Quotulatiousness

January 4, 2012

Santorum is the “Spock with a beard” universe version of Ron Paul

Filed under: Economics, Government, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:55

Michael Tanner enumerates the Santorum attributes his evangelical conservative fans seem to find most attractive:

There is no doubt that Santorum is deeply conservative on social issues. He is ardently anti-abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and no one takes a stronger stand against gay rights. In fact, with his comparison of gay sex to “man on dog” relationships, Santorum seldom even makes a pretense of tolerance. While that sort of rhetoric may play well in Iowa pulpits, it will be far less well received elsewhere in the nation.

[. . .]

Santorum’s voting record shows that he embraced George Bush–style “big-government conservatism.” For example, he supported the Medicare prescription-drug benefit and No Child Left Behind.

He never met an earmark that he didn’t like. In fact, it wasn’t just earmarks for his own state that he favored, which might be forgiven as pure electoral pragmatism, but earmarks for everyone, including the notorious “Bridge to Nowhere.” The quintessential Washington insider, he worked closely with Tom DeLay to set up the “K Street Project,” linking lobbyists with the GOP leadership.

He voted against NAFTA and has long opposed free trade. He backed higher tariffs on everything from steel to honey. He still supports an industrial policy with the government tilting the playing field toward manufacturing industries and picking winners and losers.

In fact, Santorum might be viewed as the mirror image of Ron Paul. If Ron Paul’s campaign has been based on the concept of simply having government leave us alone, Santorum rejects that entire concept. True liberty, he writes, is not “the freedom to be left alone,” but “the freedom to attend to one’s duties to God, to family, and to neighbors.” And he seems fully prepared to use the power of government to support his interpretation of those duties.

December 28, 2011

Dan Savage not worried about anti-gay stance in Ron Paul’s newsletters

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:08

The man who perhaps single-handedly saved us from a Santorum presidency doesn’t think the anti-gay comments in Ron Paul’s newsletters matter:

In 2011, the press has discovered — for the third time — the newsletters Paul sold in the years between his failed 1984 Senate bid and his congressional comeback in 1996. They reveal Paul (or his ghostwriter) to be a scared cynic with paranoid thoughts about blacks, gays, and Israel. The comments about black men — including their supposed “criminal” tendencies — have attracted wide attention. But the newsletters were often just as vitriolic about gay people, saying they were “far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.” A “gay lobby” suppressed the truth about AIDS, the newsletters claimed. “I miss the closet,” groaned Paul-or-his-ghost.

Republicans aren’t supposed to survive comments like that. Gay activists have “glitter-bombed” Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, showering them with sparkles to shame them for their anti-gay rights stances. After Rick Santorum compared gay sex to “man on dog” sex, Dan Savage told fans to Google-bomb “Santorum,” propagating the idea that it’s a Latin-sounding word for “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.” That was six years ago. Santorum still gets humiliating questions about it.

Nobody grills Paul about this stuff. When I asked Savage about the ugly comments in old Paul Survival Reports, he shrugged them off. “Ron Paul can have the closet,” he said. “He might miss it, but we sure don’t. Maybe there’s room in there for his old newsletters?”

There is no comparing Paul and Santorum, said Savage, because Paul is a leave-us-alone libertarian. “Ron is older than my father, far less toxic than Santorum, and, as he isn’t beloved of religious conservatives, he isn’t out there stoking the hatreds of our social and political enemies,” he explained. “And Ron may not like gay people, and may not want to hang out with us or use our toilets, but he’s content to leave us the fuck alone and recognizes that gay citizens are entitled to the same rights as all other citizens. Santorum, on the other hand, believes that his bigotry must be given the force of law. That’s an important difference.”

November 18, 2011

A topic that sends the Guardian off into deep social conservative waters

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:35

Of the various British papers I link to on a regular basis, the Guardian is the most liberal. It can generally be depended upon to come down on the liberal side of any question except for one:

… on the broad subject area of sex and sexuality, the Guardian, more often than not, comes down on the side of repression. The paper comes very much from the liberal, middle-class, English tradition, and the one subject the English middle-classes have always had trouble dealing with is sex. The Guardian also tends to take anti-sex campaigners more seriously if they adopt the “feminist” label than if they crusade under a more old-fashioned “morality” banner. On this subject, the Guardian’s coverage can swing from liberal to deeply conservative in the blink of an eye.

I blogged recently about the UK Government’s steps towards Internet censorship, using the excuse of “protecting children from pornography”. The Guardian, normally a warrior against censorship, lost its mind in an editorial on the subject, using Daily Mail-type phrasing such as “…bombarding of people’s homes and children by pornography…” and “…the destructive effects of pornography on relationships and values…“. The editorial also mentioned a recent government-commissioned report on “sexualisation”, neglecting to mention that it came from a Christian lobbying organisation. The idea that anyone who doesn’t want to see porn is “bombarded” with it is of course laughable, and serious research on porn has yet to reveal the harmful side effects claimed by conservatives of various shades.

