Editorial makes the point that the big hammer application of disqualifying any previously sexually active homosexual man from donating blood for life is discriminatory and potentially harmful to society -- eliminating a source of needed blood.

New York County recognizes marriages from elsewhere

Advocate article. This will be interesting. Perhaps it means that Westchester residents can get married in Massachusetts and have it recognized in New York state. Similarly with getting married in Canada, it could be recognized in Westchester. (?) Need some lawyers to clarify.

Isn't it always the Republicans that think of playing dirty?

NYTimes Opinion piece on how Republican secretary of state of Ohio is preventing new voter registrations in an attempt to win as governor.

Gay marriage not really galvanizing

Sure social conservatives are upset about Bush and some Republicans less than sanguine pushing of the same-sex marriage prohibition. But who the hell else are these social conservatives going to vote for. No other party supports guns, unilateral military action, less taxes, and melding of church and state. I think Republicans can afford to drop the same-sex marriage issue, just like the Dems can afford to refuse to stand up for gays and lesbians. Who the hell else are gays and lesbians going to vote for? Even the gay Log Cabin Republicans couldn't endorse W last election.

LOS ALTOS / 300 march in gay pride parade organized by high school group

A small town in California had it's first pride parade. As it happens I was there, and it was a fine experience. There were protesters, but what's a little gay pride parade without some peaceful opposition?

Thank you to SF Chronicle which covered the story:

LOS ALTOS / 300 march in gay pride parade organized by high school group: "Downtown Los Altos was awash in rainbow-colored flags, balloons and leis Sunday afternoon as hundreds of participants in the city's controversial first Gay Pride Parade marched through its typically quiet streets. Police and organizers estimated that..."

Using the Internet to democratize revolutions

How about this: Put up a website which asks Iraqis or North Koreans if they want someone to overthrow their government. Put up a list of proposals from different countries, NGOs and the UN. For example, the US will take over your country, find and imprison Saddam. In exchange, you give US rights for some oil or some such. And you guarantee that you will put down insurgency. With a mixed ethnic, religious country, then you would need majority votes from all ethnic groups. Proposals would thus have to be modified to accomodate all groups. If this out in the open, then no one can complain that it wasn't the will of the people. People just need some way to access the internet to vote. Multi-national companies would overthrow governments for profit. It wouldn't be the US, then it would be corporations. Crazy? Yeah, I guess so.

Colbert New Comic-in-Chief

Wow. Colbert stands up for America. You gotta watch this amazing display of guts to believe it. Colbert gives Bush and the administration a withering attack right in front of the President and everyone else. For some reason my machine was crashing, I think the secret service is trying to corrupt the video stream... Okay, maybe I'm just being paranoid, but you gotta see this masterpiece. It's on CSPAN, too.

None of the major newspapers have covered it in detail. Is that because of threats from the White House? I agree with Colbert: it's criminal the self-censorship of the press. It's so sad that the only place covering Colbert's performance is slashdot (of all places) and other blogs.

Transcript here.

Since the mainstream press is sooo afraid of being disinvited to the white house (at least for the next couple of years), I'm hoping it will go viral. Track progress on the net: at Google blogsearch.

The slashdot posting:
Colbert New Comic-in-Chief: "scottzak writes 'Hail to the Chief! Stephen Colbert addressed the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday (attended by the President, the elite of Washington politics, and the White House Press Corps) and told the truth. Jaws dropped. Eyes popped. The live audience gasped. Scalia laughed his ass off. You want to see a brilliant comic display some real courage? Look no further. Enjoy the reaction shots, and Colbert's audition for Press Secretary job.' The BBC covers the act just prior to Mr. Colbert's, where the President and a look-alike took turns making fun of his speaking skills.

-- updated May 1

The only places I could find comment on this other than blogs:
HuffingtonPost.com and
Editor and Publisher with letters from readers -- some appear pretty pissed... so I think Colbert must have scored.

I can't believe no one else treated this even as a news story. At least they could have said that he bombed.

-- updated May 2

The New York Times finally gets the guts to mention it...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/03colb.html

-- updated May 8

SF Indy Media (whoever they are -- not mainstream media, I guess) gives more details.

NY Times covers the move of the video from YouTube to Cspan.org and Google video.

-- updated May 21

Audio portion available for $2 at audible.com. But the video is still free to download from Google video.

NYTimes editor says it was wrong not to anticipate a reaction to the clip and write a news story about it.

