My new blog, Calitics

I haven't posted at this blog for a couple of months, mainly because I've been busy with my new project, Calitics:SoapBlox California.

We talk about California politics and California generally. I'll try to post random thoughts on this site occasionally.

Iran executes gay teenagers

Iran executes gay teenagers - OutRage!

Two gay teenagers were publicly executed in Iran on 19 July 2005 for the 'crime' of homosexuality.
The youths were hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in the city of Mashhad, in north east Iran. They were sentenced to death by Court No. 19.
Iran enforces Islamic Sharia law, which dictates the death penalty for gay sex.

Fuck it. I give up. Maybe Cheney is right, and we should be thinking of ways to invade Iran. Stupid Bush got the spelling wrong of the country we should have attacked. N you idiot!

P.s. forgive my imprudent words. I am mad.

P.p.s. Check out MyLeftWing, there's an excellent diary there.

'Scarborough Country' for July 12 - Scarborough Country - MSNBC.com

Hate-filled rants defending Karl Rove over national security ain't just for FauX News anymore. A congressman basically said the same thing. Peter King (R-NY) said something pretty similar on 'Scarborough Country' for July 12 on MSNBC:

And Joe Wilson has no right to complain. And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they're the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove. Listen, maybe Karl Rove was not perfect. We live in an imperfect world. And I give him credit for having the guts.

Wow, we're executing people for criticizing Karl Rove now? And this consistent praise of Rove. Man this guy has some mystical, god-like power over the GOP. How long will they remain loyal to this creep?

Funny Stuff: Is Karl going down?

I don't know, but this Daily Kos post is sure hillarious.

Olbermann's review of the candidates

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

Check out the video of Olbermann talking to NBC;s Pete Williams.

Go Keith!

Wil Ferrell's Harvard Commencement Address

Via Daily Kos:

Graduates, if you will indulge me for a moment, let me paint a picture of what it's like out there. The last four or, for some of you, five years you've been living in a fantasyland, running around, talking about Hemingway, or Clancy, or, I don't know, I mean whatever you read here at Harvard. The novelization of `The Matrix,' I don't know. I don't know what you do here.

'But I do know this. You're about to enter into a world filled with hypocrisy and doublespeak, a world in which your limo to the airport is often a half hour late. In addition to not even being a limo at all; oftentimes it's a Lincoln Town Car. You're about to enter a world where you ask your new assistant, Jamie, to bring you a tall nonfat latte. And he comes back with a short soy cappuccino. Guess what, Jamie? You're fired. Not too hard to get right, my friend...

'As you set off into the world, don't be afraid to question your leaders. But don't ask too many questions at one time or that are too hard, because your leaders get tired and/or cranky. All of you sitting here have the brightest futures ahead. Many of you will go on to stellar careers and various pursuits. And four of you---and I'm not at liberty to say which four---will go on to star in the porno industry.

'One of the challenges you will be faced with is finding a job in our depressed economy. In fact, the chances of landing a decent job are about as good as finding weapons of mass destruction in the Iraqi desert. Slim and none. And Slim just left the building. In fact, the closest thing I found to looking like a weapon of mass destruction is the turd that Dick Cheney left in the Oval Office toilet about an hour ago. On that note, God bless and happy graduation.'

Will Ferrell Commencement Address
Harvard University, 2003

Did gay marriage destroy heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia?

This New York Times article does an interesting job of spotlighting the anti-gay movement. Ultimately it says that they can't believe being gay isn't a choice.

But, of course, the Christian activists aren't vague in their opposition. For them, the issue isn't one of civil rights, because the term implies something inherent in the individual -- being black, say, or a woman -- and they deny that homosexuality is inherent. It can't be, because that would mean God had created some people who are damned from birth, morally blackened. This really is the inescapable root of the whole issue, the key to understanding those working against gay marriage as well as the engine driving their vehicle in the larger culture war: the commitment, on the part of a growing number of people, to a variety of religious belief that is so thoroughgoing it permeates every facet of life and thought, that rejects the secular, pluralistic grounding of society and that answers all questions internally.

yes, that secularism will really hold the man down. You know, letting people think for themselves and not listening to some self-apppointed wizards (perhaps some call them pastors). That's the real problem for these people, they just aren't comfortable with people thinking for themselves. Groupthink is just much easier. If y ou are told what to think, there's no work for you. You can just sit back and stuff envelopes full of hate mail.

The Times article cites a Stanley Kurtz article, "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia". He states that marriage is collapsing. Marriage rates are down, cohabitation is up, as is out-of-wedlock childbirth. He blames this on gay marriage.

However, Prof. M.V. Lee Badgett counters these "statistics." It's really not that hard as Kurtz doesn't really bother to show causation. In fact, it's pretty easy to show that there's no causation, and indeed, not much correlation either. The marriage rates began falling in the 60s in Scandinavia, well before gays were given rights.

After the 1989 passage of the registered-partner law, the marriage rate continued to climb; Danish heterosexual marriage rates are now the highest they've been since the early 1970's. And the most recent marriage rates in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are all higher than the rates for the years before the partner laws were passed. Furthermore, in the 1990s, divorce rates in Scandinavia remained basically unchanged.

Oh no...marriage is dying. Oh wait, what's that you say, the rates are going up. Well...well...there are tons of kids without married parents! And that is at least partially true (not that there's correlation between that and gay marriage, but there are more out-of-wedlock births), but...

Roughly half of all children in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are now born to unmarried parents. In Denmark, the number of cohabiting couples with children rose by 25 percent in the 1990s. From these statistics Kurtz concludes that " … married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon," and—surprise—he blames gay marriage.

But Kurtz's interpretation of the statistics is incorrect. Parenthood within marriage is still the norm—most cohabitating couples marry after they start having children. In Sweden, for instance, 70 percent of cohabiters wed after their first child is born. Indeed, in Scandinavia the majority of families with children are headed by married parents. In Denmark and Norway, roughly four out of five couples with children were married in 2003. In the Netherlands, a bit south of Scandinavia, 90 percent of heterosexual couples with kids are married.

What Kurtz, and all the anti-gays miss, is that they have the causation backwards. "In truth, the shift occurred in the opposite direction: Changes in heterosexual marriage made the recognition of gay couples more likely." And that's the correlation and causation.