Gay Adoption...This is hilarious

From politics1.com:

State Senator Robert Hagan (D-Ohio) says he will introduce legislation to ban Republican couples from adopting children. According to Hagan, "credible research'' shows that adopted children raised in GOP households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities." Hagan agrees there is no scientific evidence backing his claims about Republican parents -- just, as Hagan notes, there is none backing State Representative Ron Hood's (R) bill banning gay parents from adopting. Hood claims children purportedly suffer from emotional "harm" when they are adopted by gay couples. Hagan admits he created his proposal to mock Hood's proposed ban on gay adoption in a way that people would see the "blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive" nature of the bill. The GOP House leadership does not support Hood's proposal.

Gone Fishin'

I'm off to Lake Tahoe until Tuesday. No new worth news or thoughts for that matter. I leave you with the websites that I check daily. Leave comments about what sites you check daily.

The following are the political blogs:

1. dailykos - According to wikipedia, "It is arguably the most influential liberal weblog in the United States."
   
2. The Huffington Post - A progressive blog started by Arianna Huffington. This is my homepage because it provides all the important headlines of the day and has a list of columnists.
   
3. Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish - Sullivan is a conservative blogger who used to be editor of The New Republic.
   
4. MyDD - This was one of the first major liberal blogs.
   
5. Think Progress - A site that fights against conservatives with point-by-point rebuttals. Think Progress had a real-time counter for the State of the Union which was fun to watch.
   
6. TruthDig - I love this site. Although I may not agree with all of the commentary. This site has in-depth articles, "Digs," and an "Uncovered" section which is a dossier of information on featured topics.
   
7. Media Matters - This site is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Bill O' Reilly is always getting spanked on this site.
   
8. BuzzFlash - A site that's dedicated to listing important news stories...and that's about it.
   

Okay that's it. So I only got done with my political blogs that I look at each day. Let me know what you read.

War on Terrorism

I think this is an interesting column from Tony Blankley in the February 22nd Washington Times. He comments on a new book by liberal Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, which analyzes the changes that are occurring in this age of increased danger from non-state players.

Where traditionally a paradigm of rational human behavior can be assumed in developing defense strategies, Dershowitz states the following:

These assumptions are now being widely questioned as the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of suicide terrorists becomes more realistic and as our ability to deter such harms by classic rational cost-benefit threats and promises becomes less realistic.

He argues that United States jurisprudence needs to change in order to deal with these threats.

Dershowitz raises the great maxim of criminal law: better that 10 guilty go free, than one innocent be wrongly convicted. That principle led our law to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt before conviction in criminal trials. Most of us agree with that standard.

But then Mr. Dershowitz updates the maxim thusly: "Is it better for ten possibly preventable terrorist attacks to occur than for one possibly innocent suspect to be preventively detained?" I would hunch that most people would not be willing to accept ten September 11 attacks (30,000 dead) in order to protect one innocent suspect from being locked up and questioned for a while.

X-prize

After the success of ushering in the innovation needed for commercial space travel, the X-Prize Foundation is putting its prize money into other areas such as biotechnology and energy. The nonprofit organization is said to announce later this year a $10 million prize for the first team that can sequence 100 different human genomes in a matter of weeks.

I think this is a great way to create incentives for innovation in areas that are stagnate. The X-Prize Foundation's mission is "to enable radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.”

Free Speech

David Irving was sentenced this week for three years in prison for denying the Holocaust in 1989. This along with the Muhammad cartoons raises some interesting points.

When does freedom of speech cross the line?

Robert Scheer comments in an interesting article:

Speech that is not felt by some powerful group to be loathsome is hardly in need of protection.

With regard to how the West has dealt with these incidents:

The lesson has been that the suppression of ideas is valid, as long as the suppressors are convinced that they are in the right.

Free/Cheap WifI

Mountain View is about to get it free from Google and Chicago is planning on making it really cheap. Why's this bad?? Jolly?

This is what we need more of...

