Please watch the following Video.
Maybe they will reprise this year.
love to you all,
matt
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Blogger blog. BLOG bloggedy blog blog! BLOGGGGG.
I will now be simul-posting on two blogs at once. I'm not sure why. There's this one and my other one.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
I am DEAD from too much anger
I am so angry. So very angry. I don't even have words for it.
I was just listening in on the old NPR (I have to stream KUAZ out of Tucson because the station in Abq is horrendous - pretty much all music, no talk; what's the deal?!) and they played a little soundbyte from an interview our duly elected Vice President Dick Cheney (or, as I like to call him, Shotgun-wielding Psycho Vice President) did with Mr. Wolf "Wolf" Blitzer yesterday. Now I didn't hear the whole interview, just a snippet, but there is a transcript of the whole thing Here. Put on your poncho, because the poop will fly.
I would like to point your attention to the following exchange, which I will copy out in full for your benefit. To get you up to speed, this is in regards to the State of the Union speech given by our dear President Bush.
Wolf: 'Here's what the President said last night:
"We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country and, in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario."
He was talking about the consequences of failure in Iraq. How much responsibility do
you have, though -- do you and the administration for this potential scenario?'
Dick: 'Well, you know, this is a argument that there wouldn't be any problem if we hadn't gone into Iraq. Now --'
Wolf: 'Saddam Hussein would still be in power.'
Dick: 'Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would, at this point, be engaged in a nuclear arms race with Ahmadinejad, his blood enemy next door in Iran --'
Wolf: 'But he was being contained as we all know --'
Dick: 'He was not being contained. He was not being contained, Wolf.'
Wolf: '-- by the no-fly zones in the north and the south.'
Dick: 'Wolf, the entire sanctions regime had been undermined by Saddam Hussein. He had --'
Wolf: 'But he didn't have stockpiles of weapons of --'
Dick: '-- corrupted the entire effort to try to keep him contained. He was bribing senior officials of other governments. The oil-for-food program had been totally undermined, and he had, in fact, produced and used weapons of mass destruction previously, and he retained the capability to produce that kind of stuff in the future.'
Wolf: 'But that was in the '80s.'
Dick: 'You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do; the world is much safer today because of it.'
And Dick continues rambling after that.
Cheney insisted and insisted long after nobody else believed it that Saddam had WMD's. And now that a decent number of americans no longer believes that falsehood, Dick is going back to what Saddam did back in the 80's as justification for an unprovoked war that was based on falsified intelligence that the administration knew was falsified, yet still used to justify the war. Now I ask you, listening public, with the number of american deaths approximate to the number of deaths on 9/11, and the number of Iraqi innocents dead nestled securely in the hundreds of thousands, are we really better off than we were before we invaded Iraq?
For Dick to bring up the wild notion that Saddam and Iran would have forced the world into submission to their imagined nuclear prowess dick contest (just to reprint from above - '[Saddam] would, at this point, be engaged in a nuclear arms race with Ahmadinejad, his blood enemy next door in Iran') I figure one of two things has to be going on.
1) I am in a crazy house. Dick is in a crazy house. We are both crazy, but are deluded and think that everything is normal. Dick is crazily insisting that Saddam had WMD capabilities, and crazily believes that the american public (who is no longer listening to him because he and I are roommates in the crazy house) are buying into it. And I'm crazy too because I think that somebody actually believes him, I mean otherwise why would he get face time on CNN?
2) Dick Cheney has in fact been replaced by one of those billboard monsters from that one Simpsons' episode where the advertisements come to life and terrorize town, eating people and smashing them and crushing them with giant metal donuts and the like. Not that I am insinuating that Dick has taken to eating people, although maybe a metaphor could be made whereby he is crushing the spirit of the american people with the giant metal donut of his faulty policy. We should take heart though, because in that same episode, they realized that, if you pay no attention to the roving monstrosities (heh, Rove, get it), they go away. Consider this my plea: stop paying attention to Dick. Stop putting him on shows and interviewing him, unless those shows are this one or this one. Nobody else should be allowed.
