Talk about the play of the week?

I'm not big into matters like football but I can enjoy a clever play. And this is astoundingly simple, yet smart, yet hilarious.

And that reminds me of the hilarious football scene in Glee.

Can't scriptwriters do a little research?

I find it annoying when scriptwriters don't bother to check out basic facts. It is one thing to take license with historical facts for the sake of a story, but it is quite another when they make absurd errors.

Normally I wouldn't comment on such things but recently I had two different television shows running while working on the computer. And both of them made silly errors.

Both are shows that I enjoy quite a bit, which is doubly disappointing. In "Mr. Monk and the Marathon Man" a woman is murdered but the prime suspect was in a marathon race at the time of the death and his computer chip proves he passed one check-point after another. One of the other runners is a supposed famed marathon runner of the past named Tonday, from Africa. Tonday uses the word "amandla" with Monk. Monk is then told this means "courage." But amandla does NOT mean courage, it means "power," which is quite different.

In a rerun of Bones, "The Man in the Fallout Shelter" a body from the 1950s is discovered in a fallout shelter. Zack cuts into the bones and it releases spores into the air which set off the bio-hazard alarm. Because Zack and Hodges were exposed to the spores, and the rest of the team were exposed to Zack and Hodges, they are all quarantined together over Christmas. And, while there is much to say for this episode there is a huge flaw in the story.

The fungus to which Hodges and Zack were exposed is Coccidioides immitis, a fungus that causes Valley Fever. One might ask how a man in a Washington, DC fallout shelter had been exposed to Valley Fever, given that it is a fungus endemic in the American South West and not the DC area. As the show goes along it becomes clear that the victim was from Oklahoma. But Oklahoma tends not to be a location for the fungus.

But that is relatively small in importance. We can pretend he was exposed someplace else. The major problem is that Valley Fever is NOT contagious. No one would be put into quarantine because of exposure to the fungus.

That's a good thing too since it is generally assumed that about half of all people in places like California, Arizona and other nearby states have been exposed to the fungus.

At one point of the episode Dr. Brennan sneezes and her FBI partner, Seeley Booth and Brennan both get horrified looks on their faces. Sneezing is not one of the symptoms of Valley Fever.

These are small things, but to quote a proverb, "the little foxes spoil the vine."

Bullying leads to another kid's death.

Brandon Bitner was just 14-years-old when he intentionally ran in front of a semi truck. He left a suicide note at his home and disappeared in the middle of the night. His family discovered his absence at 3:45 am and were notified of his death at 4:30 am.

Bitner left his home in the middle of the night and walked 13 miles before taking action.

Friends of Bitner say he was bullied at school for being gay. The school, says they know of no such incidents, but Bitner's friends report a regular problem.

What compounds the problem is that the only church Bitner was reported to attend was a fundamentalist church with anti-gay policies. The youth pastor at the church says that kids in the church are encouraged to "reach out to the hurting" but doesn't say what happens after that. The problem is that fundamentalists insist that being gay is evil and sinful and that such "hurting" kids must change, something that doesn't seem possible. Fundamentalists churches reaching out to gay kids is NOT a good thing. It is just theological bullying with a saccharine lilt to the voice, when it isn't screeching hell fire and brimstone.

To illustrate this point the New York Times just ran an article on November 6th reporting how anti-bullying efforts in government schools face fierce opposition from—who else?—fundamentalist churches. When Montana introduce lessons on tolerance and sexuality the fundamentalists went to war, along with help from the Big Sky Tea Party. Rick DeMato, a fundamentalist minister from the misnamed Liberty Baptist Church said: "We do not want the minds of our children to be polluted with the things of a carnal-minded society."

