Dumb and Dumbest

This is the dumbest thing I have heard in a while, and I live in a country with the likes of Coulter and Palin.

In Ireland they have just narrowly passed legislation that makes it illegal to blaspheme. They have defined blasphemy as any statement, written or spoken, that offends a substantial number of adherents of any particular religion. The fine for such behavior is 25,000 euros.

Naturally they have a good reason to want to suppress religious hate speech as they try to put their past behind them. But their writing of the law is so vague that it is completely open to question what sorts of speech-----or books!-----would be considered criminal. Would a book of philosophy that includes essays about the existence or nature of God be criminal? What about a book about evolution? Many Christians find that offensive.

The ironic thing here is that they seem to think that they are protecting religions from blasphemers. But really, all religious claims are in effect blasphemous to other traditions. Can a pastor say that only through accepting the sacrifice of Jesus can one attain salvation without offending Muslims, Hindus or Jews? Can priests say that Protestants are doomed to Hell without committing blasphemy according to this new definition? Can anyone in Ireland object to the practice of stoning adulterers (rape victims?) to death without offending Muslim traditionalists?

According to the new law in Ireland, police can forcibly enter your home and confiscate materials (books?) that have 'offensive' material in them.

I see a book burning coming on. I hope they can tap that energy source for cap-and-trade tax benefits, or nothing good will have come of this.

Next Year or 2024. When Gay Marriage will be ruled a constitutional right?

My, sez Djinn, prediction. Next year. Or 2024. It's a long post, I know, but this is as short as I can make it. Want more info? Just ask.

California put on its ballot, this year, a citizen initiative to change the California constitution to declare marriage as allowable between only a man and a woman. The famous Proposition 8.

Subsequently, the California Supreme Court declared gays a protected class, subject to strict scrutiny; which means under the 14th amendment to the Constitution, they have a right to marry.

All discrimination is not created equal. In US law, there are three distinct categories, strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, and rational relationship.

Strict scrutiny, as you may be able to ascertain from its name, is the strictest, and only applies when a fundamental right is infringed, or when a "suspect classification" is used. Race is a suspect classification. Under suspect classification, for example, blacks and whites cannot have separate water fountains, "separate but equal" does not win.

The California Supreme court has determined that Sexual Orientation is a "suspect classificaion" with the effect that laws applying to sexual orientation must be justified by a "compelling government interest," must be "narrowly tailored," and must be the "least restrictive means" of achieving the compelling governmental interest.

Gays in California used to have, and currently have the option of entering into "domestic partnerships" which have most, but not all, of the benefits of marriage at the state level. They have no benefits at the federal level.

Under "strict scrutiny," such "separate but equal" rights are clearly disallowed. It's why you or I cannot put up separate water fountains for blacks, or whites.

So.... The people of California have amended their constitution (with only 52% of the vote! But that's for a different rant.) to require marriage (this is a completely civil right, in that the benefits are granted totally by the government) to be between only a man and a woman.

But, under strict scrutiny, there are only two possible ways to handle one group being denied rights granted to another group. 1. Give the rights to the denied group (integrate schools, no separate water fountains) or, 2. Take the rights away from the privileged group. Bang, Zoom, thank you m'am, or sir.

The California constitution, by disallowing marriage between two people of the same sex, has now invalidated reason 1 of the possible solutions. Gays cannot be given marriage rights. However, reason 2 is still open; that is, Marriage can be denied to all. This is, I suspect, what the actual outcome will be. There is 3; another choice, the amendment could be declared a "revision," and thus subject to stricter standards to pass, that is 2/3rds majority in both CA governmental houses and a vote by the people. This would invalidate it, but there is very little case law to determine the probability of this, so let's think of the exciting possibilities.

Assuming the court doesn't choose revision, the only option available is to deny Marriage to all Californians, and give them all civil unions. This has serious consequences, as civil unions are not recognized by the US government, which would deny those couples now able to get married that right.

That is an important point, because state constitutions can add extra rights not guaranteed by the US constitution, but cannot subtract rights guaranteed by the constitution to all.

So, when (or if) California declares all marriages invalid under their constitution, we will be in a unique situation. For the very first time, the issue of Gay Marriage will be "ripe" to be heard by the Supreme Court.

Currently there are four almost 100% probable no votes for gay marriage, one unknown vote (Kennedy, the only vote that counts, because he is the swing) and four at least potentially probable yes votes. So, there's probably even odds, if the Supreme court hears this issue, that they will say "No."

However, Kennedy wrote the opinion in "Lawrence v. Texas," the ruling that gave gay people the constitutional right to have sex (in 2003!) and so is at least a probable "yes" vote.

