From the "other" side: Pam's House Blend:: Freeper, fundie heads exploding over CA marriage ruling 

No, I won't repeat any of it here, but ... well, when you listen to some of the comments, it makes me happy for the decision all the more, if only to lead to more exploding heads.

Well, I will say a couple of things:

1. The basis for the decision, in the face of the previously (eight years ago) initiative law voted in by the populace, was that the populace and their representatives had crafted a body of law regarding domestic partnerships that was close to marriage already, save for the name. Except that it couldn't be called that. Except the justices decided that was discriminatory.
2. Despite all the rhetoric of "every child deserves and needs a mother and father," a different ruling would have done nothing regarding California child custody laws.
3. It is, in fact, one of the most important jobs of high courts to stand up to the will of the people when that will, in law, is not in keeping with the (state or federal) constitution. That can be irksome. That can also be a critical protection of your rights, too. Idjits.
4. I don't insist on knowing and approving everything you do in your bedroom. I do insist you show similar courtesy to others. I didn't ask your permission to enter into a committed relationship with someone I love; ditto on the insistence of similar courtesy.
5. Oh, and, that whole "marriage is dooooooomed!" thing? Here's what I think.

(via Les)

Filed under :: Gay Stuff :: Politics & Law :: ZT & PC
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Well, not quite, but some residents of the island of Lesbos who (it is claimed) call themselves Lesbians, are upset that their locational designation has been usurped by gay women, the "Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece" in particular.

Lesbians (the gay women kind) adopted the name from the island, which was most famously the home of the poet Sappho, who, among other things, wrote poems about love between women.

The locals from Lesbos seem to have suddenly become aware of this, and are now suing in court. While both women and men are complaining about it, it's not clear which gender is more unhappy about the reaction when they describe themselves as Lesbians.

Hmmm. It's almost like one of those domain disputes over food and wine in the EU, e.g., you can't call it Champagne unless it comes fro the Champagne district of France. Except, in this case, it's not a matter of sparkling wine trying to call themselves the name of official sparkling wines, more like a brand of car calling itself the Champagne and having the French get ticked off about it.

Some possible solutions:

1. Use capital letters appropriately. I've always found it vaguely incorrect for Lesbians (the gay women) to use a capital L when gay men only get lower case letters. So let "lesbians" refer to the gay women, Lesbians to the Aegean island dwellers.  Not that it will stop the glances or snickers when someone from Lesbos mentions their nationality in conversation.
2. Drop back to the old-fashioned "sapphists" and "sapphic" nomenclatures, more accurately allowing gay women to commemorate the person they intend to honor without the folks of Lesbos getting peeved. Plus it has a cool 19th Century sort of ring to it.
3. Just call them all "gay" and stop coming up with gender-specific nomenclature. I mean, isn't that kind of discriminatory?

Obviously, I have no personal skin in the game, being neither Greek nor gay. I just have an interest in language and how it evolves, along with a disdain for political correctness (though a fondness for politeness, which is not the same thing). I don't want to tell people what they can or should call themselves, while at the same time I can understand the dismay of some folks of Lesbos (whether or not they represent a majority, or even if people from that island actually call themselves Lesbian) at having people make assumptions (or jokes) about them.

No good answers here, assuming the questions are valid, but I'll be curious to see how it plays out in the Greek courts. 

Filed under :: Gay Stuff :: Writing and Language :: ZT & PC
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It turns out the Popline kerfuffle was, in fact, an excellent example of the "chilling effect." That's what happens when a subject becomes forbidden by those in power to talk about -- all of a sudden, people restrain themselves even further than necessary just so that they don't accidentally cross the line of rhetorical doom. So, for example, if your dad sends you to your room if you talk about Uncle Fred's drinking, then maybe you avoid talking about drinking, Christmas dinner, or Uncle Fred altogether. Or if it's illegal to assert that someone isn't a good employee because they are a woman, you refrain from criticizing any women employees even if a particular one's actions are grossly incompetent, just so that you avoid any chance of the accusation.

In the case of Popline -- an academic reproductive health database that decided to ban the word "abortion" from its search terms -- it turns out that it wasn't on order from the Administration (Popline is funded via USAID, which is forbidden by executive order from anything that smacks of advocacy of abortions), but the database administrators being overly sensitive to the whole affair. 

