I would have gotten to this sooner, back when there was still snow on the ground, but I didn't have a blog then...
It seems that since we had the coldest winter in 7 years, all of a sudden this public outcry of right-wing thinkers has arisen, denouncing global warming. A couple examples:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/03/13/global-warming-update-winter-2008-coldest-seven-years
http://blog.briangriffiths.com/2008/04/baby-its-gonna-get-cold-outside.html
Now, I'm not in a state of denial. I know we had the coldest winter in 7 years:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080313_coolest.html
So how then, can I possibly be so silly as to believe in "global warming" when this single winter has erased all of it?
Because it hasn't.
The problem is this tendency of people to look at the weather outside their door right now, and say "Dude, it's hot today, must be global warming." Now I think part of the problem is us science-minded folks who understand global warming were too lenient about such misunderstanding of science when it went in our favor. Every time I heard someone tell me, "It's hot today, must be global warming," I knew that wasn't the right understanding of how weather and climate works, but their error was in my favor, so I didn't bother to correct their flawed thinking. I regret not stomping out misconceptions about science whenever I encountered them before. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, we reap the rewards of such tolerance of ignorance.
We get just one cold winter, and now those same people are telling me, "It's cold out there, global warming must be wrong!" These people are the "sunshine patroits" of global warming: when it's hot outside they think the ice caps are melting, when it's cold outside they think a new ice age is starting. The problem they don't quite understand that any single year's weather is not the same as the long-term trend... or just how long-term (and chaotic) the Earth's climate really is.
Global warming is a trend. Global warming is not today's temperature, or this month's temperature, or even this year's... it's the way the average temperature of the planet has been going up, on average. Individual years can vary a lot. They might even dip to a 100-year low, or a 100-year high, but the warming trend is still there among the random fluctuations.
To use a metaphor, if the Dow Jones Industrial Average took a dip for 5 minutes, would you say a bull market had suddenly become a bear market?
Regardless of what happened this winter, I can say with a high level of confidence global warming is still the direction the temperature of the planet is headed.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
In Defense of Gay Marriage
While I'm on the subject, I think I'll explain why I support same-sex marriages.
It isn't hurting anyone. It doesn't really concern anyone except the two individuals involved. It's an expression of love, of two people's commitment to each other. Yet somehow, some people are actually offended at the idea that two people of the same gender could make a vow of love.
Those opposed to the idea of gay marriage seem to think that it will ruin heterosexual marriage, and by extension, the family unit, and somehow destroy society. Though how things could progress from marrying two men to the death of modern society is never explained...
Let's start with the idea same-sex marriage would ruin traditional heterosexual marriage... does marrying two men (or two women) suddenly reach in and affect the lives of everyone already married? Not really. No one's asking to change heterosexual marriage, just to extend that concept to same-sex couples. A gay marriage has an impact on the lives of the two gays getting married, but nobody else.
Does gay marriage wreck the family unit? Perhaps... but only if you allow gay couples to raise children. Now, at this point, some proponents of gay marriage would back down a bit, and say that well... they're just asking for the right to marry, not to adopt children and have a "gay family" with same-sex parents. But there will be no backpedaling. Not here. Not today.
Let's take a cold, hard look at traditional families, shall we? The starting point of the argument a same-sex couple couldn't raise children is that only heterosexual couples can provide the proper environment for children. But can we really take it for granted that the best possible environment for children is with their biological parents?
By now, most people have heard of the Austrian who locked his daughter in his basement for years, secretly fathering more children through her, keeping them all locked away in his "dungeon".
http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=477656
That's just a fluke, right? Besides, this is Austria we're talking about, not America. Ok then, how about the guy in New York who did much the same, but threw the babies into a hole?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/25/national/a212059D93.DTL
Oh, but he was an immigrant... real Americans would never, ever do such a thing! Then how about this Tennessee guy who used electric dog collars to "enslave" his daughters while he raped them?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311646,00.html
There's plenty more examples where those came from! ...and those are just the parents who sexually abuse their children. I didn't even get to the ones that beat and kill their kids!
If we're going to worry so much about who is and isn't allowed to raise children, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest your average gay couple would be better than such abusive traditional families. I think it matters less whether a man and a woman, or two men, or two women want to adopt a child, than whether or not they have genuine caring for that child. I would go as far to say that any two individuals could be suitable to raising a child solely on the basis of love, affection, and a stable, non-abusive psychology. (Yes, I am aware of single-parent families, but I'd rather stick to the topic at hand.)
So, if we can't argue a gay marriage would ruin heterosexual marriage, or that would be a bad cornerstone for a family compared to heterosexual marriage, what's left? You guessed it: that gay marriage is wrong on the basis of religious morality.