In Lawrence, Kennedy penned that

"our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education." ... "Persons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do.”

Sounds like he sees Gay marriage as a fundamental right. If so, then Americans might soon have a constitutional right to gay marriage, fueled, (ouch. My irony meter just broke...back to the shop.....) by the diligent efforts of the "Yes on 8" people in California.

Scalia, in his angry dissent in Lawrence agreed, stating:

Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned.

Assuming Kennedy votes "no", I ran a statistical analysis on the ages of the conservative justices to determine the average year one would die. (I possess such superpowers; but, to compensate look somewhere between silly and stupid in a bodysuit and cape. Not true, I can rock the cape, but no bodysuits or tights for me.) It's just about 16 years from now. If there is a Democrat in the White House in 2024, and an interceding Republican administration hasn't installed an anti-gay conservative (bit, uh opinionated, Djinn? Hell Yeah!) we, after every single other country in the first world (assuming we're still in that group) will finally decide that gay people have the right to get married. Pretty depressing.

Postscript. There are only five conservative justices, so the error bars on my prediction are pretty wide, but I used what material was at hand for my prediction. So there.

"A Day In The Life Of A Conservative"

I found this here, but can't find the original source. I picture Joe the Plumber when I read it. (If you feel like skipping over some of this, make sure to read the last paragraph.)

Liberals Suck
(A Day in the Life of a Conservative)


Joe gets up at 6am and fills his coffee pot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. That medication is safe to take because some stupid Commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and efficacy.


All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance -- and now Joe gets it, too.

Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat-packing industry.

In his morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much of what it contained.

Joe gets dressed, walks outside, and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.


Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and DIED for these working standards. Joe's employer adheres to these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed through no fault of his own, he'll get a worker's compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noon and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is finally home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm in the country. He gets in his car, ready for the long drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't even have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so that Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back into his car for the drive home and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. The host doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day...indeed, throughout his LIFE. Joe agrees. "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of himself, just like I have."

Bass Ackwards

Palin recently complained

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Glenn Greenwald (from Salon ) puts Palin's perspective in perspective.

If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged......

...... According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. The First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials would not be "attacked" in the papers. It is even possible to imagine more breathaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?

This Monkey Is All Set For Halloween

Or is Greenspan dressed as a monkey? We may never know.

A personal statement on Prop 8 by Djinn

My family is Mormon. I grew up Mormon. A huge portion of the people I love are Mormon. I am horrified that the Mormon Church has decided to spend so much time, energy, and members' money on trying to pass California's Proposition 8, which would invalidate marriages between same sex couples. Why Mormons have decided to make this such an issue I find deeply confusing, because Evangelicals, who agree with the Mormon position that Gays are bad bad bad, still won't like them, while the Mormon brand has now become associated with homophobia and bigotry. Who are Mormon missionaries going to teach?

At the same time, as this article , this article, this article, and this website show, just because someone is Mormon does not mean they hold the same position as the Church at large. Knowing that someone is Mormon does not also impart the knowledge that they have difficulty with gay people.

The Mormon church has a website, which gives reasons that they feel that people should be against allowing same-sex couples to be wed. Unfortunately, it turns out that most of these reasons are, to put it harshly, lies. Below is a paper, signed by rather a large number of law professors, showing why.

No on Prop. 8 lawyers statement on marriage - Upload a Document to Scribd

We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government...

-Doctrine & Covenants, 134:4

A Very Brief Rebuttal of Hasslehoff

For those of you flummoxed by the Hasslehoff Recursion, take comfort in this brief response: (Caution, for some reason, when you click on the play arrow, it sometimes skips the intended clip and shows other options. Simply click on the replay symbol in the upper left corner.)

crazy flip book


We are ultimately all composed of bar codes as this plainly shows. We are not mere fractal "junk"! The very idea!

A valuable lesson on how not to judge

Step 1: Proclaim loudly that you are not judging.
Step 2: Judge.
Step 3: (refrain) Proclaim loudly that you have, not, in fact, judged.

Here, let's obvserve a master:

Sarah Palin on Gay Marriage:

I am, in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that that’s where we would go because I don’t support gay marriage. I’m not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can’t do, should and should not do, but I certainly can express my own opinion here and take actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage and that’s casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that instrument that it’s the foundation of our society is that strong family and that’s based on that traditional definition of marriage, so I do support that.

My deepest regrets (to my dear reader(s) and Italians alike) to being forced to wade through that spaghetti prose.
Plus a shout-out to Banksy for the adorable policemen, whom, I'm sure, speak the Queen's Engish, unlike she who shall not be named.

Is Djinn Spiralling Out Of Control In Her Obsession With Palin?

No!

