72 seconds of every hour

From my Twitter feed: Boost same-sex curricula: union, Winnipeg Free Press, 2013-05-02.

Here is a quote for those who don't want to read the article:

A resolution to go before the annual general meeting of the Manitoba Teachers' Society May 23 to 25 would call on the Department of Education to "ensure that same-sex families and LBGTTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, two-spirited, queer) people and themes are reflected in all curricula."

Ok, let's make sure "all curricula" accurately reflect the make-up of the population. We'll have to make everything in proportion to the population at large. Canada: 1% gay, 1% bisexual. (Statistics Canada, 2009). So we have to make sure "all curricula" are 1% gay, 1% bisexual.

Hmmmmmmm...

I think there are generally two approaches to this problem. Either 1) a percentage of the whole year or 2) a percentage of each period. Now I don't know about Manitoba but in the Northwest Territories I counted approximately 1300 hours of school attendance per year. So either 1) 26 hours of talking about gays and bisexuals a year, or 2) 66 seconds from every 55-minute periods talking about gays and bisexuals.

I like that. Math? 66 seconds of gay math. Gym? 66 seconds of gay gym. Chemistry? 66 seconds of gay chemistry.

You might argue that there is no such thing as "gay math." As the Facebook meme used to say "I parked my truck, I didn't gay-park my truck." Oh? But if you can't do gay math, how are we gonna make sure the math curriculum is 2% gay? (Pardon me, 1% gay and 1% bisexual.)

I'm not being perverse here. They said "all curricula", not me. I mean, if they just want to put in 26 hours a year about gays (for example, under Manitoba's "Diversity Education" curriculum), that's one thing, but no, they want every curriculum to reflect the make-up of the population.

Then again when I put it that way, 26 hours in a school year is not entirely trivial. It's like 40 minutes a week. Almost a whole period a week of talking about gay and bisexual topics, whatever that is. I mean, you talk to me about "gay topics" for 40 seconds and I'm bored; I don't see how I'd sit through 40 minutes of gay curriculum a week for 13 years.

But we mustn't stop here! We must make sure all curricula accurately reflect all aspects of diversity in Canada! First of all the population is 49% male and 51% female so all curricula have to be 51% female topics and 49% male topics. And by the way 83.2% of the population is 15 years and older so we should make sure 83.2% of all curricula include 15-and-older topics. Kindergarten gym? Let's talk about arthritis. Then gays.

And you know what else is really important to people's identity? Language. We have to ensure all curricula represent the language balance of Canada. Including 3% Chinese and 1% each Farsi, Panjabi, Urdu and Arabic. Math: 51% women's math, 2% gay and bisexual math, 3% Chinese math, 1% Arabic math. Which is gonna really suck ass because right now math is nearly 100% Arabic and it's gonna be really hard making up the 99% excess Arabic math.

Even worse, let's represent religion accurately in all curricula! 43% Catholic in all curricula? What's Catholic math? Don't know. Maybe the kind where pi is an integer. And can we have just 29% Reformed math, or since Reformers mostly never agree with each other, does math need to be subdivided accurately into all the divisions of Protestantism? "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879" math, or "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912" math? Well at least gym will work pretty well: split up by religion and fight it out.

And in this way we shall successfully teach every child that we're all irretrievably different and life is all about making sure people pay attention to YOUR uniqueness rather than put differences out of mind and work on a common goal. Brilliant!

There's your problem, Canada

(For greater clarity, the guy commenting that he doesn't vote is the same one who shared the item. Makes my brain bleed.)

And that's pretty much what I have to say about that

The following is reproduced verbatim from The Guardian, in case the original disappears or you're too lazy to click on a link. The original has lots of links to other news stories, which I didn't bother inserting here.