Apparently, someone at USAID inquired about two articles in the database that actually seemed to be advocacy pieces in favor of abortion. The administrators not only removed the two documents from the database, but, just to play it safe, deleted the search term as well.

Publicity about the case brought it to the attention of the Dean of the John sHopkins School of Public Health, which runs the database. He's weighed in that the "solution" was improper.

USAID, which funds POPLINE, found two items in the database related to abortion that did not fit POPLINE criteria. The agency then made an inquiry to POPLINE administrators. Following this inquiry, the POPLINE administrators at the Center for Communication Programs made the decision to restrict abortion as a search term.

I could not disagree more strongly with this decision, and I have directed that the POPLINE administrators restore "abortion" as a search term immediately. I will also launch an inquiry to determine why this change occurred.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction.

And bravo for that. 

Still, it's telling that (a) USAID is busy ferreting out items that "don't fit POPLINE criteria" (since I suspect strongly that the "inquiry" was based on the ideological dictates of the Administration), and (b) the administrators of Popline were so concerned over their funding that they took this improper action, doubtless just to be "on the safe side."

USAID is unapologetic.

Sandra Jordan, director of communications in USAID's office of population and reproductive health, could not identify the documents that prompted her office's complaint, but said the publications were one-sided in favor of abortion rights.

"We are part of the Bush administration, so we have to make sure that all parts of the story are told," says Jordan. "The administration's policy is definitely anti-abortion, and the administration does not see abortion as a part of family planning policy."

Jordan says that the Johns Hopkins database administrators blocked the word "abortion" on their own, and had misunderstood USAID's request.

That's the chilling effect. And that's why making X illegal often has a greater consequence than its supporters (openly at least) will argue.

Filed under :: Health - Science :: Politics & Law :: ZT & PC
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Hey, don't the Chinese do this kind of thing related to "Tibet" and "Tiananmen Square"?

U.S. Funded Health Search Engine Blocks 'Abortion' | Threat Level from Wired.com 

A U.S. government-funded medical information site that bills itself as the world's largest database on reproductive health has quietly begun to block searches on the word "abortion," concealing nearly 25,000 search results.

Called Popline, the search site is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland. It's funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal office in charge of providing foreign aid, including health care funding, to developing nations.

The massive database indexes a broad range of reproductive health literature, including titles like "Previous abortion and the risk of low birth weight and preterm births," and "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and access to services, 2005."

But on Thursday, a search on "abortion" was producing only the message "No records found by latest query."

The database manager says it's because of federal funding. USAID is forbidden, by executive order, from funding NGOs that perform abortions or "actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations."

"We recently made all abortion terms stop words," Dickson wrote in a note to Gloria Won, the UCSF medical center librarian making the inquiry. "As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now."

There was no notice of the change on the site.

Dickson suggested other kinds of more obscure search strategies and alternative words to get around the keyword blocking.

This isn't an advice line, or a political advocacy site. Popline touts itself as "Your connection to the world's reproductive health literature," and "the world's largest database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues. "

Except, of course, if you try to find them using the "A" word.

Whether this is an excellent example of the "chilling effect" (folks self-censoring for fear of breaking the rules), or of the Bush Administration once again demonstrating its desire to reframe scientific information only in acceptable ideological limits, it's outrageous.

Filed under :: Health - Science :: Politics & Law :: ZT & PC
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Keen.  A Canadian university is saving money and improving service by tossing its old legacy email and collaboration system in exchange for Google Aps But there's a problem ...

Eighteen months ago, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., had an outdated computer system that was crashing daily and in desperate need of an overhaul. A new installation would have cost more than $1-million and taken months to implement. Google's service, however, took just 30 days to set up, didn't cost the university a penny and gave nearly 8,000 students and faculty leading-edge software, said Michael Pawlowski, Lakehead's vice-president of administration and finance.

U.S.-based Google spotlighted the university as one of the first to adopt its software model of the future, and today Mr. Pawlowski boasts the move was the right thing for Lakehead, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual operating costs. But he notes one trade-off: The faculty was told not to transmit any private data over the system, including student marks.

