JABbering Stooge

An oldie, but goodie from the local fishwrap (registration required):

Born gay?
Growing body of research points to biological explanations for sexual orientation.
By Sandy Doughton

THE SEATTLE TIMES

Sunday, July 03, 2005

SEATTLE — As the culture wars rage over gay rights, a flock of sheep at Oregon State University may help answer a key question behind the controversy: Is homosexuality a matter of choice or biology?

*snip*

Sheep aren’t people, but the Oregon work adds to a growing body of research that bolsters biological explanations for sexual orientation across species — including humans.

In other words: BEING GAY ISN’T A CHOICE! (Not that that will stop the scienceophobes of the right from continuing to bleat otherwise - just look at the persistence of anti-evolution rhetoric).

The social and political implications of the research are impossible to ignore, leading to unease on both sides of the gay-rights debate. If science proves homosexuality is innate, is there any basis to deny gays equal treatment — including the right to marry? But if scientists unravel the roots of sexual orientation, will it some day be possible to "fix" people who don’t fit the norms, or abort fetuses likely to be born gay?

Now there’s an unanticipated possibility that’ll send righties for a loop - do you send homos to a genetic "re-education camp" or do you "murder" them before they’re born? I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

And last fall, Italian scientists offered a possible explanation for the persistence of gay genes — even though evolution tends to weed out traits that discourage reproduction. The team from the University of Padua found that mothers and aunts of gay men had more offspring than female relatives of heterosexuals, suggesting genes that influence homosexuality in men may increase fertility in females.

‘Nuff said.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 14, 2005 2:40 AM)

This is interesting. According to The Hill (yes, I know, I just got done complaining about their preferential treatment of Bush, but this is important news that even AMERICAblog has yet to report on), Sam Hook and his wife, Shana Tesler, two of embattled DeLay associate Jack Abramoff’s fellow lawyers from his days at Greenberg Traurig have fled the country, deciding that Israel looked rather nice this time of year.

Although their attorney, Alyza Lewin insists that "Pursuant to longstanding plans that predate any investigation, Shana Tesler and Sam Hook have relocated to Israel" and that "One thing had nothing to do with the other," one can’t help but wonder if this had something to do with their decision:

Former White House counsel Lanny Davis said that the pair’s relocation could hamper the Justice Department investigation because it would be harder to enforce subpoenas abroad.

"Whether you are able to enforce a subpoena in a foreign country depends upon specific treaty commitments," Davis said, "but in general the answer is no… Even if you could try to enforce it through a treaty, it would be extremely difficult."

Well gee, isn’t that conveeenient?

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 14, 2005 2:27 AM)

If MSRNC is correct in its prediction, Bush is expected to name his nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on or around July 26. Whatever happens - or doesn’t happen - in the next two weeks will in all likelyhood affect how the nomination fight turns out. With this in mind, here are my thoughts on the subject.

I suppose I only have myself to blame. For some weird (and possibly masochistic) reason while I was on break on Wednesday night, I decided to turn the breakroom TV at work to MSRNC, when what to my wandering eyes should appear, but Joey "Dead Intern" Scarborough and - well, not tiny reindeer, but former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg. As you can expect, Scarborough did nothing but lob softballs at the partisan hack posing as an honest journalist, who used the questions as a launching off platform for demonizing anyone who disagrees with Dear Leader in the slightest. And his new book is no different.

Sorry if the next couple of posts are a bit behind the news cycle. I’ve been doing that uniquely American thing of working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

So yesterday morning, London had a bit of a 9/11 of its own, in that Al Qaeda, or an Al Qaeda-related organization set off three bombs in London’s subways and one on one of the ubiquitous double-decker buses.

I really can’t grok where this country is going, and even if I did, I don’t think I’d want to. Here are just a few examples:

Karl Marx Rove: Dems want to coddle terrorists

Let’s start off with Bush’s brain: Karl Rove. At a speech at the New York Conservative Party’s annual dinner, just north of ground zero (gee, Karl, opportunistic much?), Rove had the following "words of wisdom" about his ideological opponents:

It was one year ago today that Dick Cheney told Senator Leahy to perform a certain anatomically impossible activity.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jun. 22, 2005 5:46 PM)

According to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the increasingly ironically-named U.S. House of Representatives voted to strip from the $408.9 billion defense spending bill an amendment by David Obey (D-WI) that "criticized the Academy for allowing, ‘coercive and abusive religious proselytizing,’" and "called for the military to provide a plan to Congress ‘no later than 60 days’ following the enactment of the appropriations bills for ensuring the Academy ‘maintains a climate free from coercive religious intimidation and inappropriate proselytizing by Air Force officials and others in the chain-of-command…’" (this was also reported in the Washington post here).

And what do the co-dependent Democrats get for this insolence? More abuse from Republicans with nothing better to do than act out on a paranoid delusional persecution complex such as Rep. John Hostettler (R-American Inquisition):

AMERICAblog just mentioned today that Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has FINALLY signed onto the anti-lynching resolution.

So why does the junior senator from Texas persist in being part of the Republican Lynch Mob? Only he can answer that question.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jun. 21, 2005 4:58 PM)

MSRNC has as today’s poll "Do you agree with the jury’s verdict against Edgar Ray Killen?" - as if that needed to be asked. Yet, strangely enough, it seems that it did need to be asked, because at the time I voted (MSRNC, unlike CNN, forces you to vote in order to see the results), 17% said "No" and 8% voted "Can’t decide." Makes you wonder who those 17% are…

But what’s worse, that’s not how the question is presented on MSRNC’s frontpage: the link reads "Was the Edgar Ray Killen verdict fair?" It’s as if MSRNC is invoking the Michael Savage defense of the Serbs to play up sympathy for Killen.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jun. 21, 2005 4:47 PM)