DeMato says they are against bullying but doesn't define how he interprets bullying. But he says all anti-bullying campaigns involving gay students has to be excluded because "the Bible says very clearly that homosexuality is wrong and Christians don't want the schools to teach subjects that are repulsive to their values." Presumably, since DeMato believes state schools are supposed to teach according to a fundamentalist curriculum he would be happy if gay kids were told they were "repulsive," but that bullying is wrong. Of course, most bullying at the schools that is directed at gay kids is more in line with constant verbal taunts quite similar to how DeMato talks.

The right-wing fundamentalist group Focus on the Family has also come out in opposition to anti-bullying efforts in the schools claiming they are "promoting homosexual lessons."

The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—those were the people who started their own denomination precisely because they believed God wanted them to own other human beings as slave—says that "gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia" but "they are wrong." He says their anti-gay views "is not rooted in fear, but in faithfulness to the Bible—and faithfulness means telling the truth." I have always opposed using the word homophobia precisely for that reason. Bigotry is not fear, it is is hate. I do not call such people homophobic because they don't have a fear the way many people have a fear of heights. They hold views that require them to hate a person, and hate is not the same thing as fear.

If anything I believe the term "homophobia" lets them off too easily.

Focus on the Family insists that the school should just say it is against bullying and NEVER mention the fact that gay students are disproportionately targeted for such hatred. They want the schools to only discuss "the wrong actions of the bully—not on the bully's perceived thoughts or motivations." Please note that what this means is that the school would not be allowed to take preventative measures regarding bullying by promoting tolerance of all students. To do that would be to discuss motivations. Focusing on actions requires actions to have already taken place. In other words, Focus on the Family prefers schools only do something about bullying AFTER it was already done.

Consider this policy and our latest victim of the bullies: Brandon Bitner. Now that Bitner is dead the school is aware that he was bullied and the school could take action against the bullies but must not discuss the motivation for the bullying. However, prior to the actual death of Brandon the school would not be able to discuss motivations that cause kids to bully one another. They would be unable to take action to prevent bullying, only respond to it after the fact.

Let me be blunt, as if I ever fail at that: the reason that fundamentalists don't want the motives of bullies discussed is because it requires one to talk about the rabid anti-gay prejudices that permeate the fundamentalist sub-culture.

Many fundamentalists have actually resorted to arguing that the disproportionate number of gay teens killing themselves is the result of too much tolerance of gay people. Tony Perkins of the antigay Family Research Council says "there's no empirical evidence for the claim that society's disapproval of homosexuality causes the mental health problems (including depression and suicide) that are found among homosexuals."

Most Americans disagree. A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute was released at the end of October. That poll reported that 72% of the public think that religious messages regarding homosexuality encourage "negative views" regarding gay people and 65% said there is a connection between those views and the suicides of gay kids.

The one group most satisfied with their churches attitudes toward gay people are fundamentalist
Christians.

Only 7% of Americans believe that their are positive messages coming from the churches regarding gay people, 43% say the message is negative and the rest don't know or say it is not discussed. Asked to assign grades to how well the churches deal with the issue only 16% give the churches an A or B grade, while 42% give them a D or F. Thirty percent give them a C grade.

Asked if they believe anti-gay messages in the church contribute to gay teen suicide rates one third say the message contributes "a lot," while another third say it makes some contribution. Only 21% say it has no impact.

The facts are that anti-gay messages do send messages to gay kids and to the bullies. That is what they are meant to do. Fundamentalists repeatedly say they wish all gay people would go back into the closet so that no one had to see them or deal with them. Some, such a major leaders of the old Moral Majority, openly called for incarcerating gay people and publicly supported the death penalty for being gay. The reason fundamentalists don't want motivations for bullying discussed is because they are a major source for providing those motivations.

Religion and the inequality of rights.

My view tends to go along the lines that all people should have the same legal rights as everyone else unless there is a damn good reason otherwise.

But I keep running into religious exemptions to this rule. If you don't show up for work when scheduled you can be fired, unless you claim that a deity has ordered you to do something else that day. In those cases the employer has to accommodate your claim to divine revelation. Now my view is that employers ought to have the right to NOT hire individuals who will inflict higher costs on them by demanding special considerations due to their beliefs. I would honor a religious employer's right to not hire gay people just as I would honor the right of a gay establishment to refuse to hire born-again Christians.