The Boston bombing produces familiar and revealing reactions

As usual, the limits of selective empathy, the rush to blame Muslims, and the exploitation of fear all instantly emerge


There's not much to say about Monday's Boston Marathon attack because there is virtually no known evidence regarding who did it or why. There are, however, several points to be made about some of the widespread reactions to this incident. Much of that reaction is all-too-familiar and quite revealing in important ways:

(1) The widespread compassion for yesterday's victims and the intense anger over the attacks was obviously authentic and thus good to witness. But it was really hard not to find oneself wishing that just a fraction of that compassion and anger be devoted to attacks that the US perpetrates rather than suffers. These are exactly the kinds of horrific, civilian-slaughtering attacks that the US has been bringing to countries in the Muslim world over and over and over again for the last decade, with very little attention paid. My Guardian colleague Gary Younge put this best on Twitter this morning:

I'm up for us "All Being Bostonians Today". But then can we all be Yemenis tomorrow & Pakistanis the day after? That's how empathy works.

Juan Cole this morning makes a similar point about violence elsewhere. Indeed, just yesterday in Iraq, at least 42 people were killed and more than 250 injured by a series of car bombs, the enduring result of the US invasion and destruction of that country. Somehow the deep compassion and anger felt in the US when it is attacked never translates to understanding the effects of our own aggression against others.

One particularly illustrative example I happened to see yesterday was a re-tweet from Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso, proclaiming:

"Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?"

I don't disagree with that sentiment. But I'd bet a good amount of money that the person saying it - and the vast majority of other Americans - have no clue that targeting rescuers with "double-tap" attacks is precisely what the US now does with its drone program and other forms of militarism. If most Americans knew their government and military were doing this, would they react the same way as they did to yesterday's Boston attack: "Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?" That's highly doubtful, and that's the point.

There's nothing wrong per se with paying more attention to tragedy and violence that happens relatively nearby and in familiar places. Whether wrong or not, it's probably human nature, or at least human instinct, to do that, and that happens all over the world. I'm not criticizing that. But one wishes that the empathy for victims and outrage over the ending of innocent human life that instantly arises when the US is targeted by this sort of violence would at least translate into similar concern when the US is perpetrating it, as it so often does (far, far more often than it is targeted by such violence).

Regardless of your views of justification and intent: whatever rage you're feeling toward the perpetrator of this Boston attack, that's the rage in sustained form that people across the world feel toward the US for killing innocent people in their countries. Whatever sadness you feel for yesterday's victims, the same level of sadness is warranted for the innocent people whose lives are ended by American bombs. However profound a loss you recognize the parents and family members of these victims to have suffered, that's the same loss experienced by victims of US violence. It's natural that it won't be felt as intensely when the victims are far away and mostly invisible, but applying these reactions to those acts of US aggression would go a long way toward better understanding what they are and the outcomes they generate.


(2) The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence. The New York Post quickly claimed that the prime suspect was a Saudi national (while also inaccurately reporting that 12 people had been confirmed dead). The Post's insinuation of responsibility was also suggested on CNN by Former Bush Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend ("We know that there is one Saudi national who was wounded in the leg who is being spoken to"). Former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman went on CNN to grossly speculate that Muslim groups were behind the attack. Anti-Muslim bigots like Pam Geller predictably announced that this was "Jihad in America". Expressions of hatred for Muslims, and a desire to do violence, were then spewing forth all over Twitter (some particularly unscrupulous partisan Democrat types were identically suggesting with zero evidence that the attackers were right-wing extremists).

Obviously, it's possible that the perpetrator(s) will turn out to be Muslim, just like it's possible they will turn out to be extremist right-wing activists, or left-wing agitators, or Muslim-fearing Anders-Breivik types, or lone individuals driven by apolitical mental illness. But the rush to proclaim the guilty party to be Muslim is seen in particular over and over with such events. Recall that on the day of the 2011 Oslo massacre by a right-wing, Muslim-hating extremist, the New York Times spent virtually the entire day strongly suggesting in its headlines that an Islamic extremist group was responsible, a claim other major news outlets (including the BBC and Washington Post) then repeated as fact. The same thing happened with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when most major US media outlets strongly suggested that the perpetrators were Muslims. As FAIR documented back then:

"In the wake of the explosion that destroyed the Murrah Federal Office Building, the media rushed — almost en masse — to the assumption that the bombing was the work of Muslim extremists. 'The betting here is on Middle East terrorists,' declared CBS News' Jim Stewart just hours after the blast (4/19/95). 'The fact that it was such a powerful bomb in Oklahoma City immediately drew investigators to consider deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East,' ABC's John McWethy proclaimed the same day.

