Bush threatens veto unless DC funding made anti-gay

Link Wow, it seems so beneath the President to use his veto power in petty and mean ways.

41% of gay Brit students assaulted / Hate-Crimes Legislation

[Towleroad] [BBC] And 17% received death threats. I wonder if it isn't even worse in the US. Education spokesman: "Whether a young person is gay, seen as being gay or has gay parents, homophobic bullying can make their life a misery."

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Queerty reports HRC is asking for your support to urge Congress to pass hate crimes protections. At least listen to the Cindy Lauper classic in the YouTube ad.

Doctors like to talk about themselves

Link My GP is great, a nice asian woman with seemingly infinite patience. This article talks about how some doctors forgot to ask what patient was there for. For some reason, I can easily imagine some male doctors doing exactly what's mentioned in the article: self-centered b*stards. And you know that I haven't anything against males, but I can just perfectly picture it. A tall, white, male doctor starting a conversation about my summer and in a blasé manner -- knowing that no patient in need of medical help would dare stop him -- continuing to talk about his family and his vacation last year in Italy for several minutes.

British Gov't refutes Intelligent Design as Not Science

Slashdot pointed to the Register article saying that Intelligent design isn't science. Vastly different from what our government under the Bush administration would say.

Bloomberg waves rainbow flag in pride parade

Link Elizabeth Edwards says she is fine with same-sex marriage. This puts her somewhat opposite her husband. I'm afraid for me there's no collateral benefit from that, unless she convinces her husband to change his stance.
Meanwhile, possible long shot independent candidate Bloomberg marches in the New York pride parade along with Mayor Ed Koch. Although Bloomberg is left-handed, he apparently isn't gay -- he is seeing a girlfriend after divorcing his wife of 19 years. I think I'd vote for Bloomberg if he ran, although it depends on whether he's got a chance or not. He's expressed his opinion that he is for same-sex marriage, although somewhat muddled by the city filing an appeal to a ruling for same-sex marriage. Still, his entrance could be like a Ralph Nader and screw the country with another 'W'. But then again no one could be as bad as 'W' though.

HIV or PtERV1

Link Apparently, humans are immune to PtERV1, a monkey virus. Some monkeys are immune to HIV. It's theorized that for humans to be immune to PtERV1 they lost the capability to be immune to HIV.

Not sure if I understand why that must be from the article, but perhaps some of the proteins needed to be immune to PtERV1 are different from what's needed for HIV, so a 'normal' evolutionary process would only protect against one or the other. I don't think it means that eventually some humans wouldn't eventually get immunity from HIV, but it would take thousands of years and sustaining medicines might confound the Darwinian process. Of course, in the process tens of millions would die.

Having it both ways: an executive and congressman

Link Cheney is using executive privilege and lawmaker's privilege to obscure his tracks. The guy is a total sleezeball to need to make this kind of argument.

Same-sex marriage passes New York Assembly

Link Unfortunately, the state Senate is still held by Republicans. They say they're not even going to debate the bill in that Chamber. Too bad because Spitzer introduced it. California's got the opposite problem.

Congress to finally go after the oil company subsidies

Link Previous incentives to increase domestic production will be replaced with alternative fuel research funding.

Americans getting a little smarter in Iraq

Link At least someone is thinking.

-- Updated 6/24

Apparently it didn't work. High level Al Qaeda has left the region. Link

Times writer takes on Lou Dobbs for untruths

Link For all his claims to be a populist, Lou Dobbs seems too much of an advocate for xenophobic and racist causes.

Injecting fiscal responsibility

Link The Democrats may pass a Pay as You Go bill, but would the President veto it? The author notes future structural deficits from medicare and social security are a major concern.

Faith-based group flips earmarked coast guard cutters

Link This is supposed to be a moral organization, but they're not averse to asking for money/donations for a particular humanitarian purpose and doing something else entirely with that money.

Fallacy: Trading safety versus fuel efficiency in cars

Link Interesting that Honda agreed that no such tradeoff was necessary. The US automakers are pushing back hard. Probably Toyota is quietly in the same camp as Honda.

U.S. Civilian Surge -- State Dept

Link The CS Monitor reports on a much smaller, but hopefully effective civilian surge which will bring training for oversight and other governing functions.

Islamist rules for suicide bombing can all be bent

Link Well I suppose one can't be surprised. It's sort of like war. All the rules change once someone says it's war.

China food fakery (updated)

Link Pretty disgusting. People say the Chinese are just interested in making money. And here it is openly demonstrated that they really don't care how they make money. The feed makers were defrauding the buyers. The chemical makers claim the chemicals were harmless, but they basically turned a blind eye and were enablers for the feed makers to cheat others -- knowing that the feed has no nutritional value. Ethically deficient? Driven by greed?

While I wouldn't doubt it if they claimed that they learned this attitude from rapacious Western multinational corporations, a disturbing aspect of this story fits with another stereotype I've heard others say about the Chinese. That they don't want to get involved. If a nearby person is dying of a heart attack, they won't call 911 or do CPR. They'll claim it was none of their business. Or they didn't know what problem the guy was having. Or they don't want the police to think they killed the guy. Or they don't want to be charged for the 911 call.

While it doesn't excuse anything, one possible explanation for this behavior is that because of widespread government corruption, they've had the habit of not reporting anything to the authorities, because if they did, it might be seen as unwanted meddling and come back to harm them in some way.

-- Updated 5/17

A story on the fallout from the tainted pet food from China.

-- Updated 6/10

Link Making a quick buck in China with fakery.

Poisoned toothpaste and chili sauce from China

Link More excellent stuff from China. Makes me want to just go out and buy everything with a made in China name. The only problem is that Chinese ingredients seem so ubiquitous. They can supply pet food, toothpaste and who knows what else.

-- Updated 6/2

Link Tainted Chinese toothpaste in dollar stores in the US.

-- Updated 6/10

Link Too much preservatives in chili sauces from China.

-- Updated 6/15

Link Chinese stonewalling on fake glycerin.

China talks about climate change

Link Perhaps it's just political posturing, but China seems to be taking a stance -- although a weak one -- on preventing damage to the environment through climate change.

Surge not quite as expected

Link Dare I say it? Does it seem like it's not working? I do tend to give up too easily. Perhaps we should wait longer for more soldiers to get killed.

See this post on a similar theme about Delta company.