I ran across another very interesting legal right to discriminate which is granted to religious people only.

According to the Federal Communication Commission any radio or television station is strictly banned from discriminating "in employment... because of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex." Plain and simple, if you are an atheist and don't want to hire a fundamentalist then you are forbidden from indulging your own preferences. You may NOT discriminate against the Christian.

But, if the shoe were on the other foot, and you were an atheist seeking employment, a Christian station is explicitly granted permission to discriminate against you. "Religious radio broadcasters may establish religious belief and affiliation as a job qualification for all station employees."

So, the same law that forbids secular stations from refusing to hire Christian employees grants Christian stations the right to refuse to hire secular employees. Next time some Right-wing religious nut whines to you about how they are being persecuted by the nasty secularists ask them about this federal law which grants them legal rights denied to non-religious people.

Web site layout?

I was asked by friend with a new libertarian oriented think tank to help solicit a volunteer to put a basic web site up for them. The new organization is operating on a shoe-string and is meant to promote civil dialogue between the left and libertarians and to promote civil liberties from a libertarian perspective. Where other think tanks emphasize economics and minor in social issues, this organization wants to promote social issues based most of all.

If you are willing to put in a few hours to get the basic site up and running just leave contact details in the comment section. These remain invisible to the public unless I "approve" them, which won't happen. But I will pass the information on so that these people can contact you.

Happy Halloween: God hates you.

As way of preface I want to mention something that happened to me three years ago. I was pulling into a parking space at a restaurant. In the space next to me was another SUV with a mother and her young son: perhaps 8. They were getting out of the car and going into the restaurant about the same time I was.

As the boy and mother walked past the mother made some sarcastic sounding remark that she seemed to think was funny about her son. "Doesn't he have a cute purse?" I saw the boy was carrying a purse. My impression was that it was his mother's purse and he was carrying into the restaurant for her. Perhaps not, I couldn't tell and wasn't very concerned.

The mother seemed determined to drag me into her game and turned to me and said: "So what do you think about him carrying a purse?" Now, I operate on the assumption that if you don't want a truthful answer don't ask me a question. I will say precisely what I believe if asked.

In this case I was a bit peeved with the mother who I thought was being cruel. So I responded, with a firm look: "I think it's no one's business but his own and if that is what he wants to do then he has the right to do it." That was not the response she expected and she seemed surprised and then said: "Well, I guess you're right." She was then smart enough to shut up and move on before I had a chance to tell her that mothers shouldn't bully kids either—not even their own.

That brings me to the case of a blogging mother who goes by the nom de blog of Nerdy Apple Bottom. She is 35 years old and has three kids and is married to a police detective. And this Halloween her 5 year old son, nicknamed Boo, said that for Halloween he wanted to dress up as Daphne from the cartoon Scooby Doo. She was alright with that, after all, it is Halloween.

But Boo attended a preschool run by a local church and that seems to be where the problem was. She noted that Boo was getting nervous that some people might make fun of him. She asked: "Seriously, who would make fund of a child in a costume?" I've seem some awful costumes on kids and have never stooped to ridiculing them. Kids are off limits for that sort of treatment, in my books, completely off limits.

The kids showed up at school in costume and had a small party and then reverted to their street clothes for the rest of the day. When "Nerdy" and Boo went into the school some of the good Christian mothers descended like hungry vultures spotting a carcass. In my experience I can only say: "How Christian of them." And mean it.

The kids were fine, only their mothers lacked the maturity required to deal with it. Nerdy describes the situation:

Two mothers went wide-eyed and made faces as if they smelled decomp. And I realize that my son is seeing the same thing I am. So I say, “Doesn’t he look great?” And Mom A says in disgust, “Did he ask to be that?!” I say that he sure did as Halloween is the time of year that you can be whatever it is that you want to be. They continue with their nosy, probing questions as to how that was an option and didn’t I try to talk him out of it. Mom B mostly just stood there in shock and dismay.