When things go bad, scapegoats ... immigrants and gays

I seem to recall there is a tendency for politicians and people to find scapegoats when things go wrong. Usually these scapegoats are minorities of all flavors. Immigrants are the current diversion tactic. Sometimes, as in the case of gas prices, Democratic politicians try to put it on big business to show their regular people populism. But under a conservative administration usually all the blame gets put on the little guys on the fringe of every flavor and color. The Constitutional Amendment banning same sex marriage -- discussion of it says, look it's not my privileged straight ass' fault, it's the gays' fault. I'm not predicting anything, but things are so bad that I don't doubt that all except the core of this administration's target demographic will be blamed.

I, for one, think we should turn it around. This time around it's not scapegoating. It's the truth. And it's not the fault of the fringe, it's the fault of the big middle. The damn red-state, church-going idiots of this country are to be blamed. For starters, they should take their medicine having control of both houses of congress taken away from their corrupt minions.

U.S. Backs A Gayer U.N. (Finally!)

Previously, US did not back UN recognition of gay groups saying they were linked to pedophiles. But now the US has changed it's tune, probably they weren't paying attention as Queerty says below. My previous post on this.

Copy of the Queerty post:

U.S. Backs A Gayer U.N. (Finally!): "The United States is quietly switching its position on the acknowledgment of gays here on planet Earth: for years, gay organizations have attempted to achieve 'consultative status' with the United Nations, which would allow them to voice opinions on issues concerning the rights of LGBT people. Currently there is no such organization with the UN. Obviously.

In the past the US has always voted against giving giving these organizations official recognition; no word on why our beloved country has suddenly changed its mind. Whatever the reason, we're thrilled, as are the millions of oppressed people in countries where there is no one to stand up for their rights. We presume George Bush is asleep at the wheel again, letting other people do his job for him, and someone decided to sneak this one in. Shh. Don't wake him up.

Bush and polls

Was reading that people are now very negative on Bush because of his handling of gas prices. Of all the mistakes of the Bush administration: Why gas? Because people refuse to admit they were wrong. If they said they didn't support him about Iraq, that would be admitting a flaw in their own judgement about him...

.. So they register their disapproval of Bush, but they misrepresent the reasons to hide their own stupidity.

-- updated 5/9

NYTimes poll shows Americans actually are finally admitting Iraq was the wrong thing to do.

I should take back what I said above. People are wiseing up. My fellow Americans are smarter than they look. :)

Intelligence officials: CIA operative Valerie Plame working on Iran

Consolidated posting by gay blogger Andy Towle on Valerie Plame working on Iran anti-nuclear proliferation when the Administration blew her cover.

Intelligence officials: CIA operative Valerie Plame working on: " Intelligence officials: CIA operative Valerie Plame working on tracking Iran's nuclear program when she was outed. AmericaBlog: 'Karl Rove personally set back this nation's efforts to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. We are at war. And we are about to get involved in our third war, specifically because we don't have enough information about Iran's nuclear program, and part of the reason we don't is Karl Rove. What Karl Rove did is an offense worth of treason. And what is George Bush's response to the fact that one of his top aides intentionally and maliciously hurt our ability to stop Iran from getting nukes?? Nothing. Rove is still working out of the White House, with George Bush's blessing.' Crooks & Liars: 'If Iran is such a threat, why does Bush still have on his staff a man (Rover) who betrayed the identity of a CIA agent that was working on this very serious issue?'"

Retired US Army Major General from Iraq says Rumsfeld is Incompetent

He wrote a New York Times opinion piece. I get the feeling Eaton would even agree with the statement that Rumsfeld is an idiot.

-- updated 4/11

A third general (Zinni was the second) suggests Rumsfeld step down:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/middleeast/10military.html

-- updated 4/14

A fifth general asks for Rumsfeld ouster...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/washington/13cnd-military.html

Doesn't seem like an isolated case of a disgruntled general does it now?

-- updated 4/15

I just rewatched "Fog of War" on the life of Robert McNamara. I was trying to picture Rumsfeld having a movie on his life and accomplishments. I don't think it would be anything like this movie.

With new PM, Italy may join other gay-friendly European countries

I think Netherlands, Britian, Spain, France are already very gay-friendly. Italy would be great.

West Sacramento Major says he is Gay

The FreeRepublic article here. Don't know if FreeRepublic is a reliable source.

Strangely, prayer doesn't seem to help the sick (actually it might make them worse off)

NYTimes Article. One might think it should.