And this wasn’t a one-off: on the icky subject of sex, the Guardian is often deeply conservative. I recently interviewed strippers who are defending themselves against campaigners who threaten their right to work in the London boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets (podcast coming soon). These women are articulate, well-paid and belong to trade unions. Yet, the Guardian is apparently convinced that stripping is bad, and refuses to take seriously the voices of the women themselves who earn a living that way; instead, they give a platform to “feminist” (aka sexual morality) groups who use fascist-style propaganda methods (such as claiming a non-existent link between strip venues and rape) to attack the venues and the people who work in them. While women who strip have offered to write for the Guardian about their experiences, only one ex-dancer, Homa Khaleeli is published, because she tells “the truth about lap dancing” — in other words, she makes the “exploitation” and “objectification” noises that Guardianistas want to hear.

The Guardian has a confused idea of defending sexual freedom. While Gay, Lesbian, Transgender issues are treated with the appropriate straight-faced correctness, other forms of sexuality and sexual freedom have Guardian journos giggling like school children. Fetishes, swinging, polyamory, BDSM, open lifestyles, bisexuality and sex work… these aren’t causes for free speech but excuses for the Guardian to pander to middle-England prejudices (and have a good, Carry On giggle in the process).

November 12, 2011

Scottish Conservative Party goes non-conservative with new leader

Filed under: Britain, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:09

It sounds like the set-up to a joke, but it really is true: the new party leader is a lesbian kick-boxer:

The 32-year-old former BBC journalist edged out Murdo Fraser by only 566 votes in the bad-tempered contest after he argued the Tory brand was too mistrusted north of the Border for the party ever to succeed.

But Miss Davidson, who is openly gay and a kick boxer, said she will unite the deeply-divided party and attract new support from sections of Scottish society that have stopped listening to the Conservatives.

The result marks the culmination of a remarkably rapid political ascent. She joined the party two years ago and only won election as a Glasgow MSP in May after the Tories’ first-choice candidate was forced to stand down over his financial history.

She won the endorsement of only two other MSPs during the campaign, with the largest group backing Mr Fraser and his plan to replace the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party with a new organisation.

October 17, 2011

It was “a moment of mass credulity on the part of the nation’s media”

Filed under: Britain, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:59

Cory Doctorow points out that no “adult content” filter is a replacement for parental guidance and supervision:

Last week’s announcement of a national scheme to “block adult content at the point of subscription” (as the BBC’s website had it) was a moment of mass credulity on the part of the nation’s media, and an example of how complex technical questions and hot-button save-the-children political pandering are a marriage made in hell when it comes to critical analysis in the press.

Under No 10’s proposal, the UK’s major ISPs — BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin — will invite new subscribers to opt in or out of an “adult content filter.” But for all the splashy reporting on this that dominated the news cycle, no one seemed to be asking exactly what “adult content” is, and how the filters’ operators will be able to find and block it.

Adult content covers a lot of ground. While the media of the day kept mentioning pornography in this context, existing “adult” filters often block gambling sites and dating sites (both subjects that are generally considered “adult” but aren’t anything like pornography), while others block information about reproductive health and counselling services aimed at GBLT teens (gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender).

[. . .]

The web is vast, and adult content is a term that is so broad as to be meaningless. Even if we could all agree on what adult content was, there simply aren’t enough bluenoses and pecksniffs to examine and correctly classify even a large fraction of the web, let alone all of it (despite the Radio 4 newsreader’s repeated assertion that the new filter would “block all adult content”.)

What that means is that parents who opt their families into the scheme are in for a nasty shock: first, when their kids (inevitably) discover the vast quantities of actual, no-fooling pornography that the filter misses; and second, when they themselves discover that their internet is now substantially broken, with equally vast swathes of legitimate material blocked.

September 19, 2011

Why are kids using the word “gay” to mean “lame”?

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Brendan O’Neill isn’t going to get letters of love and support for his current column in the Telegraph:

One thing that causes great consternation amongst schoolteachers, commentators and gay-rights activists is that young people use the word gay to mean “rubbish”. Last week it was reported that thousands of schoolchildren, some as young as four, have been reported to their local authorities for using racist or homophobic language, including using “gay” as a stand-in for “naff”. One boy was reprimanded for saying in class: “This work’s gay.” This follows other gay-as-rubbish controversies, including a tsunami of newspaper outrage when, in 2006, BBC Radio 1 presenter Chris Moyles described a mobile phone ringtone as “gay”, and even more outrage when the BBC inquiry into his remark ruled that the word gay is “often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish’. This is widespread current usage… among young people.”

But is it really such a mystery as to why the word gay has come to mean rubbish? It seems obvious to me. It is because gay culture is quite knowingly and resolutely lame. I don’t mean culture that happens to be produced by homosexuals, which includes some of the greatest art in history. No, I mean the stuff that passes for mainstream “gay culture”, foisted upon us by gay TV producers, filmmakers and magazine publishers, which is almost always shallow and camp and kitsch. That is, crap. If young people associate “gay” with “rubbish”, then they’re more perceptive than we give them credit for — they have twigged that, sadly, what is these days packaged up us as “gay culture” is almost always patronising pap.