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Pennsylvania Democrat, decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his annual Fattah Conference on Higher Education by unveiling a big surprise for the 700 undergraduates attending a conference luncheon on Saturday in Philadelphia: full graduate scholarships.

In an interview with The Chronicle on Sunday, Representative Fattah agreed that his dramatic announcement bore some resemblance to the attention-grabbing awards of free cars and other consumer goods that Oprah Winfrey has bestowed on her talk-show audiences. But the congressman said his news was intended to turn the heads of minority undergraduate students at the conference and elsewhere, who often wrongly believe that they lack the resources or grades for graduate study.

Link

Cultural Revolution

China is opening it's first museum on the Cultural Revolution. The Independent has an article about the controversy surrounding how China has dealt with this dark history.

This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the end of the Cultural Revolution, but there has never been a proper assessment of what happened during the period, and children are taught little about it in school. Their parents are unlikely to tell them what they went through.

The Cultural Revolution last from 1966 to 1976 and was started by Mao Zedong as a way to control power and squash opponents. From Wikipedia:

On August 8, 1966, the Central Committee of the CCP passed a bill, "Decisions on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution". This bill stated that the official position of China's government was now supportive of the purging of intellectuals and imperialists. In December 1968, Mao began the "Down to the Countryside Movement". During this Movement, which lasted for the next decade, young intellectuals were ordered to go into the country and receive "education" from "middle and poor peasants". Mao saw this disruption of ordinary social processes as a way to remove future emerging forces who could be a threat to the CCP. For many of the 'intellectuals,' most of whom were recently-graduated college students, this deployment to the countryside was in effect a kind of internal exile, and the conditions under which they were forced to labor were often harsh in the extreme; many deaths from malnutrition, overwork, and disease were reported, although many were not.

The Cultural Revolution affected essentially every Chinese person. During this period the Chinese economy and education systems grinded to a stop as the revolution was the predominant focus and intellectuals were purged. Although the number of deaths attributed to the revolution is unclear is ranges from the hundreds of thousands to the millions.

GMOs Part II: Reading Material

1. Here is a New York Times article from 2000 which gives a nice overview. A couple letters to the editor followed this article which accented a couple of points:

Superstition and fear should not interfere with this technology, which has so much to offer those who suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Unfounded concerns about hypothetical risks are far outweighed by the real benefits that will soon be realized, if scientific research and development of genetically modified agriculture is allowed to proceed unhindered.
Link
The Personal Health column on genetically modified foods promotes the misconceptions it warns of. The portrayal of current genetic ''engineering'' as precise and well defined is inappropriate today.

Few genes are ''known quantities'' and the process of introducing a foreign gene into an organism produces uncertainty about both the gene's function and the function of the DNA into which it is inserted.

Genetic engineering techniques are abysmally primitive, akin to swapping random parts between random cars to produce a better car. Yet our ignorance will fade; biological engineering will become a reality relatively soon.
Link

2. Here is another New York Times article about the African Nation of Zambia rejecting genetically modified crops eventhough the country is close to famine.

3. Here are a couple of paragraphs from Greenpeace speaking in opposition to genetically modified crops.

4. Finally here is some advanced reading from the World Health Organization: 20 Questions on Genetically Modified Foods.

GMOs Part I: Introduction

The topic is Genetically Modified Organisms, specifically Genetically Modified Crops. I propose that we try to answer the following questions:

1. What are GMOs? - organisms in which their genetic material (DNA) has been changed in a non-natural way. By non-natural I mean changes that occur outside of natural mutations and natural breeding. Non-natural changes includes genetic manipulations such as the introduction of a gene from one organism to another.
   
2. What are the benefits of genetically modified crops?
   
3. What are the risks involved in using genetically modified crops?
   
   
   
   1. Are genetically modified crops safe for humans? In the short-term? In the long-term?
      
   2. Are GMOs safe for the environment?
      
   
   
4. What is the current status of GMO use in the US and in the world?
   
5. What are the politics with GMOs and Europe and in Africa?
   
6. Is there is a conflict between farmers and the developers of GMOs?
   
7. What types of advances and conflicts can be expected in the future?
   

Ouch.