A good number of those palicentric posts were submitted by Kerfuffler, a new-to-the-blogosphere friend of Djinn's from way back. I, Kerfuffler, do hereby apologize for the obsessive (incessant?) posting on this most painful of topics, but I really needed to practice from one day to the next posting things just to get a hang of linking, embedding, and what not.( And Palin kept supplying so much material!) You see, I am my family's resident techno-phobe. Until quite recently, merely sending an e-mail was a source of jaw-clenching tension for me. So, yay me!

I have posted other items as well. (Fruitfly foolishness, Western Spaghetti, inflatable street art, those evolving-painting videos and a bunch of other stuff.) I started on Sept. 30th. I guess Djinn and I have similar styles and interests, so many of you did not notice. I did not mean to be an impostor! In any event, I'm pleased to make your virtual acquaintance.

By the way, the image above is a FANTASTIC OPTICAL ILLUSION, but to get the full effect, you need to enlarge the image, and I might add, the bigger, the better! (Just hit Ctrl+ a few times and let the dizzying swirling begin.) Djinn, I know you like optical illusions, but you just might want to avoid this one!

My thoughts on the Mormon opposition to gays marrying in CA

As I said elsewhere (but why waste a perfectly good comment)

An unpopular minority - Mormons – trying to limit the rights of another unpopular minority – Gays - on an issue - Marriage - which Mormonism has a somewhat vexed (and very very famous) history, reminds all and sundry about said vexed history, are on the wrong side of history (again – see any number of issues, but perhaps blacks and the priesthood is the closest), hurts the reputation of the church in society at large, does nothing to lessen the distrust of the church felt by the Evangelicals who are the main supporters of the amendment, and is the exact opposite of what the church should be doing.

As to the argument that male-female marriage is "traditional," balderdash. These people mistake there ignorance of history for something akin to fact.

For all of you folks proclaiming that traditional marriage has always been between a man and a woman; right here (for me at least) in the good ol’ U.S. of A, before it was such, for a very very long time (certainly long enough to be called “traditional”) a very wide assortment of native american tribes had (and some still do) “two-spirits.” Basically, these are men who chose to live as women. They could marry, and were considered good luck, or even holy by some tribes. The Navajos, for example saw and still see them as especially gifted at teaching children. So here, in the US, it is not “traditional” for marriage to be between a man and a woman exclusively unless you define traditional to mean “my traditions that I got from somewhere else geographically and haven’t quite forgotten.”

We won’t even get into Hawaiian group marriages.

Soundtrack for post; only one possible.


Pic of Joseph F. Smith, the 7th president of the LDS church with his 6 wives and 45 offspring.

Human perception

An interesting illusion

From the link, above.

Here is a novel illusion that is as striking as it is simple. The two images of the Leaning Tower of Pisa are
identical, yet one has the impression that the tower on the right leans more, as if photographed from a
different angle. The reason for this is because the visual system treats the two images as if part of a single
scene. Normally, if two adjacent towers rise at the same angle, their image outlines converge as they recede
from view due to perspective, and this is taken into account by the visual system. So when confronted with
two towers whose corresponding outlines are parallel, the visual system assumes they must be diverging as
they rise from view, and this is what we see. The illusion is not restricted to towers photographed from
below, but works well with other scenes, such as railway tracks receding into the distance. What this illusion
reveals is less to do with perspective, but how the visual system tends to treat two side-by-side images as if
part of the same scene. However hard we try to think of the two photographs of the Leaning Tower as
separate, albeit identical images of the same object, our visual system regards them as the ‘Twin Towers of
Pisa’, whose perspective can only be interpreted in terms of one tower leaning more than the other.

Long hallways, large buildings, the max tracks, certain aisles at the supermarket, seemingly any long, unbroken parallel lines give me serious balance problems. This may be a hint as to why.

Many more fun illusions here.

A portrait in Orange, or Harold, the house cat.

Harold may be the reason we have two vacuums; one upstairs and one down. Our house isn't that big, but the quantity of hair he produces is quite impressive. Don't get the idea, dear reader, that I, personally, can even turn on either of the vacuums. GeeBee (buzz, sting!) is the only master of such appliances in our domain.

Pic, since not a complete blur, obviously shows the handiwork of GeeBee, and not the author.

Smoke, drink, and be merry, or tomorrow we may have arthritis.

Moderate drinking cuts chance of getting Rheumatoid arthritis almost in half. Drinking and Smoking, even better (for the arthritis.)

What next, Heroin as a baldness cure?

People who had a moderate alcohol consumption were 40 and 45 percent less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis compared with people who did not drink or drank only occasionally, it found.

Among those who had a high consumption, the risk was reduced by 50 and 55 percent respectively.

