Musings of the Great Eric

Congressman: We Should ‘Prevent Those Who Commit Adultery or Get a Divorce From Running for Office’:

Today, the House of Representative is spending the day debating a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. (It has no chance of becoming law, since the Senate rejected it last month.)

On the House floor, Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN) said he was opposed the amendment but only because it didn’t go far enough. Davis said Congress should “outlaw divorce in this country” and “outlaw adultery and make it a felony.” In addition, Davis said, “we should also prevent those who commit adultery, or get a divorce, from running for office.”

Davis said it was important to “go after the other threats to the institution” not just the threat from homosexuals.

He holds a position I can almost respect. Sure, it’s a misguided and fucked up position… but at least he’s being consistent, and coming out in favor of actually protecting marriage. He’s dead wrong and if enacted his suggestions would be a disaster; but at least he’s not being a hypocrtical anti-gay bigot like most people who want to ban gay marriage to “protect it”.

Technorati Tags: Gay Marriage, Congress, Lincoln Davis

Truth and the Net:

Trusting what you read on the internet is a dangerous prospect, but it beats the alternative. At least on the internet, you get to choose your bias.

You can’t trust what you read online. You can’t trust what you read in the paper. You can’t trust what you see on TV, or hear on the radio. You can’t trust what your friend swears her brother’s girlfriend said is true.

You can’t trust anything – not with the gospel, bet-your-life trust that you reserve for things like gravity and death and your family.

You never could.

Consider the raft of woo-woo magazines advocating the use of crystal pyramids to improve gas-mileage, conspiracy books about alien abductions, racist monthly newspapers, nutjob talk-radio hosts, and the thousand other ways in which the truth is mangled, omitted, or reversed by the press. It’s a truism that experts of all kinds wince when they see mainstream press coverage of their disciplines, anticipating the perennial clunkers, errors and mix-ups that characterize all generalist coverage of specialist subjects.

Wikipedia gets it wrong all the time. So do bloggers. But then, so do newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. The interesting thing about systems isn’t how they perform when they’re working to specification, it’s what happens when they fail.

Blogs, Wikipedia, and other online media fail gracefully indeed. When a newspaper gets a story wrong, it can take 24 hours to get a correction out – if it corrects it at all. There’s no ready way to link criticism of a newspaper article with the article itself. Certainly, you can’t make the edits yourself.

But if you find an error in a Wikipedia entry, you can fix it yourself. You can join the discussion about whether a blogger got it wrong. Automated tools like Technorati link together all the different blogs discussing the same topic, turning them into a conversation.

He said it better than I ever could. I can’t tell you how many times on forums I hear that Wikipedia and bloggers can’t be trusted, that they lack the reliability of mainstream news organizations. I can only assume that such people are smoking crack; anyone who thinks that the mainstream news is truthful, fair, acurate, or doesn’t suck monkey balls can only be smoking crack.

The key difference is that the blogosphere and Wikipedia process information with a recursive, evolutionary algorithm: the systems are inherently self correcting, and they’re brutally efficient processors of information. You can’t say the same of the mainstream press. There’s no way to correct a New York Times article, no way to challenge someone on talk radio, and no way to edit what’s on CNN. It’s only with the invention of the internet that their (glaring, often-made) mistakes can even come to light, though you still wouldn’t know it just by watching that media.

Technorati Tags: Media, Net, Blogosphere, Wikipedia, News, Journalism

They need to stop doing this shit.

Except by “they” I don’t just mean Hezbollah. I mean the whole fucking Middle East. Because that’s exactly what this fighting is: Bullshit.

I’ve read a lot over the last couple of days. Hundreds of opinions on strategies, media coverage, causes, solutions, history, perspective. And you know what? It’s all garbage.

To understand what’s going on… you don’t need to know all that. You don’t need to understand the history of the region or it’s contemporary politics. You don’t need to know anything about the religions. It doesn’t matter who’s responsible for what or why. It’s really not that complicated.

