A long-overdue news post - 17 June 2010
Jun. 19th, 2010 10:24 amHello, people. Have a look at a list of things LGBT people can't do, including "serve as a Scout Leader", "get married", and "adopt". For the reasoning why these are supposed to be good things for us all, the trial of Proposition 8 wound up with the lawyer for it claiming that only one man, one woman marriages promote responsible sexuality for its sole purpose, procreation.. Gonzo Mehum pointed out via the Twitter device that if heterosexual marriage is supposed to promote procreation, wouldn't gay and lesbian marriages promote adoption? We've got a lot of kids who could use some loving parents (and that recent study said kids of lesbian parents do better anyway...), having been sent away by the ones that gave birth to them, so why aren't we encouraging gays and lesbians to marry and adopt?
Additionally, a Cornell University doctor has been conducting surgery designed to reduce the size of clitorises that he deems "too large", drawing complaints that he's practicing female genital mutilation. And then read about the follow-up examinations, basically attempts to see whether or not the girls still feel sexual stimulation (and some of them are as young as six, by the way...) I think the best commentary I've heard on the matter so far is how this ties into the relentless societal pressure for people to be "normal" and conform to what is expected of them, so that doctors doing this and other procedures, like on intersex children, think they're doing the kids a favor, or the parents want a "normal" child. Ain't none of us that's normal by the societal definition, whether in body or in mind. Makes for a very weird dynamic in our lives - "You should be who you are! Be Yourself! Until, that is, you do something that's radical or that we don't approve of - then, you should Stop Making Waves and Be Normal, Freak." It's bad that we have the twin impulses of wanting to socialize and wanting to be tribal. Hopefully we'll figure out how to make our tribe's definition bigger.
Back to the point at hand, though, WTF, mate? And parents, too? Did nobody think that this might be traumatic and bad to do to a child? Or were they too busy saying "Oh, thank goodness, they'll be normal!" to stop and think about what the effects of this were going to be?
For more information,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eumelia presents a follow-on with more information and a deeper rabbit hole to explore.
Out in the world today, apparently, as of 1 July, all Puerto Rican birth certificates issued so far will be invalidated, and new ones will have to be obtained, thanks to the United States State Departmetn expressing concern about fradulent identities using Puerto Rican birth certificates.
The Iraqi parliament convened today, but without having formed a coalition or outright government to rule with, the session was suspended after having been declared open.
First graders in Israel were given the opportunity to see and shoot actual weapons designed to stop protests, and to see the methods at which the police maintain control over the populace. No, nothing in there about whether protests should be allowed to happen or why they happen, or anything else that might encourage first graders to think about things.
And finally, a student mooned a group of Hell's Angels, threw a puppy at them, and then attempted to escape by stealing a bulldozer. The puppy is safely at a shelter awaiting adoption, the student, well, they're still not sure what to do with him.
Inside the United States, British Petroleum has hired private security contractors to keep the free press from reporting on how poorly their relief efforts are going. Speculation has started as to whether even the relief wells aren't going to work and the well itself will collapse in on itself. Anyone saying, however, that foreign aid to help with the cleanup has been refused is talking out their ass - there's already 15 foreign-flagged ships helping as well as extra technology in place.
On the political front, President Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office about the spill and its consequences, including (now successfully) setting up an escrow account for BP to pay into so they can pay claims isntead of dividends. (And, no, Fox News, the escrow account is not run by the government. Independent parties taking care of the money is the point of escrow.) The speech drew mostly critique from left and right, the left complaining about how the address had almost no actual substance or policy prescriptions to it, and is a stellar example of saying lots without actually saying anything, the right alleging the President is ignoring the rule of law in his suggestions and recommendations on how BP handle their finances and reimbursement to the people, insisting that the government's own red tape is stopping it from effective disaster cleanup, and demanding the President not try to push an energy policy bill through Congress, like the one that already passed the House and is now stalled out in the Senate, the one that every conservative outlet will want to paint as some sort of cap and trade bill, enforcing larger taxes to go to the government with no actual benefits to the country, even though they're also confident that the bill will stay stalled.