Coincidentally, I recently read in passing about a Baptist minister in Texas who ran afoul of a sting against soliciting underage sex online...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-18-texas-minister-resigns_N.htm
This isn't just some isolated incident... this sort of thing happens all the time... even the Associate Baptist Press admits it!
http://www.abpnews.com/1780.article
And if you thought it was just Baptists, there's a Chicago Presbyterian reverend who was caught soliciting prostitutes...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-pastor-arrest_12may12,0,7275891.story
...not to mention the endless rain of fallout from the widespread child molestation of the Catholic Church.
The hypocrisy is so thick you can cut it with a knife. If these are the religious voices telling us what is and isn't "moral", then they have no right to say a single word against gays and gay marriage! (Or for that matter, pretty much all of human sexuality.) At least not until they can practice what they preach.
Those of us of the religious persuasion who don't happen to be immoral hypocrites, and say the Bible is against being gay, are quite frankly bigots (who just happen to be bigoted against gays) looking for an excuse in obscure passages of their holy book of choice. If they didn't have Bibles, they'd find some other ancient words to support their views. Maybe a quote from some forgotten Roman philosopher, or the 612th page of a Victorian novel, or maybe block out every other letter on a candy bar wrapper to make a sentence. Point is, fundamentally, they're just not capable of coming up with their own reasoning against it (at least no reasoning beyond claiming to speak for an omnipotent being, though that's a whole other story) so they desperately cling to anything they can find as "justification".
So there you have it. The arguments against gay marriage just keep falling apart. And without the support of a "reason" for their beliefs, the people against it are nothing more than a bunch of nosy folks who seem a little too interested in homosexuals' love lives... Let's stop mucking around in the romantic lives of gays, let them declare their love through marriage, and move on already!
It isn't hurting anyone. It doesn't really concern anyone except the two individuals involved. It's an expression of love, of two people's commitment to each other. Yet somehow, some people are actually offended at the idea that two people of the same gender could make a vow of love.
Those opposed to the idea of gay marriage seem to think that it will ruin heterosexual marriage, and by extension, the family unit, and somehow destroy society. Though how things could progress from marrying two men to the death of modern society is never explained...
Let's start with the idea same-sex marriage would ruin traditional heterosexual marriage... does marrying two men (or two women) suddenly reach in and affect the lives of everyone already married? Not really. No one's asking to change heterosexual marriage, just to extend that concept to same-sex couples. A gay marriage has an impact on the lives of the two gays getting married, but nobody else.
Does gay marriage wreck the family unit? Perhaps... but only if you allow gay couples to raise children. Now, at this point, some proponents of gay marriage would back down a bit, and say that well... they're just asking for the right to marry, not to adopt children and have a "gay family" with same-sex parents. But there will be no backpedaling. Not here. Not today.
Let's take a cold, hard look at traditional families, shall we? The starting point of the argument a same-sex couple couldn't raise children is that only heterosexual couples can provide the proper environment for children. But can we really take it for granted that the best possible environment for children is with their biological parents?
By now, most people have heard of the Austrian who locked his daughter in his basement for years, secretly fathering more children through her, keeping them all locked away in his "dungeon".
http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=477656
That's just a fluke, right? Besides, this is Austria we're talking about, not America. Ok then, how about the guy in New York who did much the same, but threw the babies into a hole?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/25/national/a212059D93.DTL
Oh, but he was an immigrant... real Americans would never, ever do such a thing! Then how about this Tennessee guy who used electric dog collars to "enslave" his daughters while he raped them?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311646,00.html
There's plenty more examples where those came from! ...and those are just the parents who sexually abuse their children. I didn't even get to the ones that beat and kill their kids!
If we're going to worry so much about who is and isn't allowed to raise children, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest your average gay couple would be better than such abusive traditional families. I think it matters less whether a man and a woman, or two men, or two women want to adopt a child, than whether or not they have genuine caring for that child. I would go as far to say that any two individuals could be suitable to raising a child solely on the basis of love, affection, and a stable, non-abusive psychology. (Yes, I am aware of single-parent families, but I'd rather stick to the topic at hand.)
So, if we can't argue a gay marriage would ruin heterosexual marriage, or that would be a bad cornerstone for a family compared to heterosexual marriage, what's left? You guessed it: that gay marriage is wrong on the basis of religious morality.
Coincidentally, I recently read in passing about a Baptist minister in Texas who ran afoul of a sting against soliciting underage sex online...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-18-texas-minister-resigns_N.htm
This isn't just some isolated incident... this sort of thing happens all the time... even the Associate Baptist Press admits it!
http://www.abpnews.com/1780.article
And if you thought it was just Baptists, there's a Chicago Presbyterian reverend who was caught soliciting prostitutes...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-pastor-arrest_12may12,0,7275891.story
...not to mention the endless rain of fallout from the widespread child molestation of the Catholic Church.
The hypocrisy is so thick you can cut it with a knife. If these are the religious voices telling us what is and isn't "moral", then they have no right to say a single word against gays and gay marriage! (Or for that matter, pretty much all of human sexuality.) At least not until they can practice what they preach.