What we’re looking at, plainly and simply, is immaturity. Immaturity on a epic, grand, geopolitical scale perhaps, but it’s nothing more than that. To gain a perspective on what’s going on you need to look no further than the average Kindergarten playground, and imagine it without the supervision of adults. That’s the Middle East in a nutshell.

The bottom line: there’s no fucking excuse for what’s happening. The religious violence and hatred? That’s just immaturity. Bitching about Israel for existing? Immaturity. Fighting over occupations, land, etc? Immaturity. They’re acting like two year olds with guns.

There’s no good guys here, no one who’s rising above it, no one acting responsibly or intelligently. All sides in this make me sick, because real people are suffering, real damage is being done because no one can fucking get over themselves.

That’s all I have to say on the issue.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Middle East

This is kind of amazing. Tpday we think of The Flintstones as a kid’s show, but when it launched it was actually targetted at adults - which really shows how far our culture has moved in the last 40 years (It was actually the first series to show a man and his wife sharing a bed). It’s interesting then, that although TV content was so tightly regulated in the 60’s, this is the kind of advertising that supported it:

Technorati Tags: Cigarettes, Advertising, TV, Television, The Flintstones

For Tyrannosaurs, Teen Years Were Murder

If they survived the deadly toddler years, tyrannosaurs apparently had it pretty cushy, at least until they hit dinosaur puberty.

But after these dinosaurs reached sexual maturity, life’s harsher realities kicked in again. Beginning at about age 14, tyrannosaurs suffered death rates of nearly 23 percent a year, according to a new study.

Threatened by disease, combat, and the stress of mating or raising offspring, most adults were lucky to hit their early 20s, the study says.

And just 2 percent “lived long enough to attain their maximal size and age” in their late 20s, the study authors write.

On top of that, adult Tyrannosaurs would never let their teenagers borrow the car.

Technorati Tags: Dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus

This is fascinating:

Ben Barres has a distinct edge over the many others who have joined the debate about whether men’s brains are innately better suited for science than women’s. He doesn’t just make an abstract argument about the similarities and differences between the genders; he has lived as both.

Barres’ experience as a female-to-male transgendered person led him to write a pointed commentary in the July 13 issue of Nature rebuking the comments of former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers that raised the possibility that the dearth of women in the upper levels of science is rooted in biology. Marshalling scientific evidence as well as drawing from personal experience, Barres maintained that, contrary to Summers’ remarks, the lack of women in the upper reaches of research has more to do with bias than aptitude.

Where Summers sees innate differences, Barres sees discrimination. As a young woman—Barbara—he said he was discouraged from setting his sights on MIT, where he ended up receiving his bachelor’s degree. Once there, he was told that a boyfriend must have solved a hard math problem that he had answered and that had stumped most men in the class. After he began living as a man in 1997, Barres overheard another scientist say, “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but his work is much better than his sister’s work.”

One can’t argue that he has a unique perspective on the gender divide issue. The whole article is a pretty interesting read.

Technorati Tags: Discrimination, Gender, Academia

Kent Hovind: Evangelist arrested on federal charges

A Pensacola evangelist who owns the defunct Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola was arrested Thursday on 58 federal charges, including failing to pay $473,818 in employee-related taxes and making threats against investigators.

Of the 58 charges, 44 were filed against Kent Hovind and his wife, Jo, for evading bank reporting requirements as they withdrew $430,500 from AmSouth Bank between July 20, 2001, and Aug. 9, 2002.

Kent Hovind, who often calls himself “Dr. Dino,” has been sparring with the IRS for at least 17 years on his claims that he is employed by God, receives no income, has no expenses and owns no property.

“The debtor apparently maintains that as a minister of God, everything he owns belongs to God and he is not subject to paying taxes to the United States on money he receives for doing God’s work,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Lewis Killian Jr. wrote when he dismissed a claim from Hovind in 1996.

Hovind, an avowed creationist, has widely publicized his “standing offer” to pay $250,000 to anyone who can provide scientific evidence of evolution.

But, understand, he’s a “good Christian”. Neither Jesus nor Paul nor anyone in the old testament ever said anything about tax fraud being a sin.