The moratorium on offshore drilling also gives some Republicans fodder to accuse the President of putting politics above science, because the experts on drilling the Interior Secretary hired for the review said "Of course it's safe", presumably not with the backdrop of the Deepwater Horizons exploded rig.
The Senate rejected a proposal to add some spending to help unemployment and states, with several Democrats doining the Republicans in defeating the bill. The sponsors went back, trimmed some from the amendment, and resubmitted.
Demonstrating their fear that the United States is too weak to stand against the opinions and ideas of other nations and groups, a state lawmaker in Oklahoma introduced a bill to ban courts in the state from considering international or Islamic law in their decisions, calling it a "pre-emptive strike" against what they see as a dangerous encroachment of Islam and hoping other states pass their own laws. Uh, American courts still rule on American law. And what kind of morons are you to force your courts to not use examples that have worked and haven't worked elsewere in the world when deciding how those laws are to be interpreted?
China and other foreign nations continued to purchase United States treasury debt, alleviating fears that a lack of demand would drive up interest rates for government debt.
Representative King of Iowa accused the President, the Attorney General and "quasi-militant" Latinos of misleading the American public about what the Papers Please Law actually does and who supports it, getting his facts wrong on both parts, and then sticking by those statements and others claiming the President is a racist against white people.
Into technology, where the person behind Goatse Security had an FBI raid conducted against him and they found drugs.
And then we find the Pentagon still hard at work at trying to zombify tissue so that it and the trauma patients it would be attached to will survive long treks to hospital facilities.
Finally, complex structures in the game of Life generates an item that creates a copy of itself across 34 million generations, although it consumes the original in the process. Becing able to duplicate itself, though, might make for some very interesting stuff.
Into the opnions, where Mr. Fund thinks the Speaker and Whip want the Office of Congressional Ethics nerfed because it kept investigating and releasing stuff that hurt the Democrats.
Mr. Eisman looks into how stdent loans might be the next bubble that bursts on taxpayer-backed debt, thanks to for-profit universities and certain types of private loan companies.
Mr. Epstein says that caps on disaster liability should be removed by law, and that only those companies that can pay the costs, all the costs, of disaster cleanup should be allowed to drill in the first place, but also that in this disaster, we need tort reform and government reform, which Mr. Epstein is less confident will happen. Going onward from there, Mr. Goldberg says that fossil fuels are actually better for the environment than green fuels, because they're cheaper, they don't require agricultural subsidies with their corresponding runoff dead zones to create, and they let nature recover and forests regrow while we extract the oil from under the ground. Well, if that's the argument, shouldn't you be pushing for things like microwave space-to-Terra solar power, which would allow the entire planet to recover better as we all revel in our abundant solar energy, allowing us to build electric cars and batteries? (Admittedly, the minerals required to create those batteries and solar panels have to come from Terra, so it's not like there would be zero impact - if only we could send miners out to the rocks in the asteroid belt and have them pick up the raw materials needed...)
Mr. Trzupek wants you to believe that fundamentalist Muslims would never have found the mineral deposits in Afghanistan, never have developed the technology to mine it out, and thus the West can create an opportunity for a stable rich democracy in the country by encouraging the Afghan people to exploit their own resources. Or, we could end up creating a tin-pot dictator who can sell his product around the world and pocket the profits. It's no guarantee, considering how many places we buy fossil fuels from have fundamentalist governments.
Speaking of fundamentalists, Mr. Gurney returns to the department of "Iran should be glassed before they complete a bomb, and the U.S. should do it, instead of pursuing useless sanctions". We note that we've had a generation past the end of the Cold War now, and we've cycled three from the decision to use nuclear weapons on the Empire of Japan. Absence must make the hawk heart grow fonder to unleash that kind of doom again. We're much more okay with people attempting to convince us that we should officially throw our weight behind the Green Revolution than with people openly advocating for the use of attacks against nuclear production facilites.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Greenwald points out that Jon Stewart savaged the Obama administration not on being insufficiently progressive, but on breaking promises and continuing to insist and expand on the worst policies from the previous administrator. It would be bad if he were truly in the middle, but he's leaning heavily to the right on a lot of disturbing issues.