Blogger Creates Parody of Exodus Billboard

Exodus is the homosexual "conversion" joint; I.e. parents send their kids to be modified to be straight. Scary stuff -- I mean, it's common knowledge that sexual orientation generally cannot be changed. Exodus has created a billboard which says: "Gay? Unhappy?" and provides a link: "www.exodus.to".

A heterosexual blogger, Justin Watt, was so upset about the message such a billboard projected that he created a hilarious parody image. As this is a newsworthy item, I am linking the image he created (actually, without permission from him -- nevertheless, Justin Watt seems to have granted permission to others without requiring any payment or attribution):

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The blogger was sent a threatening letter from the Exodus lawyer. He has removed the copyrighted Exodus 'e' in the background.

From a legal perspective Exodus does need to protect their copyrighted elements or everyone would feel free to violate their copyright (unclear why anyone would do so, it's definitely not a valuable brand I don't think). Exodus was probably honestly proud of the way the billboard was put together. It is actually clear and concise and simple. Too bad the message is so evil and full of implied homophobia. It's strange that the Exodus folks may be so clueless that they actually think they are helping people.

Anyway, click on the image to see what the hoopla is about. There are a ton of comments.

-- updated 3/27/06

NYTimes runs an article about this: at this link.

Boy Scouts using non-discriminatory front org to funnel Donations

Advocate article.

Straights misled by old gay stereotypes

Jon Stewart gave a sarcastic introduction to the Oscar montage of gay suggestive cowboy film clips, saying that he felt the old western macho ideal was tarnished by Brokeback Mountain. However, many may have agreed with his comments -- and thought they were not sarcastic (until the montage started). Even people I've talked to say that there probably aren't gay cowboys and the movie is just a fictional tale which has nothing to do with real life. They also say that there aren't gay baseball players or football players.

I'm not sure what is the best way to dispel this myth. Also, let's consider what is gained by doing so.

To address the second question, many straights feel that gays cannot truly be masculine. And despite the gains by feminists in saying that women can be as strong, smart, or powerful as men; this can lead to the assumption that gay males are not men and are inferior to them. What can be gained by dispelling this myth is remaking of the gay image away from the effete New York intellectual to encompass all sorts of people -- a more accurate image, and perhaps one less prone to damaging stereotypes. This may be a marginal improvement in the gay image, but anyway.

But how to dispel the myth... One could cite gay porn (what little I've seen of it, tee hee). Most of the guys in those masterpieces of filmmaking are physically impressive, muscular and often very masculine, and pointedly not straight. But no straights have seen the stuff. Perhaps, the few out ex-professional players could be cited: Billy Bean, Esera Tuaolo and Roy Simmons. You could say these are the brave ones who have come out, surely there are others who haven't bothered or are too scared. Perhaps I could cite a list of masculine gay people. Hmmm. I could include myself. I was MVP on the cross country team. Still, I guess cross country isn't the most masculine of sports. There's Rock Hudson who was physically big, but he was an actor not a football player.

Based on my social interactions with various activist and social groups, I would say gay guys are about average in masculinity. Perhaps their lack of visibility or participation in predominantly male activities such as baseball is due to two factors: (1) these activities require an extra heavy duty closet (term: "passing as straight") because of the locker room access and the not-so-real privacy threat it poses [it's not like we haven't see it before], and (2) the actor effect -- the perceived or real greater acceptance of gay persons in drama or music classes in school. I really sort of doubt the 2nd factor is really very strong at all, but the first one is a real killer. Take, for example, the military. The US military has basically 'legalized'/required a closet. One can not openly acknowledge that one is gay in the macho military or one's career there is toast. Sure, they'll send you into battle now because they're just so short on soldiers, but you'll get a nice discharge after they don't need you for the dirty work (and if you don't die first). There have been a large number of discharges of translators because of don't ask, don't tell. I have heard it has been the same for regular troops as well. Maybe the troops are better at hiding out in the closet than the translators.

-- added 3/19

Now, many folks will object that all the gay men they know on tv (e.g. Jack McFarland on Will & Grace) are actually stereotypically feminine or display some feminine behaviors. I guess there are some number of gays who are most comfortable with displaying this sort of 'fabulous' feminine behavior. But I think some of it is displayed because it is useful to distinguish them from straight males. Gays would want to do this because if they acted stereotypically masculine, it would be more difficult for other gays to find them. Obviously, such feminine acting gays are not in the closet. In addition, straights who might act in this manner normally, are strongly discouraged from doing so because of the prejudice against gays and being identified as one, and also the annoyance of being mistaken for gay by other gays. Now, I must admit that some gay men seem unusually feminine. I think a lot of this is particular to the gay culture; it's not an instinctual behavior. But I might be wrong about this. Sounds like an area worth studying...