Two economist have data showing the unattractive are more likely to commit crimes. It's amazing how even though we may not wish to judge people based on their appearances we do. This kind of cultural pressure is profound and unfortunate.

Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they're also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent.

Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law. Very attractive high school girls were less likely to commit six of the seven crimes, while those rated unattractive were more likely to have done six of seven, controlling for personal and family characteristics known to be associated with criminal behavior.

Link

Familiar Name

Article from the Washington Post.

Although associates say Cheney does not use hunting trips as an explicit fundraising vehicle, he has brought along prominent business figures, including Ohio billionaire Leslie H. Wexner, whose retail empire includes such chains as Limited Stores, Express, Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret.

MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT has set up a website with course materials for over 1,250 classes. The best part is the access to lecture notes. For the curious this is an amazing resource.

Global Warming

Donald Kennedy, the editor-in-chief, of the journal Science criticizes the Bush Administration in this week's editorial . He cites two scientists, Kerry Emanuel and James Hansen from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) respectively, have been gagged along with other scientists with policies counter to the Administration's goals. Emanuel's studies explain the relationship between the increase in oceanic surface temperatures and the increase in hurricane intensities over the past 30 years. Hansen has been reprimanded for stating that the measures outlined by the Administration may not be adequate to curb the climate changes that are occurring.

These two incidents are part of a troublesome pattern to which the Bush administration has become addicted: Ignore evidence if it doesn't favor the preferred policy outcome. Above all, don't let the public get an idea that scientists inside government disagree with the party line. The new gag rules support the new Bush mantra, an interesting inversion of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield's view on war: "You don't make policy with the science you have. You make policy with the science you WANT." But the late-breaking good news is that NASA Administrator Griffin has said that there will be no more of this nonsense, and Deutsch, the 24-year-old Bush appointee sent to muzzle Hansen, has left the agency abruptly after his résumé turned out to be falsified. A change of heart? Stay tuned.

An interesting article in the Washington Post today also talking about the reality of global warming.

Nice...

Found this picture on the Wonkette.

Cheney, This is Important

I can see this incident occurring in a West Wing episode. Leo conversing with Josh and Toby about how the VP just shot someone, “Look the President has been informed and he’s on board. We’ll wait until after the Sunday talk shows to release the information. No word to CJ.”
This incident is modus operandi for this Administration. Bad things happen, don’t say anything until you have to or until it’s most convenient. In a New York Daily News article former Republican presidential press secretaries criticize the slow release of the event to the public. In the same article Senator Hillary Clinton says:

"A tendency of this administration from the top all the way to the bottom is to withhold information, to resist legitimate requests for information, to refuse to be forthcoming," Clinton (D-N.Y.) said. "Putting it all together going back years now, there is a pattern that should be troubling," she said, apparently referring to the CIA leak case, Cheney's secret meetings with energy execs and White House refusal to release documents relating to judicial nominees.

And there was drinking before the shooting. There should be no drinking anytime before using a firearm. This is not acceptable and the old man’s on heart medication. Link.
Bob Herbert a columnist for the New York Times writes that,

It's time for Dick Cheney to step down -- for the sake of the country and for the sake of the Bush administration. The shooting and Mr. Cheney's highhanded behavior in its immediate aftermath fit perfectly with the stereotype of him as a powerful but dangerous figure who is viewed by many as a dark force within the administration. He doesn't even give lip service to the idea of transparency in his public or private life.

How can we stand by and let this happen?
To be honest, quite easily. I am siding with some conservatives with this issue. This whole thing smells a little too political to me. Tony Blankley, one of the commentators on my favorite NPR show ( Left, Right and Center begins his column at the Washington Times with the following:

In the absence of any pressing news these days — other than Iran's nuclear weapons development crisis, the election of Hamas terrorists in Palestine, on-going worldwide Muslim riots and killing in reaction to a cartoon, Al Gore's near sedition while speaking in Saudi Arabia, the turning over of our East Coast ports to be managed by a United Arab Emirates firm, the criminal leaking of vital NSA secrets to the New York Times, Mexican military incursions across our southern border, the Iraqi crisis, Congress's refusal to deal with the developing financial collapse of Social Security and Medicare, inter alia — the White House press corps has exploded in righteous fury over the question of the vice president's little shooting party last weekend.