I was just listening in on the old NPR (I have to stream KUAZ out of Tucson because the station in Abq is horrendous - pretty much all music, no talk; what's the deal?!) and they played a little soundbyte from an interview our duly elected Vice President Dick Cheney (or, as I like to call him, Shotgun-wielding Psycho Vice President) did with Mr. Wolf "Wolf" Blitzer yesterday. Now I didn't hear the whole interview, just a snippet, but there is a transcript of the whole thing Here. Put on your poncho, because the poop will fly.
I would like to point your attention to the following exchange, which I will copy out in full for your benefit. To get you up to speed, this is in regards to the State of the Union speech given by our dear President Bush.
Wolf: 'Here's what the President said last night:
"We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country and, in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario."
He was talking about the consequences of failure in Iraq. How much responsibility do
you have, though -- do you and the administration for this potential scenario?'
Dick: 'Well, you know, this is a argument that there wouldn't be any problem if we hadn't gone into Iraq. Now --'
Wolf: 'Saddam Hussein would still be in power.'
Dick: 'Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would, at this point, be engaged in a nuclear arms race with Ahmadinejad, his blood enemy next door in Iran --'
Wolf: 'But he was being contained as we all know --'
Dick: 'He was not being contained. He was not being contained, Wolf.'
Wolf: '-- by the no-fly zones in the north and the south.'
Dick: 'Wolf, the entire sanctions regime had been undermined by Saddam Hussein. He had --'
Wolf: 'But he didn't have stockpiles of weapons of --'
Dick: '-- corrupted the entire effort to try to keep him contained. He was bribing senior officials of other governments. The oil-for-food program had been totally undermined, and he had, in fact, produced and used weapons of mass destruction previously, and he retained the capability to produce that kind of stuff in the future.'
Wolf: 'But that was in the '80s.'
Dick: 'You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do; the world is much safer today because of it.'
And Dick continues rambling after that.
Cheney insisted and insisted long after nobody else believed it that Saddam had WMD's. And now that a decent number of americans no longer believes that falsehood, Dick is going back to what Saddam did back in the 80's as justification for an unprovoked war that was based on falsified intelligence that the administration knew was falsified, yet still used to justify the war. Now I ask you, listening public, with the number of american deaths approximate to the number of deaths on 9/11, and the number of Iraqi innocents dead nestled securely in the hundreds of thousands, are we really better off than we were before we invaded Iraq?
For Dick to bring up the wild notion that Saddam and Iran would have forced the world into submission to their imagined nuclear prowess dick contest (just to reprint from above - '[Saddam] would, at this point, be engaged in a nuclear arms race with Ahmadinejad, his blood enemy next door in Iran') I figure one of two things has to be going on.
1) I am in a crazy house. Dick is in a crazy house. We are both crazy, but are deluded and think that everything is normal. Dick is crazily insisting that Saddam had WMD capabilities, and crazily believes that the american public (who is no longer listening to him because he and I are roommates in the crazy house) are buying into it. And I'm crazy too because I think that somebody actually believes him, I mean otherwise why would he get face time on CNN?
2) Dick Cheney has in fact been replaced by one of those billboard monsters from that one Simpsons' episode where the advertisements come to life and terrorize town, eating people and smashing them and crushing them with giant metal donuts and the like. Not that I am insinuating that Dick has taken to eating people, although maybe a metaphor could be made whereby he is crushing the spirit of the american people with the giant metal donut of his faulty policy. We should take heart though, because in that same episode, they realized that, if you pay no attention to the roving monstrosities (heh, Rove, get it), they go away. Consider this my plea: stop paying attention to Dick. Stop putting him on shows and interviewing him, unless those shows are this one or this one. Nobody else should be allowed.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Most important news of the day
Check it out: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16770023/. I'll wait.
So yes, my hope is that, over the next few weeks, we will learn that dubya's cronies jeopardized national security to take us to war. In case you've had your head in the sand, here is the backstory. To sum up, 6 months before Dubya claimed in his '03 state of the union address that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium (ostensibly for (I)raq'in up a number of nukes), despite the fact that the administration knew this to be untrue. A quote from the backstory article:
"By summer 2002, the White House Iraq Group began to describe the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq's allegedly "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program. That claim, along with repeated use of the "mushroom cloud" image by top officials beginning in September, became the emotional heart of the case against Iraq."
This was a claim they knew to be false.
After Wilson came back from Africa, his wife, a CIA operative, was outed by the administration to the news media.