"'It has every single earmark of the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East,' wrote syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (Chicago Tribune, 4/21/95). 'Whatever we are doing to destroy Mideast terrorism, the chief terrorist threat against Americans, has not been working,' declared the New York Times' A.M. Rosenthal (4/21/95). The Geyer and Rosenthal columns were filed after the FBI released sketches of two suspects who looked more like Midwestern frat boys than mujahideen."

This lesson is never learned because, it seems, many people don't want to learn it. Even when it turns out not to have been Muslims who perpetrated the attack but rather right-wing, white Christians, the damage from this relentless and reflexive blame-pinning endures.


(3) One continually encountered yesterday expressions of dread and fear from Arabs and Muslims around the world that the attacker would be either or both. That's because they know that all members of their religious or ethnic group will be blamed, or worse, if that turns out to be the case. That's true even though leading Muslim-American groups such as CAIR harshly condemned the attack (as they always do) and urged support for the victims, including blood donations. One tweeter, referencing the earthquake that hit Iran this morning, satirized this collective mindset by writing: "Please don't be a Muslim plate tectonic activity."

As understandable as it is, that's just sad to witness. No other group reacts with that level of fear to these kinds of incidents, because no other group has similar cause to fear that they will all be hated or targeted for the acts of isolated, unrepresentative individuals. A similar dynamic has long prevailed in the domestic crime context: when the perpetrators of notorious crimes turned out to be African-American, the entire community usually paid a collective price. But the unique and well-grounded dread that hundreds of millions of law-abiding, peaceful Muslims and Arabs around the world have about the prospect that this attack in Boston was perpetrated by a Muslim highlights the climate of fear that has been created for and imposed on them over the last decade.


(4) The reaction to the Boston attack underscored, yet again, the utter meaninglessness of the word "terrorism". News outlets were seemingly scandalized that President Obama, in his initial remarks, did not use the words "terrorist attack" to describe the bombing. In response, the White House ran to the media to assure them that they considered it "terrorism". Fox News' Ed Henry quoted a "senior administration official" as saying this: "When multiple (explosive) devices go off that's an act of terrorism."

Is that what "terrorism" is? "When multiple (explosive) devices go off"? If so, that encompasses a great many things, including what the US does in the world on a very regular basis. Of course, the quest to know whether this was "terrorism" is really code for: "was this done by Muslims"? That's because, in US political discourse, "terrorism" has no real meaning other than: violence perpetrated by Muslims against the west. The reason there was such confusion and uncertainty about whether this was "terrorism" is because there is no clear and consistently applied definition of the term. At this point, it's little more than a term of emotionally manipulative propaganda. That's been proven over and over, and it was again yesterday.


(5) The history of these types of attacks over the last decade has been clear and consistent: they are exploited to obtain new government powers, increase state surveillance, and take away individual liberties. On NBC with Brian Williams last night, Tom Brokaw decreed that this will happen again and instructed us that we must meekly submit it to it:

"Everyone has to understand tonight that, beginning tomorrow morning early, there are going to be much tougher security considerations all across the country, and however exhausted we may be by that, we're going to have to learn to live with them, and get along and go forward, and not let them bring us to our knees. You'll remember last summer, how unhappy we were with the security at the Democratic and Republic conventions. Now I don't think we can raise those complaints after what happened in Boston."

Last night on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show, an FBI agent discussed the fact that the US government has the right to arrest terrorism suspects and not provide them with Miranda warnings before questioning them. After seeing numerous people express surprise at this claim on Twitter, I pointed out that this happened when the Obama administration exploited the attempted underwear bombing over Detroit to radically reduce Miranda rights over what they had been for decades. That's what the US government (aided by the sham "terrorism expert" industry) does in every single one of these cases: exploits the resulting fear to increase its own power and decrease everyone else's rights, including privacy.