And then Mom C approaches. She had been in the main room, saw us walk in, and followed us down the hall to let me know her thoughts. And they were that I should never have ‘allowed’ this and thank God it wasn’t next year when he was in Kindergarten since I would have had to put my foot down and ‘forbidden’ it. To which I calmly replied that I would do no such thing and couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. She continued on and on about how mean children could be and how he would be ridiculed.

My response to that: The only people that seem to have a problem with it is their mothers.

Nerdy had an appropriate response—well verbal response, perhaps the most appropriate would have been decking the stupid woman but the kids were watching.

But here’s the point, it is none of your damn business.

If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.

Now remember these Christian mothers were doing this in front of the boy. They were basically bullying a 5-year-old over his choice of Halloween costumes, and trying to do the same to this mother. Nerdy wrote: "IT IS NOT OK TO BULLY. Even if you wrap it up in a bow and call it 'concern.' Those women were trying to bully me. And my son. MY son."

To argue that children could be mean, in this case, was absurd. It was the Christian mothers who were being mean, but they worship someone who promises to torture the vast majority of humanity for eternity. Can children be mean? Yes, but where do these mothers think the kids learn to act that way? Perhaps from the cruel example set by their own mothers.

Nerdy said that she has no idea if her son will be gay or not but made it clear that she will love him just the same either way. Her job, she says, is not to stifle the man he will become but make sure he is a good person. Of course, if dressing in drag at Halloween would make people gay then apparently there are more gay men around than the world will ever realize.

Most the comments left at the blog were supportive of Nerdy and praising her for her mothering skills. But a few self-described Christians just "had" to preach their gospel of intolerance. Kelly wanted Nerdy to know: "The Bible condemns homosexuality and cross-dressing VERY clearly and I can expect that from the world, but not from Christians. The reasons why Christians are against homosexuality is NOT because we 'hate' homosexuals, but quite the opposite." Sure, dear, I believe that, sort of the way the Nazis loved the Jews to death. Of course Kelly doesn't have to torment people, she has an imaginary friend who will do it for her: "I believe in hell and know it is a place of eternal torment. The Bible is clear on that and what takes you there." Apparently dressing up as Daphne for Halloween is a good enough reason for Jehovah to torture someone for eternity. Wow!

Others accused Nerdy of "whoring out" her son. One said: "This is such an attention whore move." Another offered the detailed argument of: "You're an idiot." I had more that I wanted to mention, especially a particularly silly comment from one "babybooty." But the blog doesn't seem to show all the comments in any particular order. The comment was there and I was starting to take notes when the power went out. When it came back I returned to the site and have spent 30 minutes looking for that silly comment to finish this piece and can't find it.

UPDATE: After writing this I was shocked to see exactly how people have responded. People have accused this mother of child abuse, of all things, because she stood up for her son when some stupid adults were upset with his Halloween costume. CNN brought on some clinical psychologist, Jeff Gardere, who went as far as to say that "the worst nightmare" of any parent is to "fathom that their child may be gay." The worst nightmare! Shit. Is he kidding? I suspect his mother was worried her son might turn out to be an asswipe. If she was, it was with good reason.



He may be trying to be supportive but his comment that this is the worst nightmare of a parent is absurd.

Some busybody "child" advocacy group in the UK voiced an opinion saying that the blog post was a "troubling and disturbing precedent." They claim the mother has an adult agenda and is imposing it on her kid.

Get some perspective. The mother posted on her blog which was read by very few people, mostly friends. She shares her life with those friends via the blog. This one posting went viral but we have no evidence she intended for that to happen. In fact she was quite surprised by it.