Technorati Tags: Creationism, Evangelical, Kent Hovind, Dinosaur Adventure Land, Evolution, Religious Right

I’m speechless.

Technorati Tags: Nintendo, Zelda, Videos, Funny

For American Businessmen, Primetime is Crimetime:

The classic family man like insurance salesman Jim Anderson (played by Robert Young) on “Father Knows Best” has turned into the ruthless CEO. Entertainment television now shows businessmen as cheats, liars, philanderers and criminals. In a study of top-rated dramas during the “sweeps” months of May and November 2005, the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute (BMI) found that the networks advanced a largely negative view of both the American businessman and the very idea of business.

Along with widespread crime, the workplace was little more than an expensive Monday-to-Friday dating service. The 40-hour workweek was rife with immorality and dishonesty. And it didn’t stop with the openly negative. There was little positive, as well. Businessmen rarely helped solve society’s problems through their skill or dedication. Of the 12 shows BMI studied, only one, NBC’s “Las Vegas” – set ironically in the notorious “Sin City” – offered narratives in which businessmen confronted challenges with skill and creativity instead of murder or sex.

These 15 episodes shared a common thread. Each fit a dramatic template that pitted detectives, district attorneys and other agents of a just government against vulgar businessmen willing to do anything or kill anyone to gain power. With the exception of NBC’s “Las Vegas,” no major plotline in the study sample featured businessmen furthering the interests of society through their work ethic or creativity. On primetime television, the presence of businessmen ran counter to ethical behavior, almost at the same pace as hardened career criminals.

Really, I can’t imagine why anyone would think that the presence of a businessman is counter to ethical behavior. Where ever could such a stereotype have come from? Certainly, I can’t imagine one single instance of a corporation or businessman going against the interests of society in the real world. Obviously, these primetime dramas are just making shit up wholesale.

Technorati Tags: Corporations, TV, Television, Ken Lay

Alright folks, have it it!

Technorati Tags: Bush, Photos, Funny

The rise and fall of Sega: from the eyes of Tom Kalinske:

Sega was a company that had it all. They were beating Nintendo at the hardware game, consumers thought their software offerings were more grown up, and the money was rolling in. Then they made some bad hardware decisions (32X, we’re talking about you) and lost it all.

Sound like anyone *cough*Sony*cough* in the video game scene currently?

Technorati Tags: Sony, Sega, PS3,

RIAA Case Against Mother Dismissed With Prejudice; Court May Award Attorneys Fees Against RIAA

In Capitol Records v. Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma, a case against a mother — whose only connection to the alleged filesharing was that she was the person who paid for the internet access — has been dismissed with prejudice.

W00t!

Technorati Tags: RIAA, Lawsuits

Ken Lay’s memorial attracts power elite

Houston’s political and business leaders, including former President George H.W. Bush, turned out for Kenneth Lay’s memorial service Wednesday, less than a week after the Enron founder’s sudden death.

That’s actually par for the course; one wouldn’t expect the Bush’s to have morals. Here’s the fucked up part:

The Reverend Dr. Bill Lawson compared Lay with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ, and said his name would eventually be cleared.

“He was taken out of the world right at the right time,” he said. “History has a way of vindicating people who have been wronged.”

Yes, you read that right. I can only imagine his goal was to make people’s heads explode.

Technorati Tags: Ken Lay, Enron

This guy will get the Democratic nomination and win the Presidency.

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) has ramped up his fundraising for congressional Democratic incumbents and challengers, signaling a national organizing strategy to position the centrist Southerner for a White House bid in 2008.

I really hate talking about something that’s two years out where a lot can happen before then, and there’s a more important election between now and then. But I will anyway. Here’s my analysis for 2008:

The Republican party is in a pickle because their strongest candidates (the ones who’d fair best in a general election) are unpalatable to the religious right - this includes McCain and Guliani. I don’t think either of them can survive the party’s primary process. The Dobson faction of the party, which is currently dominant and getting entirely too extreme will only tolerate a similarly extreme candidate. I don’t know who that will be as of yet, but it’s unlikely to be anyone who’s palatable to the general population.