At the Atlantic, security expert Bruce Schneier has a short but compelling article on how urgent it is that we not react to this Boston attack irrationally or with exaggerated fear, and that we particularly remain vigilant against government attempts to exploit fear to impose all new rights-reducing measures. He notes in particular how the more unusual an event is (such as this sort of attack on US soil), the more our brains naturally exaggerate its significance and frequency (John Cole makes a similar point).

In sum, even if the perpetrators of Monday's attack in Boston turn out to be politically motivated and subscribers to an anti-US ideology, it will still be a very rare event, one that poses far less danger to Americans than literally countless other threats. The most important lesson of the excesses arising from the 9/11 attacks should be this one: that the dangers of overreacting and succumbing to irrational fear are far, far greater than any other dangers posed by these type of events.

There, I made up my mind

Initially, I didn't have an opinion about same-sex marriage. Partly cause I didn't have any data to justify an opinion, and more importantly because I completely don't care. But now, thanks to the constant vociferations of same-sex marriage supporters, I've made up my mind.

Officialy, I'm now AGAINST gay marriage.

Not because I give a fuck if gays get married. Cause I don't. But just because the pro-gay-marriage lobby's arguments are straight douchebaggery.

Now you might think, the argument that the constitution seems to support gay marriage would be persuasive. Except it's not! You know why? Because in the case of polygamy, the Supreme Court already ruled that while it IS unconstitutional to outlaw polygamy, we're gonna do it anyway because it's in the best interest of society.

WTF???????

Well, whatever. There's your precedent. We're allowed to discriminate for the greater good of society.

Now some make the argument that gay marriage is NOT against the greater good because gays are no shittier parents than straights.

Really? Prove it.

In the case of polygamy, the "greater good" argument comes from the perception that polygamy somehow implies child abuse. Data supporting this view has never come to my attention. You know what HAS come to my attention though? The amount of child sexual abuse in Native communities. According to my former therapist, in some reserves as many as 96% of female children get molested. Therefore Natives should not be allowed to get married. Oh wait, that never stopped them having children! So let's just stop them having children. OMG THAT'S SO RACIST!

Ok, so you can't keep people from breeding no matter how high a percentage of sexual abusers are in their demographic. Unless their religion supports polygamy. So you can discriminate on SOME protected grounds and not others. Likewise in France, by the way, the Supreme Court has ruled that anti-semitism is illegal but anti-islamism is perfectly fine because, you know, freedom of speech.

What the FUCK are you talking???

Ok, so clearly, discrimination is perfectly fine, no matter what laws you have to the contrary.

So do we have good reasons to prevent gay marriage "for the greater good"? Who cares! It's not like we have good reasons for the rest, either. But my theory is, the conservatives (small C, people with conservative views, not the Cons) are right. All this behavioural stuff about spitting on morals, expressing oneself, not being told what to do, "celebrating our diversity", is all detrimental to society. In my considered opinion after reading history for three years, I think it is healthy for a society to have a mutually agreed and STRICT standard of acceptable behaviour. "Morals", if you will. "Morals" are good for society. And "morals" have to be conservative, by definition, because if they change all the time they're no longer a mutually accepted standard, they're just a fashion.

So am I against gay marriage because I favour conservative morals? No. Like I said, I don't care whether gays get married or not. The battle for a moral society was already lost a long time ago anyway; gay marriage is a symptom of it, not a cause. What I'm saying (and I don't expect you to read and understand it instead of having a knee-jerk reaction) is that it's actually a more valid "greater good" argument than the thing about polygamy.


Second reason why the pro-gay-marriage argument is douchebaggery is that it's not about "equality." Nobody wants "equality", and nobody has it. And those who talk about "equality" for gays are not agitating for the legalization of polygamy, or for the right of women to wear burqas and hijabs, or for treating the mentally ill with respect. And that's just three examples. In fact, I personally know at least one person who is pro-gay-marriage, anti-letting Muslim women dress themselves, violently anti-anyone who has a religion, and doesn't think twice about insulting me for having sought treatment for my bipolar disorder. Apparently, then, supporting gay marriage isn't about equality, and it doesn't make you a decent person, either, contrary to a popular line of thought. But to stay on the topic of this particular reason, I'm against gay marriage because the equality argument is just raw hypocrisy.