Two things:
We've known for years now that the invasion of Iraq was begun without pretense; but I am willing to bet all the cheese in this house...wait, wait, I'm just getting word that...yes...I'm just getting word that I have been authorized to include all the cheese in my neighbors' houses as well in this bet...willing to bet all that cheese that an incredibly significant number (if not an outright majority) of Americans don't even know this. Way to go us. Why do other countries know more about what is going on in our country than we do?
Second, is it not a matter of national security that our covert operatives remain covert? Especially those that "worked...in the Counterproliferation Division"? I thought that this administration's entire raison d'etre was national security. I confused.
Finally, a nugget from Rodney Anonymous Tells You How To Live:
"Did you know that, following the US invasion of Iraq, control of the Iraqi stock market was turned over to a twenty-four-year-old American whose sole qualification was that his parents had contributed heavily to the Republican Party? This young fellow forgot to renew the lease on the building the market was housed in, forcing the stock exchange to remain closed for a year."
Again, good work us. What's the opposite of a kudo? I need to hand some out.
So yes, my hope is that, over the next few weeks, we will learn that dubya's cronies jeopardized national security to take us to war. In case you've had your head in the sand, here is the backstory. To sum up, 6 months before Dubya claimed in his '03 state of the union address that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium (ostensibly for (I)raq'in up a number of nukes), despite the fact that the administration knew this to be untrue. A quote from the backstory article:
"By summer 2002, the White House Iraq Group began to describe the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq's allegedly "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program. That claim, along with repeated use of the "mushroom cloud" image by top officials beginning in September, became the emotional heart of the case against Iraq."
This was a claim they knew to be false.
After Wilson came back from Africa, his wife, a CIA operative, was outed by the administration to the news media.
Two things:
We've known for years now that the invasion of Iraq was begun without pretense; but I am willing to bet all the cheese in this house...wait, wait, I'm just getting word that...yes...I'm just getting word that I have been authorized to include all the cheese in my neighbors' houses as well in this bet...willing to bet all that cheese that an incredibly significant number (if not an outright majority) of Americans don't even know this. Way to go us. Why do other countries know more about what is going on in our country than we do?
Second, is it not a matter of national security that our covert operatives remain covert? Especially those that "worked...in the Counterproliferation Division"? I thought that this administration's entire raison d'etre was national security. I confused.
Finally, a nugget from Rodney Anonymous Tells You How To Live:
"Did you know that, following the US invasion of Iraq, control of the Iraqi stock market was turned over to a twenty-four-year-old American whose sole qualification was that his parents had contributed heavily to the Republican Party? This young fellow forgot to renew the lease on the building the market was housed in, forcing the stock exchange to remain closed for a year."
Again, good work us. What's the opposite of a kudo? I need to hand some out.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Socorro Weekend
Last night and today we went to the Inaugural Rio Film Festival here on campus at Tech. We saw a bunch of very good documentaries and a few interesting short films. Right now they are playing An Inconvenient Truth, a movie that you all must see. No, really. I'll wait for you to get back. Seriously. Go.
OK, now that you are back and have seen the light, I'll give you a little look at the things we saw this weekend.
Last night they played a documentary by Jeff Barrie titled Kilowatt Ours. This was a South-centric view of the damage being caused by coal-fired power plants. Super good. Nothing that we hadn't heard before, but it puts it all together in a nice package for the layman. And it isn't just a film about how coal plants are bad; it also presents a solution. Much of the solution information is on their web site, given above (http://www.kilowattours.org/). Jeff Barrie and his wife go through a number of low-cost steps they took to cut their energy bills in half with a grand total of about $300 expenditure. One of the things they did was to install CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) in all of their light fixtures, something that had an immediate and significant impact on their bills. We've had a couple of these for some time, but for some reason put them into fixtures that we pretty much never use. After getting home, we moved them. Also, we went through the Kilowatt Ours website and purchased 12 more of them for a grand total of $35 from the Energy Federation. Now, the other two we had bought at our local Smith's cost us about $8 a pop. These from the website are $3 each (although this is if you buy packs of 4), and shipping is free. Also, there is a 10% discount if you use the kilowattours code at checkout. Even if you hate the earth and don't want to conserve, these babies not only don't cost much more than regular light bulbs, they are rated to last for approximately 10,000 hours. Annually, incandescent bulbs will run you (according to the Energy Federation) $8.72 each for their energy. CFLs run $2.16. And that's just for the energy, never mind the fact that CFLs last 5 to 20 times longer. Many times, the impact of throwing something away and replacing it with something new precludes replacing your inefficient old things with new technology (environmental-impact-wise), but apparently studies show (I need to find them) that you it's better to just go ahead and get rid of your incandescents now and replace them with CFLs.