Most surprising was that the biggest benefits were seen among smokers with a genetic profile known to make them vulnerable to the disease.

What, you thought losing money was a bad thing? Or, Red is the new Black.

Merrill Lynch & Co., Citigroup Inc. and four other U.S. financial companies have used an accounting rule adopted last year to book almost $12 billion of revenue after a decline in prices of their own bonds. The rule, intended to expand the ``mark-to- market'' accounting that banks use to record profits or losses on trading assets, allows them to report gains when market prices for their liabilities fall.

This means that banks (and don't you so wish you could do this?) are recording their losses as gains. Totally too Kool for Skool. You have a 401 K? Take note.

People are weird; or the more porn, the fewer sex crimes.

Pornography occupies some weird liminal position here in America. Somewhere around 90% of men view it (I've had trouble finding actual statistics), but it is widely seen as a horrific societal evil. Recent posts at feministmormonhousewives.com have docmented sad tales of men so "addicted."

I decided to do a review of the literature to see what science says about such sad stories. What did I find out? Human sexuality = paradox. Every "common sense" argument is not only wrong, but produces the opposite effect you would suppose.

Two countries, Denmark and Japan, greatly liberalized their pornography laws in the 1960s and 1990's respectively. Both countries had spectacular declines in the number of sex offenses. Denmark even allows "child pornography"--it saw a 50% drop in such crimes, after the liberalization of pornography. Astonishing. Please understand that I am not condoning raping the occasional child for the good of the whole here, I find the idea reprehensible. I'm just reporting on the data.

Japan, who dramatically liberalized its pornography laws in the mid 1990's (or at least reinterpreted its existing laws much more broadly) saw an even more astonishing decrease -- an 85% decrease in sex crimes against children . If such an easy fix is available for such a horrific crime, we should all follow suit--in some non-horrific fashion; and yes, I realise that ay, there's the rub. To sleep, perchance to dream....

The most dramatic decrease in sex crimes was seen when attention was focused on the number and age of rapists and victims among younger groups (Table 2). We hypothesized that the increase in pornography, without age restriction and in comics, if it had any detrimental effect, would most negatively influence younger individuals. Just the opposite occurred. The number of juvenile offenders dramatically dropped every period reviewed from 1,803 perpetrators in 1972 to a low of 264 in 1995; a drop of some 85% (Table 1). The number of victims also decreased particularly among the females younger than 13 (Table 2). In 1972, 8.3% of the victims were younger than 13. In 1995 the percentage of victims younger than 13 years of age dropped to 4.0%.

Most significantly, despite the wide increase in availability of pornography to children, not only was there a decrease in sex crimes with juveniles as victims but the number of juvenile offenders also decreased significantly.

Another quote

"Other researchers have found the same effect. In Denmark homosexual child molestation decreased more than 50 percent from 74 cases in 1966 to 20 cases in 1969 (Ben-Veniste, 1971; pp. 254). These decreases in sex crimes involving children are particularly noteworthy since in Japan, as in Denmark, for the time under review, there were no laws against the personal non-commercial possession or use of depictions of children involved in sexual activities; so-called "childporn" (Kutchinsky, 1985a; pp. 5). Considering the seriousness in how sex crimes against children are viewed in both cultures, this drop in cases reported represents a real reduction in the number of offenses committed rather than a reduced readiness to report such offenses."

I looked at rape statistics by nation to determine where Denmark and Japan fit in world-wide.


US is at #9. Denmark is at #23, while Japan is at #54.

In retrospect, at right around 1995 this portal into the Hellmouth (no, wait, that's Sunnyvale), into the demimonde, previously only available to the wealthy or those willing to venture into the skeevier parts of town, was now but a click away, and in the privacy of your own home. Here, there, and anywhere with a dial-up phone line. This increased availability of porn coincides (mostly) with a similar drop in rape cases in the United States, so even if the the events in Japan and Denmark are correlative, not causative, something's happening here, even if what it is ain't exactly clear.

On beauty, or why it's only intermittently useful.

I lived in Las Vegas (North Las Vegas, actually) when I was between 13 and 15. There were lots of beautiful women around, none who seemed to be on the sorts of career tracks that I would wish for me or mine. 'Nuf said.

Slighly longer explanation for those who were not denziens of sin city during the years in question--Vegas had, inexplicably, large numbers of showgirls, all beautiful, and prostitutes, some also beautiful, including the mother of my dear friend Bambi, who, besides being built like a taller, leggier, more naturally blonde version of Dolly Parton, would tell me stories about having to ride ostriches, and how frightening she found it. I didn't ask questions. I still feel great guilt about not being able to do anything for her.