And third reason why the pro-gay-marriage argument is douchebaggery: because much of it is limited to calling non-supporters names. Such as bigots. Oh yeah? Buddy, you just lost every argument, EVER. Just as soon as you thought you could prove yourself right by proclaiming that the other side is "assholes and bigots" and whatever else you want to call them, you're out of every argument, ever. Because obviously you don't know how to have a conversation. Also because people adduce this argument because they have no rational ones: they're just certain they're right. And as we know, certainty comes from random chemical activity in the brain, not from being actually right.

And, you know what, I've just had enough of your bullshit. You want to call people bigots and assholes because they don't agree with you? Fine. I'm rubber, you're glue. I'm quite satisfied with you calling me a bigot. In fact, I'll take is as a compliment. You know why? Because I now have no respect for you and I'll be happy to make sure I'm not on your side. Why am I against gay marriage? Because YOU insulted the non-supporters instead of debating politely. Because I WANT you to think of me as an asshole and a bigot. Because I definitely do not want to be on your good side.


In summary, why I'm now against same-sex marriage:

1) because people think there is a valid argument against polygamy, hijabs and Islam;
2) because discriminating against some minorities and not others is discrimination squared;
3) and because the pro-gay-marriage crowd has been using abuse instead of arguments and I choose to be on the opposite side.

So go ahead and call me a bigot. I'll take it as a compliment.

Shortest political opinion ever

NDP leaders went to meet Idle No More people arriving in Ottawa. Stephen Harper went to meet his rental giant pandas arriving in Toronto. I would say both made exactly the point they wanted to make.

Sometimes you can't even find the brass on the sinking ship

In the Northwest Territories news today: "An organ donor registry for the territory is long overdue, said Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny" (NNSL). Because according to him, the lack of organ donor registry is "truly hampering our ability to help those who need organ transplants".

Yeah... Well that's why you shouldn't elect pharmacists with no relevant experience to government, yes? And maybe also not ones with personal agendas? Not that organ donation isn't generally considered an admirable personal agenda. And yeah, it's very sad that Dolynny's buddy's young son died for lack of a heart transplant. (I know that because the buddy is the miserable scum I was working for in Yellowknife three years ago. See, NWT politics are such a cesspool of personal allegiances and rancour.)

Ok, but let's be realistic.

First of all, the Northwest Territories has no capacity to harvest organs. In British Columbia, which has 107 times the population of the Northwest Territories and 31 times the budget (but only 7 times the federal transfers, mind you), organs are collected by the "organ retrieval team", a highly specialised mobile unit which is on call round the clock and travels to whichever hospital has the donor, because even in BC, most hospitals do not have the personnel and equipment to perform the organ procurement surgery. The Northwest Territories could neither afford such a team, nor mobilise it quickly enough, nor contract a team from south. You're not gonna get BC's team to fly to Fort Resolution to source organs.

Second, you pretty much have to die in hospital if your organs are going to survive long enough to be transplanted. And generally you have to die suddenly, not after years of degenerative illness. According to statistics from Organ Donation New Zealand, nearly 80% of organ donors die of trauma (i.e. "accidents") or intracranial hemorrhage or thrombosis. If any of those happen to you in the Northwest Territories, you're almost certainly not going to live long enough to reach the hospital, because the response time from emergency services is far too slow.

Third, once you're in the hospital and your brain is dead, your body is maintained with drugs and machines while the paperwork gets done and the organ team scrambles. Somehow, I think a medical team that can kill someone with a colonoscopy is not gonna be super successful in keeping the dead alive while doing paperwork really really fast. (Actually, the paperwork itself would be a stumbling block. GNWT employees aren't noted for their speedy and accurate completion of paperwork.)