And last for tonight - If you want to know how some people made it out of North Korea to cheer on their team at the FIF World Cup, well... let's just say many of those fans aren't native. Although, it did create a nice sign opportunity.
Additionally, a Cornell University doctor has been conducting surgery designed to reduce the size of clitorises that he deems "too large", drawing complaints that he's practicing female genital mutilation. And then read about the follow-up examinations, basically attempts to see whether or not the girls still feel sexual stimulation (and some of them are as young as six, by the way...) I think the best commentary I've heard on the matter so far is how this ties into the relentless societal pressure for people to be "normal" and conform to what is expected of them, so that doctors doing this and other procedures, like on intersex children, think they're doing the kids a favor, or the parents want a "normal" child. Ain't none of us that's normal by the societal definition, whether in body or in mind. Makes for a very weird dynamic in our lives - "You should be who you are! Be Yourself! Until, that is, you do something that's radical or that we don't approve of - then, you should Stop Making Waves and Be Normal, Freak." It's bad that we have the twin impulses of wanting to socialize and wanting to be tribal. Hopefully we'll figure out how to make our tribe's definition bigger.
Back to the point at hand, though, WTF, mate? And parents, too? Did nobody think that this might be traumatic and bad to do to a child? Or were they too busy saying "Oh, thank goodness, they'll be normal!" to stop and think about what the effects of this were going to be?
For more information,
eumelia presents a follow-on with more information and a deeper rabbit hole to explore.Out in the world today, apparently, as of 1 July, all Puerto Rican birth certificates issued so far will be invalidated, and new ones will have to be obtained, thanks to the United States State Departmetn expressing concern about fradulent identities using Puerto Rican birth certificates.
The Iraqi parliament convened today, but without having formed a coalition or outright government to rule with, the session was suspended after having been declared open.
First graders in Israel were given the opportunity to see and shoot actual weapons designed to stop protests, and to see the methods at which the police maintain control over the populace. No, nothing in there about whether protests should be allowed to happen or why they happen, or anything else that might encourage first graders to think about things.
And finally, a student mooned a group of Hell's Angels, threw a puppy at them, and then attempted to escape by stealing a bulldozer. The puppy is safely at a shelter awaiting adoption, the student, well, they're still not sure what to do with him.
Inside the United States, British Petroleum has hired private security contractors to keep the free press from reporting on how poorly their relief efforts are going. Speculation has started as to whether even the relief wells aren't going to work and the well itself will collapse in on itself. Anyone saying, however, that foreign aid to help with the cleanup has been refused is talking out their ass - there's already 15 foreign-flagged ships helping as well as extra technology in place.
On the political front, President Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office about the spill and its consequences, including (now successfully) setting up an escrow account for BP to pay into so they can pay claims isntead of dividends. (And, no, Fox News, the escrow account is not run by the government. Independent parties taking care of the money is the point of escrow.) The speech drew mostly critique from left and right, the left complaining about how the address had almost no actual substance or policy prescriptions to it, and is a stellar example of saying lots without actually saying anything, the right alleging the President is ignoring the rule of law in his suggestions and recommendations on how BP handle their finances and reimbursement to the people, insisting that the government's own red tape is stopping it from effective disaster cleanup, and demanding the President not try to push an energy policy bill through Congress, like the one that already passed the House and is now stalled out in the Senate, the one that every conservative outlet will want to paint as some sort of cap and trade bill, enforcing larger taxes to go to the government with no actual benefits to the country, even though they're also confident that the bill will stay stalled.
The moratorium on offshore drilling also gives some Republicans fodder to accuse the President of putting politics above science, because the experts on drilling the Interior Secretary hired for the review said "Of course it's safe", presumably not with the backdrop of the Deepwater Horizons exploded rig.
The Senate rejected a proposal to add some spending to help unemployment and states, with several Democrats doining the Republicans in defeating the bill. The sponsors went back, trimmed some from the amendment, and resubmitted.