People have argued that boy will be humiliated in years to come by it. Well, I have a photo of me as a child in an ROTC uniform because the school I attended had an ROTC program--they even taught us how to shoot at the school's firing range. I hate that photo.

Many, like this psychologist, seem to think the mother "outed" her young son. Absurd. She said: "My son is gay. Or he's not." She was responding to the hysteria that dressing this way will turn him gay—something people actually said to her in the comments section of her blog.

And while I like Steve Forbes as a person, and he was always pleasant with me, a commentator at his magazine's website is just off the wall. The Forbes blogger, Caroline Howard, calls this "Bad Mommy Blogging." She distorts what Nerdy wrote and claims "she convinced her son to don a costume he wasn't comfortable wearing."

Actually the boy became worried that some kids might ridicule him and she told him that she didn't think they would do that over a Halloween costume. She was actually right. The kids were fine with it but the mothers were the vultures. Howard seems to be of the opinion that blogging about one's children invades their privacy and is off limits and that there was a political agenda at work here. Odd they never say that when the Republican "family" candidate drags his kids out to the podium to display them before the public. Nerdy didn't drag her kid into the spotlight, she didn't expect the spotlight to be turned on at all.

As for those political candidates using their kids, one such politician that I knew dragged her whole family in for a photo for a campaign brochure that was mailed around the country. She gave me a copy of it and I had to chuckle. Apparently no one noticed that her teenage son was sitting with the family with his middle finger displaying his own view about the whole thing.

Tough luck Chuck or why its hard to go into business

Our friends at the Institute for Justice put out this little video to illustrate the impediments that local governments put in the way of people wanting to go into business. It is worth a few minutes of your time.

The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto investigated how government regulations in Peru kept people poor. He tracked the steps necessary to open a business and had teams of people going through the process. It literally took full time work, for over a year, to register just one business legally. The result was that most businesses operated illegally and were frozen out of capital markets as a result. This was true, not only of businesses, but of property rights as well.

One of the hallmarks of a third world country is how difficult these governments make it to open businesses legally. The regulatory maze is one geared to those who are well off and educated. It costs a lot of money to maneuver that labyrinth of regulations and it is not cheap. Regulations thus tend to weed out out the poor and least educated, who often make great entrepreneurs regardless of those factors.

The rise of the regulatory state has impacted the poorest, most vulnerable members of society the most. Any regulation can be handled if you are wealthy enough, which is one reason that Big Business has consistently promoted candidates that want to regulate markets. Regulations can be manipulated so that they are anti-competitive and transfer market share, and thus wealth, to the big players in the field.

When my grandmother was a girl anyone who wanted to start a business could build a handcart, buy some products and start hawking their goods. The big department stores, using their political clout, put a stop to that through regulations which the politicians claimed were necessary to protect the public.

Consider immigratin regulations: my great-great-grandfather Jules Pepin (1838-1898) migrated to Chicago with his brother-in-law Joseph Bernard. Uncle Joe was 16-years-old when he walked to the US to join the Union troops because of his desire to set the slaves free. He returned to Quebec and with Jules came back to the U.S. to settle permanently. My great-grandfather Axel Hansson (1865-1955)

Similarly when my great-great grandfather Jules Pepin (1838-1898) left Montreal to walk to the U.S. to join the cause of Abolitionism that was all he had to do: walk into the country. Another great-grandfather, Axel Hansson (1865-1955), simply boarded a ship in Sweden and came to America. The process was simple and many of the poorest people of the world, at least those with ambition, came to this country. Some like Jules and Joe just walked, others like Axel sailed. But they had no regulatory maze blocking their way. And these are the people who made America great.

Now such people are kept out. Sure there is a "legal" means of immigrating, provided you have lots of money and sufficient education to get through the process. The process prevents those who would most benefit from immigration from doing so. The fact is that when our ancestors "legally" immigrated they did so because there wasn't a regulatory wall preventing it. Now there is just such a wall and that is why those looking for work have to sneak in. The legal options were closed off to them. Regulations benefit the rich, the well-off and the educated.