The documentary also spends some time on different types of zero-emission power types (wind and solar), as well as zero-emission ways to heat or cool your home (geothermal and passive solar). Also, it shows just how much you can save by changing over to efficient appliances.
This morning we saw one called Being Caribou, a documentary filmed by a couple who undertook a 1,000-mile, five month hike along with migrating porcupine caribou, who wend their way through the frigid Yukon into Alaska to calve for the summer on the north coast of Alaska, at ANWR. They follow the herd through some extremely harsh conditions to camp with them at the calving ground, where Dubya proposes to do some needless drillin'. We both voted for this one to be the people's choice for the festival.
We also watched one called Troubled Waters: the Dilemma of Dams about the impacts of dams and the benefits of their removal. Very interesting. Did you know that estimates place the number of dams in the U.S. between 75,000 and 2.5 million? I assume it depends on what you exactly consider a "dam". Also very informative.
A few shorts that were interesting (check the film festival website), and this evening there was a free showing of An Inconvenient Truth, which we already own on DVD and so were not too into sitting in the theater to watch. Another that everybody should watch. Again, not much that we hadn't already heard, but great for the non-climate-scientist. Pretty much will convince you that anybody who does not believe in global warming is just not paying attention.
Other than the technical glitches (like Norton Antivirus popping up in the middle of a movie, and other movies stopping partway through), and the low turnout (joint Matt-Alison scienguesstimate of 50), we enjoyed ourselves and hope that it happens again next year. Maybe somebody will join us if it does.
Whew.
OK, now that you are back and have seen the light, I'll give you a little look at the things we saw this weekend.
Last night they played a documentary by Jeff Barrie titled Kilowatt Ours. This was a South-centric view of the damage being caused by coal-fired power plants. Super good. Nothing that we hadn't heard before, but it puts it all together in a nice package for the layman. And it isn't just a film about how coal plants are bad; it also presents a solution. Much of the solution information is on their web site, given above (http://www.kilowattours.org/). Jeff Barrie and his wife go through a number of low-cost steps they took to cut their energy bills in half with a grand total of about $300 expenditure. One of the things they did was to install CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) in all of their light fixtures, something that had an immediate and significant impact on their bills. We've had a couple of these for some time, but for some reason put them into fixtures that we pretty much never use. After getting home, we moved them. Also, we went through the Kilowatt Ours website and purchased 12 more of them for a grand total of $35 from the Energy Federation. Now, the other two we had bought at our local Smith's cost us about $8 a pop. These from the website are $3 each (although this is if you buy packs of 4), and shipping is free. Also, there is a 10% discount if you use the kilowattours code at checkout. Even if you hate the earth and don't want to conserve, these babies not only don't cost much more than regular light bulbs, they are rated to last for approximately 10,000 hours. Annually, incandescent bulbs will run you (according to the Energy Federation) $8.72 each for their energy. CFLs run $2.16. And that's just for the energy, never mind the fact that CFLs last 5 to 20 times longer. Many times, the impact of throwing something away and replacing it with something new precludes replacing your inefficient old things with new technology (environmental-impact-wise), but apparently studies show (I need to find them) that you it's better to just go ahead and get rid of your incandescents now and replace them with CFLs.
The documentary also spends some time on different types of zero-emission power types (wind and solar), as well as zero-emission ways to heat or cool your home (geothermal and passive solar). Also, it shows just how much you can save by changing over to efficient appliances.
This morning we saw one called Being Caribou, a documentary filmed by a couple who undertook a 1,000-mile, five month hike along with migrating porcupine caribou, who wend their way through the frigid Yukon into Alaska to calve for the summer on the north coast of Alaska, at ANWR. They follow the herd through some extremely harsh conditions to camp with them at the calving ground, where Dubya proposes to do some needless drillin'. We both voted for this one to be the people's choice for the festival.