Demonstrating their fear that the United States is too weak to stand against the opinions and ideas of other nations and groups, a state lawmaker in Oklahoma introduced a bill to ban courts in the state from considering international or Islamic law in their decisions, calling it a "pre-emptive strike" against what they see as a dangerous encroachment of Islam and hoping other states pass their own laws. Uh, American courts still rule on American law. And what kind of morons are you to force your courts to not use examples that have worked and haven't worked elsewere in the world when deciding how those laws are to be interpreted?
China and other foreign nations continued to purchase United States treasury debt, alleviating fears that a lack of demand would drive up interest rates for government debt.
Representative King of Iowa accused the President, the Attorney General and "quasi-militant" Latinos of misleading the American public about what the Papers Please Law actually does and who supports it, getting his facts wrong on both parts, and then sticking by those statements and others claiming the President is a racist against white people.
Into technology, where the person behind Goatse Security had an FBI raid conducted against him and they found drugs.
And then we find the Pentagon still hard at work at trying to zombify tissue so that it and the trauma patients it would be attached to will survive long treks to hospital facilities.
Finally, complex structures in the game of Life generates an item that creates a copy of itself across 34 million generations, although it consumes the original in the process. Becing able to duplicate itself, though, might make for some very interesting stuff.
Into the opnions, where Mr. Fund thinks the Speaker and Whip want the Office of Congressional Ethics nerfed because it kept investigating and releasing stuff that hurt the Democrats.
Mr. Eisman looks into how stdent loans might be the next bubble that bursts on taxpayer-backed debt, thanks to for-profit universities and certain types of private loan companies.
Mr. Epstein says that caps on disaster liability should be removed by law, and that only those companies that can pay the costs, all the costs, of disaster cleanup should be allowed to drill in the first place, but also that in this disaster, we need tort reform and government reform, which Mr. Epstein is less confident will happen. Going onward from there, Mr. Goldberg says that fossil fuels are actually better for the environment than green fuels, because they're cheaper, they don't require agricultural subsidies with their corresponding runoff dead zones to create, and they let nature recover and forests regrow while we extract the oil from under the ground. Well, if that's the argument, shouldn't you be pushing for things like microwave space-to-Terra solar power, which would allow the entire planet to recover better as we all revel in our abundant solar energy, allowing us to build electric cars and batteries? (Admittedly, the minerals required to create those batteries and solar panels have to come from Terra, so it's not like there would be zero impact - if only we could send miners out to the rocks in the asteroid belt and have them pick up the raw materials needed...)
Mr. Trzupek wants you to believe that fundamentalist Muslims would never have found the mineral deposits in Afghanistan, never have developed the technology to mine it out, and thus the West can create an opportunity for a stable rich democracy in the country by encouraging the Afghan people to exploit their own resources. Or, we could end up creating a tin-pot dictator who can sell his product around the world and pocket the profits. It's no guarantee, considering how many places we buy fossil fuels from have fundamentalist governments.
Speaking of fundamentalists, Mr. Gurney returns to the department of "Iran should be glassed before they complete a bomb, and the U.S. should do it, instead of pursuing useless sanctions". We note that we've had a generation past the end of the Cold War now, and we've cycled three from the decision to use nuclear weapons on the Empire of Japan. Absence must make the hawk heart grow fonder to unleash that kind of doom again. We're much more okay with people attempting to convince us that we should officially throw our weight behind the Green Revolution than with people openly advocating for the use of attacks against nuclear production facilites.
Last out of opinions, Mr. Greenwald points out that Jon Stewart savaged the Obama administration not on being insufficiently progressive, but on breaking promises and continuing to insist and expand on the worst policies from the previous administrator. It would be bad if he were truly in the middle, but he's leaning heavily to the right on a lot of disturbing issues.
And last for tonight - If you want to know how some people made it out of North Korea to cheer on their team at the FIF World Cup, well... let's just say many of those fans aren't native. Although, it did create a nice sign opportunity.