-- added 3/20

Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys doesn't see the gay 'feminine/camp' stereotype applying to him as written at this link.

Military quietly letting out gays fight in Iraq

-- sep 14

Looks like the military is saying that having gays serve in Iraq is fine even though violations of don't ask, don't tell are occurring. It's a manuever which feels wrong in that it only benefits the military in getting bodies fighting in Iraq but does not erase official condemnation and exclusion that is reflected by don't ask don't tell which more or less explicitly says that gays are not fit to serve in the military due to their impact on 'morale'. This new policy allowing out gays would not have been implemented if indeed there was a negative impact. For consistency, I think eventually don't ask, don't tell ban should be lifted considering this current policy is being implemented and soldiers are serving without any observed negative impact.

-- oct 12

An Advocate columnist says that gays shouldn't fight in the military since the military doesn't allow them to be open about a key part of themselves. A little case of easier said than done; I would guess many gays in the military have made a career of it and maybe even enjoy it with the great caveats. Not something you throw away easily just on principle. Plus, if one suddenly relishes the principle of honesty, it doesn't get one out of combat service these days... We need the military to openly accept gays and stop this hypocrisy.

I read today that Thailand's military will now accept gays. It's sad that we're socially behind Thailand.

-- mar 16, 2006

The Royal Navy will allow officers to wear their uniforms in a pride parade.

Brokeback Marriages

NYTimes Article on closeted gay men who marry and their wives.

A good cause for those who can get out of military service in Israel

The Israel Defense Forces allow openly gay individuals to serve. Service is generally required, but if an exemption is granted, say for medical reasons, it is nice that such individuals can join an organization dedicated to advancing their interests.

Does brain difference remove 'choice' from homosexuality and why we don't care

A recent study showed more evidence of a genetic backing behind human sexual preference. The gay male brains reaction to male pheromone (derivative of male sweat/testosterone) was the same as female brains reaction. In addition, the gay male brains did not react to female pheromone (derivative of estrogen). This difference in reaction could indicate a brain difference predetermined before birth or at very early childhood. If this is the case, it indicates genetic source behind sexual preference. And if there is a genetic reason behind sexual preference, it removes the idea that there is choice in being gay.

However despite all this, does it matter whether homosexuality's source is genetics or choice? I think not. Interfering in (or discriminating based-on) others non-harming behavior is distinctly un-cool.

-- added 9/16/05 --

Many scientific papers have been written to try to understand how homosexuality arises. This is good, but only as a distracting side-argument to counter flawed arguments by social conservatives who insist being gay is a choice and can be changed. When confronted with the general idea that two adults should be able to do as they please in the privacy of their own homes, social conservatives retreat to saying they don't see why government should support gays by allowing them to marry. The argument then revolves around children and family and protecting this unit. But there are plenty of heterosexual couples who don't have children. Why does government support this simple potentiality without it actually becoming a reality and also, laws do not currently preclude gay couples from adopting or going to a sperm bank, and there are currently many gay parents. Why not support them?

-- updated 02/21/06

An Advocate article discusses a UCLA study where it appears the mothers of more than one gay son tend to have turned off large portions of one of her two X chromosomes. It's bio-speak for: there could be a genetic basis for homosexuality.

Northwest Airlines refuses to honor award tickets to gay couple

It seems Northwest insists on being discriminatory in it's attitude towards employees and customers. Might I suggest to avoid using Northwest Airlines.

-- updated 2/28/06

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid26232.asp

Okay, so Northwest explains that the ticket was part of an interline exchange where reciprocal honoring of domestic partner benefits was asked for fairness. It was Air New Zealand's refusal to honor Northwest domestic partner requests that caused this. I suppose it is a bit much for Northwest to refuse to do business with Air New Zealand over their discriminatory policies.

Christian Churches Celebrate Darwin's Birthday

Wow, what's this all about? I guess not all Christians are interested in alienating themselves from science.