We also watched one called Troubled Waters: the Dilemma of Dams about the impacts of dams and the benefits of their removal. Very interesting. Did you know that estimates place the number of dams in the U.S. between 75,000 and 2.5 million? I assume it depends on what you exactly consider a "dam". Also very informative.
A few shorts that were interesting (check the film festival website), and this evening there was a free showing of An Inconvenient Truth, which we already own on DVD and so were not too into sitting in the theater to watch. Another that everybody should watch. Again, not much that we hadn't already heard, but great for the non-climate-scientist. Pretty much will convince you that anybody who does not believe in global warming is just not paying attention.
Other than the technical glitches (like Norton Antivirus popping up in the middle of a movie, and other movies stopping partway through), and the low turnout (joint Matt-Alison scienguesstimate of 50), we enjoyed ourselves and hope that it happens again next year. Maybe somebody will join us if it does.
Whew.
Friday, January 19, 2007
So now we're the space police too?
On January 11, China used a ground-based missile to destroy a satellite in orbit. It was old, and it belonged to China. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the satellite may have shattered into 40,000 little pieces.
This test was roundly criticized by Canada and Australia, America's favorite toady administrations (aside from Afghanistan and Iraq, of course, which are more like puppets than toadies). Our other best buddies Britain (toady), South Korea (flatterer - I would be too with NK across that DMZ), and Japan (needlessly enamored with us, although maybe I would be too if I had at some point invaded every single one of my neighbors) are "expected to follow suit" according to a U.S. official. Is that a thinly veiled request/command for them to follow suit? Hmm.
Now, this is not the first time this kind of testing has been done. Back in the 80's, America itself did this same thing. But we stopped. Due to international condemnation, do you ask? Nobody would have been that stupid! No, we were concerned that the debris would hurt our other satellites. This from a country that was pretty much more aggressively building up its military than any other country in history, holding more nukes pointed at more countries than anybody else. Imagine yourself in another country. Imagine that country A (the U.S. for anbody not following the analogy) has a really big gun and loves to shoot it off into the air. You have a much smaller gun. Country A tells you you are not allowed to own a gun, and takes it away from you. Country B builds itself a big gun and fires it into the air. Country A says that countries that have big guns not only can't fire them off into the air, but they can't have them. Country A no longer fires its gun into the air. Ok, that was a really bad analogy.
Now, back in October, we revised and updated our space policy. And subsequently, People freaked out a little. Here's from former vice president Al Gore:
"Very few people have analyzed the insides of this new space policy. I urge all of you who are interested in space to analyze it very carefully. It has the potential, down the road, to create the [same] kind of fuzzy thinking and chaos in our efforts to exploit the space resource as the fuzzy thinking and chaos the Iraq policy has created in Iraq. It is a very serious mistake, in my opinion.
We in the United States of America may claim that we alone can determine who goes into space and who doesn't, what it's used for and what it's not used for, and we may claim it effectively as our own dominion to the exclusion, when we wish to exclude others, of all others. That's hubristic."
Further, according to Leonard Davis (Space.com):
"Unfortunately, neither one of them published the part that I was most interested in ... which is Gore's statement that space right now is in the exact same position that the Internet was in the 1970s ... and that space needs to be commercialized in order to achieve its full potential ... just like the Internet only achieved its full potential by being commercialized.
This is a critically important statement by Gore on the commercial space industry that needs to get out ... particularly to the Dems who are likely to take over the House and possibly the Senate."
If I were not an American, I would get so pissed off at America for this kind of behavior. Who went and made us the space police? Isn't it enough that we were made the world police? What? We weren't? I must have missed something, because we have sure been acting like we are.
Edit: Never mind, I am pissed off at America.
This test was roundly criticized by Canada and Australia, America's favorite toady administrations (aside from Afghanistan and Iraq, of course, which are more like puppets than toadies). Our other best buddies Britain (toady), South Korea (flatterer - I would be too with NK across that DMZ), and Japan (needlessly enamored with us, although maybe I would be too if I had at some point invaded every single one of my neighbors) are "expected to follow suit" according to a U.S. official. Is that a thinly veiled request/command for them to follow suit? Hmm.