In the real world, according to BC Transplant, less than 1% of deaths can result in potential organ donation. Taking out the 80% who would not have made it to the hospital in the NWT, that's less than 0.2% of deaths. The Northwest Territories have a death rate of approximately 3.9 per thousand per year and a population of 43,300 (Statistics Canada) so that gives us about 0.33 eligible donors per year. Of whom zero can actually be accessed by an organ collection team.

So yeah, let's spend a pile of money on an organ donor registry so that once every three years or so, a doctor can tell himself "hey, we could have used these organs if only we had an organ team."

Seriously, Northwest Territories, you should really start electing people who have some kind of understanding of reality. And who can think of something beside themselves. Oh wait... All those people moved south. Oops, sucks to be you! Haha.

Who's a bigot now?

About 28% of people in the world are Muslims. Almost two billion people. Almost one in three human beings.

On the other hand, the percentage of gay people is variously estimated somewhere from 1% (self-reported to Statistics Canada in the census) to maybe 8.2% (Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are, The Atlantic, 2012-05-31). So let's even be generous and say 10%. One in 10 people.

Why am I on about this? Because if you're pro-gay rights and anti-Islam, you're discrimating against three times more people, at the very least, than if you're pro-Islam and anti-gay rights. But maybe as much as thirty times more. You think the anti-gay marriage people are reactionary bigots and you can insult and belittle them because you're so fucking right... but you're by far the bigger bigot.

That's pretty funny. To me, that is. Probably not to you pro-gay-anti-Islam-name-calling bigots.

Wanna see a magic trick?

Your correspondent is going to show you a real, authentic, awesome magic trick. Ready? K. But first like any magic trick, we need a bit of a set-up.

So to begin with, think about God. What is your position about God? Are you a Christian? If so what denomination? Or a Muslim, Jew, Jain, Zoroastrian? Are you an atheist? Are you an agnostic? Just think about it for a while.

Ok, focus on your position about God for a moment.

Now, change it. Change your mind about God, just now. If you're a Catholic, become a Protestant. If you're a Protestant, become a Muslim. If you're a Sunni, become a Shia. If you're an atheist, become a... I don't know, pick something. Say, Alawite. And if you're an agnostic, just make up your mind already.

K, I'll give you a minute to make the change.

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<Theme of Jeopardy>

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Ready? K.

Ok, so did you actually change your mind about God?

No you didn't. Don't even lie. I know you didn't just suddenly change your mind about God in the last minute just because I told you to.

But now what if I told you you're a reactionary cultist brain-dead smug ignorant cross-sucking hyprocrite moron douchebag and most likely a useless cunt to boot? Now try changing your mind about God. See if that helps. I'll wait.

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<Theme of Jeopardy>

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So? Did it work this time? I bet it worked. Did it work? Huh? Huh? Did it?

Still not, eh. Dang. I was so sure it would work.

Ok now think of some issue that is very important to you. Like say, burqas. Or gay marriage. Or Obamacare. You got 99 problems? Pick one that you're passionate about. You can share it with everyone in the comments if you want, but you don't have to.

Ok, ready?

Good.

Now change your mind about your issue. In 3... 2... 1...

Ta-da!

That worked, right? You've changed your mind about your issue?

No? Are you kidding me? That's insane shit.

Ok, whatever. Now just think for a minute why you didn't just change your mind.

And now for the grand finale of my magic trick. Ready? I'm a' read your mind now.

<drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrum rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrolllllllllllllllll>

Here's what you just thought: "because I'm right".


Pretty cool trick, eh? I think so too myself.

And the moral of this magic trick is, next time you're trying to change someone's mind about some issue that they're passionate about, try to remember that you couldn't change your mind when you tried. Why? "Because I'm right."

I don't think you're wrong because you're gay. I think you're wrong because you're wrong.

The following was shared on Facebook:

Me: That's a crappy analogy. Marines can protect themselves from sexual abuse. Children, as you pointed out in the case of Toddlers & Tiaras, can't.