Christian Churches Celebrate Darwin's Birthday: "kthejoker writes 'Today is the 197th anniversary of the great biologist Charles Darwin's birth. In response, some 450 Christian churches are celebrating Darwin's birth, saying, 'Darwin`s theory of biological evolution is compatible with faith and that Christians have no need to choose between religion and science.' There's also an interesting perspective on Darwinism and Christianity in the San Jose Mercury News.'"

UN refuses to hear application for Gay groups admission to Economic and Social Council

The US joined Iran and Zimbabwe in refusing to hear the applications at all. Not a surprise I suppose considering Bush's neo-con Bolton is the ambassador and anti-minority Condi as state department head.

The US claims one of the groups had ties to pedophiles. The ILGA group severed ties with the 'north american man boy love association' in 1994 which is some time ago. The Danish group had no such ties. Why not just call all gays pedophiles and leave it at that? This seems to be what the US state department wants to imply.

If the US government is so imprecise in it's messaging, I would think it appropriate to just go ahead and call all people the Bush adminstration doesn't like -- such as Muslims, Jews, African-Americans, Chinese, hispanics, poor people, and gays -- pedophiles and be done with it.

Homophobia makes Northern Ireland inhospitable

An article reports that gay-bashing is making Northern Ireland an unfriendly place for gays. I was guessing Northern Ireland is unfriendly in general. Is it wishful thinking, but I thought the place that brought an end finally to the war between Unionists and Nationalists and is the home of U2 would be enjoying the peace and respecting others, including members of minority groups.

There has been at least one well received gay themed movie coming out of Ireland (not Northern Ireland though), called 'Cowboys & Angels'. The gay part of the movie was disappointingly toned down quite a bit, but still a gay supportive movie. I imagine gay interest movies actually may make a fair amount of money relative to others because they have a loyal following in the States. (In the supplemental materials for gay-themed Russian film "You I Love", the Australian producer mentions that ironically her film received the greatest worldwide distribution for a Russian film due to it's theme.) Anyway, 'Cowboys & Angels' might prove that the gay bashing is not an Irish thing, it's a Northern Ireland thing.

Straight guy trying to explain his insecurities appears to excuse chauvanism and homophobia

Larry David who helped create the Seinfeld show wrote an NYTimes op-ed piece on why he was afraid to go see Brokeback Mountain at this link.

Now honestly there's really no reason for a straight man to want to see Brokeback Mountain -- given there's no lead character of romantic interest to him. Well, I guess there is another reason: curiousity. Why or how could two men love each other? Find out by going to a movie conveniently screened in a cineplex near you. This is exactly the reason why a straight man like Mr. David cannot go. He's afraid of losing his masculinity by going; people will make fun of him, call him gay (there is of course nothing wrong with it: he refrains the old Seinfeld "joke" which wouldn't be really a joke, if straight people believed it true). He jokes, and everyone understands his joke.

But I think not everyone sees the bit of homophobia still embedded in his logic. When he says, 'I just know if I saw that movie, the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day. "You like those cowboys, don't you? They're kind of cute. Go ahead, admit it, they're cute. You can't fool me, gay man. Go ahead, stop fighting it. You're gay! You're gay!"'. His statement is kind of a curse, a taunt for the playground. He's treading on the old stereotype: only sissies are gay men he implies. He doesn't want to be one of them or even associated with them. In other words, to like other men is to be female and weak. He even says, if two cowboys can 'succumb', how can he fight it? To him, two masculine cowboys in love is completely absurd. He probably hasn't heard of the gay major league baseball player Billy Bean or NFL player Esera Tuaolo.

His point of view is not unique; it is a reflection of society. To be ignorant and stay that way about homosexuality, is to be excused because one is afraid of any association rubbing off and making one the subject of gay/sissy jokes. And no straight man one wants to be called a sissy or gay.

Now that societal pressure which Mr. David points out must be awfully strong. An intellectual such as himself cannot even overcome it even while pointing out it's ridiculousness.

The macho model for male living should have outlived it's usefulness after departing the playground and certainly after graduating from high school. Similarly, calling people names and stereotyping other groups through ignorance and fear. It's really too bad Mr. David and much of America hasn't outgrown that stage of their lives yet.

--updated Jan 8th

Also related to Brokeback mountain, Gene Shalit gives what many call an anti-gay review of the movie: here's the Advocate article. He later apologizes for characterizing one of the cowboys as a 'sexual predator.'

--updated Feb 8th

This well thought out review of the Brokeback Mountain movie and short story explains it all to those who didn't understand it.