Now, this is not the first time this kind of testing has been done. Back in the 80's, America itself did this same thing. But we stopped. Due to international condemnation, do you ask? Nobody would have been that stupid! No, we were concerned that the debris would hurt our other satellites. This from a country that was pretty much more aggressively building up its military than any other country in history, holding more nukes pointed at more countries than anybody else. Imagine yourself in another country. Imagine that country A (the U.S. for anbody not following the analogy) has a really big gun and loves to shoot it off into the air. You have a much smaller gun. Country A tells you you are not allowed to own a gun, and takes it away from you. Country B builds itself a big gun and fires it into the air. Country A says that countries that have big guns not only can't fire them off into the air, but they can't have them. Country A no longer fires its gun into the air. Ok, that was a really bad analogy.
Now, back in October, we revised and updated our space policy. And subsequently, People freaked out a little. Here's from former vice president Al Gore:
"Very few people have analyzed the insides of this new space policy. I urge all of you who are interested in space to analyze it very carefully. It has the potential, down the road, to create the [same] kind of fuzzy thinking and chaos in our efforts to exploit the space resource as the fuzzy thinking and chaos the Iraq policy has created in Iraq. It is a very serious mistake, in my opinion.
We in the United States of America may claim that we alone can determine who goes into space and who doesn't, what it's used for and what it's not used for, and we may claim it effectively as our own dominion to the exclusion, when we wish to exclude others, of all others. That's hubristic."
Further, according to Leonard Davis (Space.com):
"Unfortunately, neither one of them published the part that I was most interested in ... which is Gore's statement that space right now is in the exact same position that the Internet was in the 1970s ... and that space needs to be commercialized in order to achieve its full potential ... just like the Internet only achieved its full potential by being commercialized.
This is a critically important statement by Gore on the commercial space industry that needs to get out ... particularly to the Dems who are likely to take over the House and possibly the Senate."
If I were not an American, I would get so pissed off at America for this kind of behavior. Who went and made us the space police? Isn't it enough that we were made the world police? What? We weren't? I must have missed something, because we have sure been acting like we are.
Edit: Never mind, I am pissed off at America.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
When bulletins go wild
I recently received a bulletin from my friend Jen, entitled Gay Marriage. The text is below:
---
Body: Hello everyone. It will be interesting to see who responds! I told a guy that I could find 300 people who believe in gay marriage before he could find 300 people who do not believe in gay marriage. If you believe in gay marriage, please copy and paste this into a new bulletin.
Add your name and re-post it. If you happen to be the 300th person signing this, please send it back to Andrew Nelson. His email address is: Rnbowzrok4evr@aol.com Thanks!
1)Taylor
[152 names excised in the interest of brevity]
154) Jen -- maybe it's not for me, but I do think everyone should have the option to marry.
---
Ok. That's the bulletin. I support same-sex marriage 100%. I find any argument against it to be driven either by faith or homophobia. And neither has a place in the debate. I'll start with why I didn't repost the bulletin, and return to the issue at hand afterwards.
This kind of bulletin (or mass e-mail) always kills me. A cursory statistical analysis should tell you that its outcome is about as accurate as U.S. intelligence prior to the Iraq invasion. Here's a little case study. Let's say that Taylor makes up this little bet with his buddy Andrew. To be statistically conservative, let's then say that Taylor posts the bulletin and that he only has two homosexual buddies, John and Joe who then repost it. The number in front of their names is 2, but there are now 3 people who have signed it.
Next step, Joe sends it on and his gay friends Charlie and Janelle send it on, while John's friends Lance and Tom also send it on. We now have people sending it with the number 3 next to their name, while in reality 7 people have sent it on. This will continue ad nauseum.
A simple excel spreadsheet reveals that the number of respondents will increase exponentially (r2 = 1) with the respondent level. At level 8, 255 people have signed the bulletin; at level 9, 511 people have signed it. At the point where it is now (level 154), 2.28x1046 people have signed it. When the level actually reaches 300, the number of people will reach 2.04x1090). Now, obviously these last two numbers are not feasible, since there are only 1.46x108 people on myspace, and only 6x109 people on this earth. However, at the low levels the analysis is applicable, and shows that way over 300 people have signed this thing, even though we're only halfway there. I understand the psychological benefit that this type of bulletin has for being forwarded on, since it makes the forwarder feel that they are actually helping gain some goal. I just wish we didn't need the incentive to make our feelings and beliefs known.
Back to the issue.