Gay person who posted it: So being gay automatically puts them at greater risk for sexual abuse? We might as well disband all boy scouts and girl scouts and other children's events to eliminate any possibilty of a gay kid being left out, or from being at greater risk for sexual abuse.

---

Um.... What the fuck are you talking about? And this is the more logical part, mind you. After that it got really nonsensical and mostly calling people bigots and assholes. But as for this, really, what the fuck are you talking about?

Here is the thing: BOY Scouts of America, which is what your little banner is about, is primarily a MALE club. With MALE children aged 5 to 17. There is also a co-ed branch, 14-20 years old. Approximately 4% of youth members are female. So yeah, it's primarily a MALE organization. And the thing is, when male people sexually molest male people, that makes the perpetrators gay by definition. See, straight guys don't molest other guys. Gay guys molest guys; straight guys molest girls. Are you seeing the logic here? So if you have a whole bunch of guys, and some of them are molesting some others, then all the guys doing the molesting are gay. So if you get rid of all the gay guys, there won't be anyone left to do any molesting. Amazing!

Of course a better counter-argument to my argument would have been to say that protecting the kids from predators isn't even the reason the BSA gives; their reason is that gay people don't fit in their mandate. The horror! Oh yeah. But then that brings us to another difference between the Marines and the BSA. Marines are a government body; BSA is a private club. Private clubs, by definition, have the right to select their members. You don't like it? I guess you can just call them bigots and assholes and move on. Because you can't beat them in court. They've already won several times on this topic.

But really, this isn't about the BSA. It's about the fact that any gay person I've ever tried to listen to on the topic of gay rights has this kind of bizarre break in logic. Some of them reject logic altogether; for example, in favour of "being human", which apparently means calling people bigots and assholes when they don't agree with you. Wait... Ok, you're right, that's totally what being human is all about. But don't think you get special dibs on reflexive deprecation of the outgroup because you're gay. You want to call us bigots and assholes for not agreeing with you, rest assured we have equally nice things we can say to you. You might not want to start that fight.

Back to my point, again. Why do all my gay acquaintances have this complete lack of logic in defending gay rights? There is a very logical argument for gay rights. Here in Canada we call it the Charter; though of course it wouldn't help you with the BSA, which is a US organization. So why go with the completely illogical, when logic is available? After observing this same spastic rejection of reality repeatedly, I've come to wonder whether it's a feature of the homosexual brain.

Consider the following. Gays are behaviourally different from non-gays. Gasp! What kind of bigot would say such a thing?

Please. It's a tautology. Some people have sex with the opposite sex, some people have sex with the same sex. Clearly differentiated behaviours, ergo, these two groups are behaviourally different. Also, 99% of humans fuck the opposite sex, 1% will admit to fucking the same sex. So it's not just behaviourally different, it's abnormal. From "ab-" meaning away from and "norma" meaning rule. As a rule, people have sex with the opposite sex. To do otherwise is, literally, abnormal.

The thing with behavioural anomalies, and indeed every behaviour, is that it comes from the brain. No, really. And the second thing is, they don't happen alone. Behaviours come in clusters, so that a person who exhibits certain behaviours typically also exhibits some other behaviours from the same cluster. Which brings me at last to my point: what other behaviours are part of the homosexuality cluster? And more specifically, is the breakdown of logic caused by the same brain modification that causes homosexuality?

Realistically, a lot of people have problems with logic. And on the other hand, Alan Turing was gay. But of course, exceptions don't disprove statistics. I don't think we can draw any generalisations from Alan Turing.

It's a good question, really. Not one about which I care enough to do any research, but still, it's a good question. Especially if you want to argue for or against gay marriage, or for or against gays adopting children. I personally don't care enough to have an opinion about either, but for someone who does, it would be valuable to have information on the behavioural differences between gay and non-gay brains. Other than the obvious.

That's the funny thing with gay rights vociferations. The more you do it, the more you're starting to look like a bunch of idiots. And then you make people wonder, are you a bunch of idiots because you're gay, or are you a bunch of idiots and you're gay?

The great Toddlers & Tiaras fracas

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