It's not some sort of anti-Americanism at work, but a well-founded fear by the faculty that, under the PATRIOT Act and similar legislation, US law enforcement / anti-terror / homeland security types can willy-nilly sift through all their correspondence and research. Not to mention student academic records and grades.

At Lakehead, the deal with Google sparked a backlash. "The [university] did this on the cheap. By getting this free from Google, they gave away our rights," said Tom Puk, past president of Lakehead's faculty association, which filed a grievance against Lakehead administration that's still in arbitration. Professors say the Google deal broke terms of their collective agreement that guarantees members the right to private communications. Mr. Puk says teachers want an in-house system that doesn't let third parties see their e-mails.

Some other organizations are banning Google's innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data. Security experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security measures.

Using their new powers under the Patriot Act, U.S. intelligence officials can scan documents, pick out certain words and create profiles of the authors - a frightening challenge to academic freedom, Mr. Puk said.

For instance, a Lakehead researcher with a Middle Eastern name, researching anthrax or nuclear energy, might find himself denied entry to the United States without ever knowing why. "You would have no idea what they are up to with your information until, perhaps, it is too late," Mr. Puk said. "We don't want to be subject to laws of the Patriot Act."

Seems quite reasonable to me. And, once again, an example of how much US reputation -- and business -- has been damaged by self-inflicted wounds in the "War on Terror."

Filed under :: Geopolitical Brouhaha :: Hi-Tech :: Homeland Security :: School Daze :: ZT & PC
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Barack Obama's speech on race, hope, his church background and pastor. 

Good stuff. Very good stuff. Strongly recommended (even at about 38 minutes).

Full text.

One thing I found of value was his reframing of the whole situation (viz his former pastor). It is legitimate to ask how someone believes about certain issues -- or even about how they believe about certain issues in comparison to someone with whom they associate. But the idea that someone either has to ignore differences they have, or throw someone off the wagon if there's a disagreement, is a ludicrous proposition.

To wit, I have friends, and family, who hold views I disagree with. In some cases, vehemently. Like Obama, I've had relatives who I've loved dearly, but who have not been politically correct (to say the least), or even held beliefs, or expressed stereotypes or epithets that "made me cringe." I've had friends who I care for a lot who've held positions, or said things, or even done things that I disagree with. Sometimes vehemently.

If I were running for President, it would be perfectly legitimate to say, "Hey, Dave, you claim this person is your friend, or you say you're close to this other person over here, or this guy supports your candidacy. Well, they said this and this and this, and, by the way, also say that. Is that how you feel?" That's what Barack has done in the current situation (though not, I'll note, McCain with his embarrassing supporters) It's even legit to say, "So, what role is this person going to hold in your administration?" 

It's not legitimate, useful, or logical, though, to say, "Well, if you disagree with them, why don't you banish them from your sight, cut off contact with them, drop them from your Christmas card list, and lead a crusade to have them run out of town on a rail?" That's the sort of ideological all-or-nothing you're-for-me-or-against-me you're-with-the-angels-or-the-devils kind of thing that has gotten this country into a lot of the mess it's currently in.

That Obama seems to realize that makes him, to my mind, all the better of a candidate.

Filed under :: Elections 2008 :: ZT & PC
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The standard response from apologists for internal security and spying processes is that, well, if you aren't doing something illegal, or you aren't a political activist, why are you worried? 

Here's why.

It's probably true that ordinary citizens uninvolved in political activism have little reason to fear being spied on, just as most Americans seldom need to invoke their 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. But we understand that the 1st Amendment serves a dual role: It protects the private right to speak your mind, but it serves an even more important structural function, ensuring open debate about matters of public importance. You might not care about that first function if you don't plan to say anything controversial. But anyone who lives in a democracy, who is subject to its laws and affected by its policies, ought to care about the second.

Harvard University legal scholar William Stuntz has argued that the framers of the Constitution viewed the 4th Amendment as a mechanism for protecting political dissent. In England, agents of the crown had ransacked the homes of pamphleteers critical of the king -- something the founders resolved that the American system would not countenance.

In that light, the security-versus-privacy framing of the contemporary FISA debate seems oddly incomplete. Your personal phone calls and e-mails may be of limited interest to the spymasters of Langley and Ft. Meade. But if you think an executive branch unchecked by courts won't turn its "national security" surveillance powers to political ends -- well, it would be a first.

