Since my previous blog entry was an entirely partisan guess about how things are going to turn out…and is already approaching a potentially unwieldy one hundred comments…I invite folks who actually want to discuss this election night to do so here.
Since my previous blog entry was an entirely partisan guess about how things are going to turn out…and is already approaching a potentially unwieldy one hundred comments…I invite folks who actually want to discuss this election night to do so here.
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Of course, if you are proven right then YOU get to brag. No guts no glory.
Well, a (sarcasm)wonderful(/sarcasm) defense I saw for the Iraq war from somebody was that, on the issue of Iraq having WMD, that they’d rather be wrong than proven right.
Apparently people seem to think this attitude is ok when it has been at the cost of over 1000 American lives and who knows how many innocent Iraqis.
Or worse, that the deaths of innocent Iraqis is acceptable at all.
**You go look at gay marriage where it is legal in Europe and relationships last an average of 1.5 years, and the majority are not monogamous relationships.**
I just stumbled across this, and I just had to point out this example of statistical abuse.
First off, the “1.5 years” thing stated this way comes from a statistical game of telephone — except when one is playing telephone, one is supposed to try to repeat precisely, while the anti-gay lobby has a long history of clearly and purposely misdescribing study findings.
This particular measurement (presuming that it’s the same 1.5 year figure that is bouncing around the anti-gay-families sites) is culled from Dr. Maria Xiridou’s study, focusing on efforts to fight the spread of AIDS. The study is based in Amsterdam, where gay marriage was not legal until 2001, by which time most or all of the data for this study had been accumulated — not by Xiridou, but as part of the Amsterdam Cohort Study, which had been drawing in info for this for about 2 decades. The cohort study was not a random sample of homosexuals; it not only focused solely on young males, parts of the study actually specifically selected for promiscuity, picking only young male homosexuals who had had multiple partners within the previous six months.
But even if we were to ignore logic and accept that 1.5 year figure as being the length of the typical relationship for a young male homosexual, comparing it to the length of the typical marriage would be a bogus comparison. While some heterosexuals marry the first person they have a relationship, many (probably most, at least in the US) have several shorter relationships before they find the one they want to marry. These shorter relationships will bring that average down. If you took my average relationship even including the woman that I am now married to, it would likely come to less than a 1.5 years.
The anti-gay-family industry likes to claim they are fighting for morality, but their effort is so mired in dishonesty that one should not give their morality claims any credit.
Earlier I posted:
9.) Value of US$ continues to drop. Great for Canadians, not so great for Americans.
Looks like this one is coming true a whole lot faster than anyone expected. Despite the relatively positive jobs report of 377,000 newly created positions which came out this morning, the $ continued to weaken, particularly against the Euro. Most of the European leaders are blase about the situation, but an interesting point was made when it was noted that President Bush is probably happier than a clam with the situation for two reasons, one his openly touted and one mine privately opined:
The President’s: It makes US exports one heck of a lot cheaper abroad, thereby stimulating economic activity.
Mine: If you have to pay the horrendous cost of the war, you might as well do it with devalued currency, because it’ll be “cheaper”.
Of course the codicil to the President’s is that it brings higher interest rates, inflation, and all kinds of other corollary stuff that you might remember happened during the days of Reaganomics. Ah, the nostalgia of 15-20% interest rates. Those were the good ole’ days, yup yup.
Anyways, today the Canadian dollar appreciated by a full 3/4 of a cent, or an attendant drop in the exchange rate of over 1%. So you can see all the guys who bought forward contracts just two short weeks ago searching for the closest building ledge to go jump from. The rise has been astonishing and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
I’ll amend that prediction to state that the US dollar falls to within 10% of the Canadian dollar before six months is out. Maybe sooner.
By the way, I used the word “extrenched” in my earlier post about the gay marriage constitutional amendment. Of course I meant eNtrenched.
I think we should set up a betting pool on the draft issue. It is of course a sucker’s bet.
Happy happy joy joy.
Boo.