This is one of the most important things I wish my friend on the Left would understand. The regulatory state is one that transfers rights and wealth from the poorest sectors of the economy to the wealthiest—not the other way around.

Science saved my soul

This is a fascinating video of about 15 minutes. It is something I agree with entirely.

And then, for a rather different take on the same thing.

Why Obama Should Love the Tea Party.

Obama should get down on his knees and thank the powers that don't exist for the Tea Party movement. Obama was leading the Democrats into a slaughter. He did as much harm to the Democrats as Dubya did to the Republicans in the last election.

It was clear all along that the Republicans would make substantial gains in the House. As bad as that would be for Obama, it would be absolutely disastrous if he lost the Senate to the Republicans as well.

But, out of nowhere, the Tea Party came riding in on their extremely white horse (all the brown horses were arrested and deported) to save the president's ass.

Let us recount exactly how the Tea Party rescued Obama from his self-brewed disaster.

As things stand, as I write this, the Democrats will retain control of the Senate 51-49. All they needed was to lose two more seats and the Republicans would be in charge there.

So why didn't the Republicans pick up these seats?

Start in Delaware where Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell knocked Mike Castle out of the race in the primary. This was widely seen as a safe seat for Castle, who ought to have won rather easily. But O'Donnell was the sort of Religious-right loons that are attracted to the Tea Party like moths to a flame. Her views were simply too extreme for the voters to stomach. So what probably would have been a win for Mike Castle was easily turned into a defeat for Christine O'Donnell. It appears that she will lose the race by 16 points, a landslide defeat in most cases. O'Donnell moved a fairly safe Republican seat to the Democrats.

Now move to Nevada where Senate majority leader Harry Reid was fighting for his life. Sharron Angle was perhaps the most extreme of the Republican Tea Party types. Reid was in big trouble and his seat was a strong pick-up opportunity for the Republicans. But Angle's campaign was just too extreme and Reid won with a 5 point margin. That was much better than it ought to have been.

Those two seats alone gave the Democrats the Senate. But I suspect there is more at play still.

It appears to me that the Tea Party candidates had a direct impact on the California race. Barbara Boxer was in trouble. She was so closely tied to Obama that she was in trouble. It would have been a good thing had she lost, in my opinion.

Carly Fiorina ran against Boxer but she is going down to defeat. Fiorina was the victim of a vicious smear campaign by Boxer, and it worked. And the smear that seemed most effective was Boxer's linking Fiorina to "extreme" positions. Californians were skeptical of the Tea Party movement and to extreme Right positions. Linking Fiorina to "extremism" was effective. I won't say it scared people into Boxer's camp. But what it did do was give Democrats a reason to vote.

People in this election did NOT vote for anyone. They voted AGAINST someone. For Boxer to win she needed to give Democrats a reason to come out and vote against Fiorina. The "too extreme for California" smear was the means of doing that. There were enough, very extreme Tea Party Republicans running, and saying monstrous things, that the "too extreme" campaign resonated with many California voters and Boxer benefitted from that. Fiorina was not a Tea Party candidate and Boxer succeeded by making it appear as if she were.

Is Obama a Keynesian?

I love how this so quickly shows that the Tea Party doesn't have a monopoly on morons.

This reminds of the time Steve Allan went into the streets of New York, in the 1960s and did man on the street interviews asking people if they would consider voting for an admitted heterosexual. I love the woman who responded: "Oh, no, I could never vote for one of them." Hilarious.

The bad news, however, is that today is election day. Unfortunately one way or another one of the candidates will win. Sorry.

Obama, are you f.cking paying attention?

My heart goes out to this couple. I know how painful it must be for this to happen to them because the federal government refuses to recognize gay marriages, even when the couples are married in those states that recognize these relationships.

The Feds can stop the deportations but Obama doesn't care about gay couples. Surely the gay community has woken up to that fact. The man is all talk and no action.