He continues to attack the White House press corps as being “self-absorbed” and “self-important” with this “inconsequential matter.”

Telfon a Carcinogen?

A group of scientific advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a recommendation that a chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products should be considered a likely carcinogen.

Link

There was some dissent among the advisor board as to what information should have been considered in their recommendation. One report not considered was from DuPont (the owner of Teflon) and 3M. This report challenged data suggesting danger in using perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an agent used in the production of nonstick cookware.

The panel's findings should not be considered the last word on PFOA but should be updated as additional data become available.

Spoony

Foolishly or sentimentally in love. Word of the day from dictionary.com.

The Board

So I had an evening with two members of the Board of Trustees last night. I was invited along with some faculty and other students. Here were some of the interesting points of the night.

1. One of the Trustees had memorized one thing from everyone's bio and although it was obvious, it was both fun and welcoming.
2. I prepped for this dinner and I recommend prepping for these sort of events. As a result I had decent things to say and was not like some others who were stuck saying "I don't know."
3. The President of the University was praised because he was a former CEO of a company (a unique characteristic of presidents), which gave him the skill of making decisions quickly. It was noted that not only could he make quick decisions, but he was willing to be argued out of them.
4. Another positive attribute of the President was how he wore his heart on his sleeve. Thus it was easy to see how he felt about issues.
   
5. As most attendees of the event went to private colleges, it was pointed out that at elite institutions one of the greatest values is the high concentration of amazing and brillant peers.
6. The two board members were both in business, and they commented how in comparison to a business with one or two goals, a University is far more complex with hundreds of different goals, many of which may conflict.
   

What are we doing when the music stops?

Op-ed from the Washington Post yesterday that caught my eye...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR2006021201150.html?sub=AR

 

Craiglist...idealistic or just crazy?

Here's a quote from a recent article:

“What would you do if Arthur Sulzberger (New York Times publisher) offered you $1 billion for Craigslist? Tomorrow!” asks someone who sounds like she’s describing a daydream she has had many times.

“Well it hasn’t happened as often recently,” says Buckmaster. “But we’re not interested.”

“Jesus,” sighs a woman at the back.

The CEO of Craiglist, Jim Buckmaster, says that

"The problem with insane wealth is that not all of it is good." Buckmaster argues that the secret of the site’s success has been that it has not had to chase for extra dollars. Craigslist has no banner ads, no pop-ups: “Customers never ask for them,” he drawls.

What do you think? Idealistic or crazy?

The Independent

This is a neat little UK paper that has some good content. For example here is a nice article about Bush. First stating that the administration knew of the disasterous outcome of Katrina before they let on.

Mr Brown said that by the evening of Monday 29 August, his Fema agency had reported to superiors that catastrophic floodwaters were pouring into the city, that fires were breaking out and large numbers of people were stranded. Nonetheless the following morning, Mr Bush told the country from his ranch in Texas that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet".

Second commenting on the thwarted LA terrorist attack of 2002 that "Democrats accused Mr Bush of resurrecting an affair he first mentioned in late 2005 to deflect attention from the row over eavesdropping by the National Security Agency."

Third pointing out that a senior CIA official believed that the White House had long set in their minds an attack on Iraq, even without ample evidence.

And fourth bring to our attention the hypocrisy of the administration in relation to the Plame incident and the current domestic spying issues.

The revelations thus open the White House to charges of hypocrisy - that it was railing against the leak that the NSA, supposed to deal exclusively with foreign intelligence, had a secret domestic spying programme, but had blithely encouraged intelligence leaks that suited its purposes.