Those of us of the religious persuasion who don't happen to be immoral hypocrites, and say the Bible is against being gay, are quite frankly bigots (who just happen to be bigoted against gays) looking for an excuse in obscure passages of their holy book of choice. If they didn't have Bibles, they'd find some other ancient words to support their views. Maybe a quote from some forgotten Roman philosopher, or the 612th page of a Victorian novel, or maybe block out every other letter on a candy bar wrapper to make a sentence. Point is, fundamentally, they're just not capable of coming up with their own reasoning against it (at least no reasoning beyond claiming to speak for an omnipotent being, though that's a whole other story) so they desperately cling to anything they can find as "justification".
So there you have it. The arguments against gay marriage just keep falling apart. And without the support of a "reason" for their beliefs, the people against it are nothing more than a bunch of nosy folks who seem a little too interested in homosexuals' love lives... Let's stop mucking around in the romantic lives of gays, let them declare their love through marriage, and move on already!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Judicial Activism
By now, all of you have heard the news, but I'll throw in the obligatory link to the CNN article anyway.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/15/same.sex.marriage/index.html
Finally, a gay rights move in this country in the direction of sanity.
For those who say "the court overstepped its bounds", well somebody has to! At the risk of sounding a bit critical of democracy, minority rights are one of the things the democratic process isn't good at. Put an issue important to any minority on a ballot and the majority will vote it down every time.
Which is exactly what our spineless politicians have been doing all this time to "cop out" of taking a stand on gay issues. They don't dare declare themselves for or against gay marriage out of fear of alienating one side of their voter base (the conservatives, or the gays) in order to ensure their chances of gaining votes from both sides and getting elected. Those for it will never admit it, because convervatives will come down on them like a ton of bricks. Those against it won't admit it either, because then they'll raise the ire of liberals. So we end up with waffly, "appeal to everyone" positions on the matter from major candidates, like Clinton and Obama's "support" of gay rights but not actual marriage, or McCain's stance "against" it, but they all "pass the buck" by leaving the decision up to the individual states.
The state legislators don't dare take a stand on a major issue either. So, to please voters they "let the people decide" by putting bans on gay marriage on the ballots, in state after state. They know full well the heterosexual majority will strike down gay marriage, but then they can claim it's "what the people want". And with the majority of their voters pleased (the heterosexual part, that is) their voter base is secured.
This is one time where in order to make any social progress, unpopular arbitrary action is necessary. If the theory of homosexuality being genetic is indeed true, then in every generation, there will always be less than 10% of individuals who are gay. Gays are destined to remain a minority for all time, and will therefore never be able to win a popular vote for their rights. The only option to obtaining gay rights is unpopular action by those in power, right over the heads of angry conservatives. And since our legislators and governors are... well, politicians, the only people left who can take a stand for gay rights without having to cover their asses are judges... especially state supreme court justices who have long-term, secure positions.
Which is what just happened in California.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/15/same.sex.marriage/index.html
Finally, a gay rights move in this country in the direction of sanity.
For those who say "the court overstepped its bounds", well somebody has to! At the risk of sounding a bit critical of democracy, minority rights are one of the things the democratic process isn't good at. Put an issue important to any minority on a ballot and the majority will vote it down every time.
Which is exactly what our spineless politicians have been doing all this time to "cop out" of taking a stand on gay issues. They don't dare declare themselves for or against gay marriage out of fear of alienating one side of their voter base (the conservatives, or the gays) in order to ensure their chances of gaining votes from both sides and getting elected. Those for it will never admit it, because convervatives will come down on them like a ton of bricks. Those against it won't admit it either, because then they'll raise the ire of liberals. So we end up with waffly, "appeal to everyone" positions on the matter from major candidates, like Clinton and Obama's "support" of gay rights but not actual marriage, or McCain's stance "against" it, but they all "pass the buck" by leaving the decision up to the individual states.
The state legislators don't dare take a stand on a major issue either. So, to please voters they "let the people decide" by putting bans on gay marriage on the ballots, in state after state. They know full well the heterosexual majority will strike down gay marriage, but then they can claim it's "what the people want". And with the majority of their voters pleased (the heterosexual part, that is) their voter base is secured.
This is one time where in order to make any social progress, unpopular arbitrary action is necessary. If the theory of homosexuality being genetic is indeed true, then in every generation, there will always be less than 10% of individuals who are gay. Gays are destined to remain a minority for all time, and will therefore never be able to win a popular vote for their rights. The only option to obtaining gay rights is unpopular action by those in power, right over the heads of angry conservatives. And since our legislators and governors are... well, politicians, the only people left who can take a stand for gay rights without having to cover their asses are judges... especially state supreme court justices who have long-term, secure positions.
Which is what just happened in California.
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