Filed under :: Homeland Security :: Politics & Law :: ZT & PC
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Hrmph.

So Katherine throws on a Dora the Explorer on TV. And here we have Dora saving a bunch of cute, capering puppies who were obsessively captured by a Javertesque - yet - buffoonish dog catcher.

Ah ... what?

Okay, so this is an old meme that was hoary back when I was a kid. But, as an adult, I realize that:

1. Dog catchers don't just randomly hunt for dogs to snatch away and lock in cages. 
2. Animals captured by animal control officers (as we call them these days) are running loose -- which, in most communities I've ever lived in -- means they are lost, out of control, and/or feral, and are a potential threat.
3. Dog catchers are called out by people who see a loose animal that's a problem. They don't just cruise around, actively hunting animals to lock up.
4. If dogs are licensed and tagged, then if they are caught by the dog catcher, they will be recovered.
5. If there are leash laws in your community, that's not the fault of the dog catchers, but the populace at large.
6. For the most part (presumably they are as human as anyone else), dog catchers are hardworking people who uphold laws/regulations and actually both protect animals and people.
7. If more people bought pound animals -- and spayed/neutered their pets -- the number of animals that get caught by dog catchers (and are then put down when not adopted) would dramatically drop.

I don't know if I'm being politically correct, or incorrect, here, but I think I may have a chat with Katherine about the episode after she's done watching it.

UPDATE: Margie actually said something before the very end of the show, and I echoed it, and Katherine indicated her understanding of what we were saying.

Filed under :: Media - Cartoons :: Pets :: ZT & PC
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If there's one lesson coming from this year's presidential campaign, it's beware of the religious nutjobs you have lining up on your side. 

For John McCain, there's been the, ah, cognitive dissonance between his 2000 accusation of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell being "agents of intolerance" and his uncritical, more open courting of the Religious Right this time around -- which has led to further conflicts as he accepted (even courted), then had to tepidly distance himself ("just because they support me doesn't mean I support all their positions") from , support by folks like John Hagee (anti-gay, anti-Islam, anti-Catholic, whose endorsement McCain was "very proud" to get) and Ron Parsley (McCain's "spiritual guide" and holy warrior against Islam)

On Barack Obama's side, we have the Louis Farrakhan thing (though Obama never actually sought out Farrakhan's support, and quickly quickly repudiated Farrakhan's anti-semitism and racism), and, tied into that, the Jeremiah Wright thing (which Obama has also quickly repudiated).

I'm not aware offhand if there are any religious nuts supporting Hillary Clinton, but if she gets the nomination, I'm sure someone will dig some up.

I'll confess that in the above analysis, I am cutting Obama more slack than McCain.  Part of that may be my partisanship. But part of it is that McCain has actively sought the support of religious nuts, and failed to directly address what aspects (if any) of their worldview he rejects, while Obama has not sought such support, and has been directly forthcoming in rejecting positions of hatred and divisiveness. Throw in that McCain has gone from iconoclast to brown-noser, and I definitely have to give Obama the "win" in this particular kerfuffle.

Filed under :: Elections 2008 :: Religion :: ZT & PC
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 Air Force bans blogs. More accurately, the Air Force is blocking all sites that have the word "blog" in their URL. 

AFNOC has imposed bans on all sites with "blog" in their URLs, thus cutting off any sites hosted by Blogspot. Other blogs, and sites in general, are blocked based on content reviews performed at the base, command and AFNOC level...

The idea isn't to keep airmen in the dark - they can still access news sources that are "primary, official-use sources," said Maj. Henry Schott, A5 for Air Force Network Operations. "Basically ... if it's a place like The New York Times, an established, reputable media outlet, then it's fairly cut and dry that that's a good source, an authorized source," he said...

Good to know that our boys in blue over in Iraq aren't getting their news from me!

And in case you thought it was just the US military ... the Canadian armed forces are being warned about al-Qa'eda spies on Facebook.

"This may seem overdramatic," the advisory reads. But "the information can be used to target members for further exploitation. It also opens the door for your families and friends to become potential targets as well."

[..] Brig. Gen. Peter Atkinson says "80 percent" of enemy "battle damage assessment[s]" are from online sources like Facebook. 

Filed under :: Blogging :: Homeland Security :: ZT & PC
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