Oh yeah and there's a bit about Jack Abramoff meeting the President "almost a dozen times."

And for those of you that don't care for politics there's even this article about sex toys and the environment.

Guns aren't bad, People are bad.

"What would have happened if Cheney had shot the President? I think if he shot Bush this way, Bush isn't 78 and he's in pretty good shape, and he's kinda macho. I think he would've gotten up and shot Cheney back."

Al Franken's Blog on the Huffington Post.

Time to short?

Barron's reports that Google stock could drop another 50%.

I'd like to also plug filling up your Roth IRA every year.

For all procrastinators

Well since only five people read this blog, it'll be clear who this is for. Psychology Today has an interesting article outlining 10 facts about procrastinators.

6. Procrastinators tell lies to themselves. Such as, "I'll feel more like doing this tomorrow." Or "I work best under pressure." But in fact they do not get the urge the next day or work best under pressure. In addition, they protect their sense of self by saying "this isn't important." Another big lie procrastinators indulge is that time pressure makes them more creative. Unfortunately they do not turn out to be more creative; they only feel that way. They squander their resources.
7. Procrastinators actively look for distractions, particularly ones that don't take a lot of commitment on their part. Checking e-mail is almost perfect for this purpose. They distract themselves as a way of regulating their emotions such as fear of failure.
8. There's more than one flavor of procrastination. People procrastinate for different reasons. Dr. Ferrari identifies three basic types of procrastinators:

• arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
• avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
• decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.

Salmon

The following is what I’ve learned from PBS this morning.

Salmon, when spawning, swim back into fresh water to where they were born. This trip is not only when they reproduce, but they also die soon after spawning. At first glance, this may seem a lost opportunity to care for their young. However, it is well known that many species of animals do not support their young.

The story of the salmon may not be so simple as reproduction and run. Biologists have shown that the death of adult salmon serves as mechanism of caretaking for their young. The dead adult salmon becomes fodder for insects. The growth and reproduction of the insects is in turn subsistence for the newborn salmon. The survival of the next generation of salmon relies on the death of the previous generation.

Amazing….It’s the Circle of Life.

(As a side note the PBS show also stated that the salmon death is a primary means for nitrogen in the plant life surrounding the streams.)

Ipod Rumors

Even Ranz can get excited about this one. Think Secret an Apple rumor website believes that new Ipods will have a much larger display such as one rendered above from The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Think Secret states the following:

"This video iPod, which has been in development and on the table since before Apple released the 5G iPod last year with video playback, will feature a display that will occupy the entire front face of the device. Sources who have seen the device report that it features a digital click wheel, one that overlays the touch-sensitive display and appears when a finger touches it and disappears when the finger is removed."

Global Warming?

Here is an interesting post from dailykos about global warming, a topic that will definitely get time on this blog. They cite an article from the New Republic that says NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) officials may have led a "misinformation campaign" to imply that there were no connections between hurricane intensities and global warming. Scientists holding this minority viewpoint were allowed to address the public, whereas scientists with opposing opinions were not. This led to many articles and newscasts following Katrina purporting that global warming had no consequence in the increased intensity of hurricanes.

Time for a new experiment...

Why start a blog? Well to be honest I was inspired by the 2006 Bloggies Awards. Let this be a way for me to communicate to the world.

If a blog is to exist it must be unique and provide an opportunity to its readers. The following is what I propose:

The primary purpose of this blog will be to facilitate the development of informed opinions on political issues. An informed opinion will consist of the following:

1. background and facts on the topic
2. the main arguments
3. the politics of the issue (i.e. what are the political incentives for different positions?)
4. future directions
5. formation of an opinion

The development of informed opinions will occur through an iterative process of information collection and debate concluding with a written statement. This process will result in the dossier of information and ideas.

(In other words the primary purpose of this blog is for me to think about things, learn how to learn, practice writing, and stay in touch with my friends.)

Side purposes of this blog will be the posting interesting findings, random thoughts, and maybe even some guest blogging about music and wine.