In the main election, the Republican party in general will be saddled with a deeply unpopular war and a lame duck incumbant. Anyone strongly associated with either (and few Republicans aren’t) will have an uphill battle.

So the election is the Democrat’s to lose. Which they will if they nominate Hillary, and I think most Dems realize that. I also think that the democrats suffer a deficit of leadership right now. Al Gore has a shot; but I think he has too much baggage to prevail. I don’t think democrats will make another hasty choice as they did with Kerry. They, unlike the Republicans, will be vetting candidates for how well they’ll fare in the general election. Given the current distaste the public has with the status quo, I don’t think it’ll be any now-prominent Democrats.

Enter Mark Warner. A relative unknown on the national scene, but one with a lot of good will. He’s a successful former Governor of a southern red state. He’s charismatic. I think ultimately, he’s the most likely to run and win.

Technorati Tags: Election, 2008

Stewart is brilliant as always:

Technorati Tags: Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, Ted Stevens, Internet, Net Neutrality

From Microsoft:

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: “YHOO”) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: “MSFT”) today will begin limited public beta testing of interoperability between their instant messaging (IM) services that enable users of Windows Live® Messenger, the next generation of MSN® Messenger, and Yahoo!® Messenger with Voice to connect with each other. This interoperability — the first of its kind between two distinct, global consumer IM providers — will form the world’s largest consumer IM community, approaching 350 million accounts.

Call me unimpressed.

All this succeeds in doing is creating a larger proprietary network - we’re still locked in to one client or the other, and frankly both are bloated peices of crap. (Yes, I know that there’s things like iChat, Trillian, and Gaim - but none of these are officially supported).

When they officially support IM federation via Jabber or some other open protocol, then I’ll be impressed. Choosing an IM client should be no different than choosing an email client; wake me up when we finally get to that point.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo, IM

Just corrupt sons of bitches?

In stock market, US senators beat averages

The study found that during the boom years of 1993-98, a majority of US Senators were trading stocks - and beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. By comparison, corporate insiders beat the market by 5 percent, and typical households underperformed by 1.4 percent.

Financial experts interviewed for this story say the senators’ collective achievement is a statistical stunner, too big to be a mere coincidence.

But in America’s premier lawmaking body, few members divest themselves of assets upon assuming public office or hold their investments in “blind trusts.” Unlike other federal employees, members of Congress are not required to recuse themselves when they have a financial interest in an issue they are legislating. And their required financial disclosure statements - which were used as the basis of the new study - are hardly as transparent as the public might expect.

Technorati Tags: Corruption, Senate, Stock Market

If you said anything other than “Princess Leia’s Metal Bikini”, you’re wrong.

There’s no doubt that the sight of Carrie Fisher in the gold sci-fi swimsuit was burned into the sweaty subconscious of a generation of fanboys hitting puberty in the spring of 1983. But, remarkably, it’s women for whom the costume holds the most enduring meaning today.

“I saw the movie when I was seven and I was absolutely thrilled by Leia — what a wonderful character,” says Amira Sa’id, a dancer who has used a Leia bikini in her performances. “Jabba put her into the outfit to humiliate her, but Leia was such a strong character, her will made the costume empowering.”

The website, Leia’s Metal Bikini, features over a hundred female fans who model the costume, ranging from some who could almost pass for Fisher, to others who look nothing like the actress. Many weren’t even born when the movie came out. Another site offers instructions on making your own costume, which involves finding a “Leia-shaped person” and plastering her torso with modeling clay.

Hell’s yeah.

Technorati Tags: Star Wars, Princess Leia, Bikini, Sexy, Hot, Babes

Enron witness found dead in park:

A body found in north-east London has been identified as that of a banker who was questioned by the FBI about the Enron fraud case.

Police said they were treating the death in Chingford of Neil Coulbeck, who worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland until 2004, as “unexplained”.

Two deaths associated with Enron in barely a week. Coincidence?

Technorati Tags: Enron

Just watch what he does on CNN:

Technorati Tags: Lewis Black, CNN, Newsmedia, TV, Television, Awesome, Badass