Many people argue against gay marriage from a faith-based point of view. So many problems with this. Number one, your faith-based point of view is very different from my faith-based point of view. And neither of our faith-based points of view should have any bearing on the laws that are passed by our government. Why? Because your argument is a Christian one, and our government is not a Christian government. Notwithstanding the fact that our fearless "leader" apparently gets his marching orders from a higher place (man, God really dropped the ball on that Iraq thing), our country was expressly founded to have a government overseen by justice, not by religion. Somehow, we, the people, became confused over time.
Next we get to the fact that, until the 13th century, even the Christian church did not outlaw gay marriage. I guess that falls in the same category as how that Catholic church no longer allows female priests. Why do men fear so much women and homosexuals?
And then there's homophobia. What the hell are people afraid of? If a gang of no-goodniks comes to your house and calls them out to submit to forcible horseplay, you can always just send out your wife, as detailed in Judges 19:22-30 (as a bonus, you can do what he does and subsequently carve her up and ship her off to your relatives. Good times!).
I've lost my train.
---
Body: Hello everyone. It will be interesting to see who responds! I told a guy that I could find 300 people who believe in gay marriage before he could find 300 people who do not believe in gay marriage. If you believe in gay marriage, please copy and paste this into a new bulletin.
Add your name and re-post it. If you happen to be the 300th person signing this, please send it back to Andrew Nelson. His email address is: Rnbowzrok4evr@aol.com Thanks!
1)Taylor
[152 names excised in the interest of brevity]
154) Jen -- maybe it's not for me, but I do think everyone should have the option to marry.
---
Ok. That's the bulletin. I support same-sex marriage 100%. I find any argument against it to be driven either by faith or homophobia. And neither has a place in the debate. I'll start with why I didn't repost the bulletin, and return to the issue at hand afterwards.
This kind of bulletin (or mass e-mail) always kills me. A cursory statistical analysis should tell you that its outcome is about as accurate as U.S. intelligence prior to the Iraq invasion. Here's a little case study. Let's say that Taylor makes up this little bet with his buddy Andrew. To be statistically conservative, let's then say that Taylor posts the bulletin and that he only has two homosexual buddies, John and Joe who then repost it. The number in front of their names is 2, but there are now 3 people who have signed it.
Next step, Joe sends it on and his gay friends Charlie and Janelle send it on, while John's friends Lance and Tom also send it on. We now have people sending it with the number 3 next to their name, while in reality 7 people have sent it on. This will continue ad nauseum.
A simple excel spreadsheet reveals that the number of respondents will increase exponentially (r2 = 1) with the respondent level. At level 8, 255 people have signed the bulletin; at level 9, 511 people have signed it. At the point where it is now (level 154), 2.28x1046 people have signed it. When the level actually reaches 300, the number of people will reach 2.04x1090). Now, obviously these last two numbers are not feasible, since there are only 1.46x108 people on myspace, and only 6x109 people on this earth. However, at the low levels the analysis is applicable, and shows that way over 300 people have signed this thing, even though we're only halfway there. I understand the psychological benefit that this type of bulletin has for being forwarded on, since it makes the forwarder feel that they are actually helping gain some goal. I just wish we didn't need the incentive to make our feelings and beliefs known.
Back to the issue.
Many people argue against gay marriage from a faith-based point of view. So many problems with this. Number one, your faith-based point of view is very different from my faith-based point of view. And neither of our faith-based points of view should have any bearing on the laws that are passed by our government. Why? Because your argument is a Christian one, and our government is not a Christian government. Notwithstanding the fact that our fearless "leader" apparently gets his marching orders from a higher place (man, God really dropped the ball on that Iraq thing), our country was expressly founded to have a government overseen by justice, not by religion. Somehow, we, the people, became confused over time.
Next we get to the fact that, until the 13th century, even the Christian church did not outlaw gay marriage. I guess that falls in the same category as how that Catholic church no longer allows female priests. Why do men fear so much women and homosexuals?
And then there's homophobia. What the hell are people afraid of? If a gang of no-goodniks comes to your house and calls them out to submit to forcible horseplay, you can always just send out your wife, as detailed in Judges 19:22-30 (as a bonus, you can do what he does and subsequently carve her up and ship her off to your relatives. Good times!).
I've lost my train.
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