August 17, 2011

Maclean’s on transgendered teens

Filed under: Cancon, Health — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:19

Maclean’s covers a controversial topic:

Treatment of GID is highly controversial. Some experts believe that the best way to help children and teens is to convince them to accept their bodies and not undergo the therapies that will cause dramatic physical changes. Cormac, however, lives in Vancouver, where pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Daniel Metzger and the B.C. Transgender Care Group are based. The loosely organized group, of which Metzger is a member, is the sole provider of care for transgender youth in B.C. and offers the most extensive suite of medical services for GID adolescents in Canada. Metzger believes that the best course of treatment for teenagers diagnosed with GID is hormone therapy: either blockers to stop puberty or, if post-pubescent, hormones that physically alter the body in a way that reflects their chosen gender. For some teens like Cormac, who are confident, psychologically stable and have family support, this transformation can be complemented further with cosmetic surgery.

Without treatment, Metzger argues, the path to adulthood for GID teens can be torturous, as evidenced by shockingly high suicide rates: 45 per cent for those aged 18-44, in comparison to the national average of 1.6 per cent, according to the U.S. 2010 National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report on Health and Health Care. Cormac carefully considers what life would be like today if he were still Amber. He pauses for a few seconds then gravely announces, “I think that would push me to be suicidal.” He is much more calm now, he says, free from his obsession with wanting to be a boy. “Before I transitioned I thought about it a lot, like, every minute. Now, I feel like I have so much extra brain space,” says Cormac, who is an honour roll student.

July 5, 2011

Would-be terrorists advised to pretend to be gay

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:42

A link from Jon, my former virtual landlord, discussing a document that fell into the hands of the Sunday Mirror:

al-Qaeda fanatics in Britain are being taught to avoid detection — by pretending to be gay.

A new terror training manual tells Islamic extremists to lie about their sexuality if a woman approaches them in case she is a “honeytrap” spy sent by security services.

The handbook, which was uncovered by a Sunday Mirror ­investigation, says: “Many hotels — especially in busy UK cities — have women hanging around the lobby areas in order to attract men.

“A young beautiful woman may come and talk to you. The first thing you do to protect yourself from such a ­situation is to make dua (prayers) to Allah for ­steadfastness.

“The second thing is to find an excuse to get away from her that is realistic and sensible, such as you having a girlfriend for the past few years and you are loyal to her or you are ­homosexual.”

The suggestion is one of many tips in the manual, called Class Notes From The Security and ­Intelligence Course.

Of course, if they were drawing their recruits from Pashtun tribesmen, they might not have to pretend much.

June 21, 2011

A neologism? A crippling political setback? It’s both!

Filed under: Media, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:49

When you read the word “santorum”, what do you think of? A small minority of people apparently believe it refers to an obscure American politician:

The world’s Wikifiddlers are obsessed with santorum. Though they can’t agree on what that is.

For some, it’s a word. For others, it’s not: it’s the result of a campaign to create a word. The distinction — however subtle — has sparked weeks of controversy among the core contributors to Wikipedia, the “free encyclopedia anyone can edit”. If you find this hard to believe, you’ve never been to Wikiland — and you’ve never Googled “Rick Santorum”.

Famously, Rick Santorum — the former Pennsylvania Senator and a Republican candidate for president of the United States — has a Google problem. But he also has a Wikipedia problem. And the two go hand-in-hand.

If nothing else, the whole controversy has added another variant meaning to the term “to be savaged”.

June 15, 2011

The “Amina Arraf” hoax

Filed under: Media, Middle East — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:48

Brendan O’Neill on how easily the hoaxer’s blog became “a go-to place for liberal hacks, bloggers and tweeters who wanted to know ‘the truth’ about life in Syria.”

The revelation that the Gay Girl in Damascus is actually a stubbly bloke in Edinburgh has sent shockwaves through the media. ‘How could he have done this?’, journalists are demanding of Tom MacMaster, the American self-confessed nerd based in Scotland who for six months pretended to be a dissident dyke in Syria. ‘Doesn’t he know the damage he has done to gay people in the Middle East and to the reputation of political blogging?’

These are the wrong questions. Because the most striking thing about this blogging hoax is not its potential impact over there, but what it reveals about culture, politics and journalism over here. The thing that ought to cause jaws to drop and eyebrows to rise is not Mr MacMaster’s deceitfulness — he isn’t the first mundane man to masquerade as something sexier on the world wide web — but rather the ease with which he planted himself in the cultural consciousness. It is the manipulability of the modern media, their wide-eyed openness to unchecked foreign stories that seem to confirm their prejudices, which should really be in the spotlight.

[. . .]

The media’s current focus on the clever nature of the gay-girl hoax (‘it is an elaborate hoax’, says a track-covering Guardian), overlooks what is easily the most important dynamic in this story: not MacMaster’s alleged powers of persuasion, but the media’s susceptibility to delusion. However well-written or seemingly authentic MacMaster’s blog was — and as it happens, some Syrians have said it was unconvincing — the fact is that it was just a blog; just a self-started website with various bits of personal writing and nothing to suggest that any of it was accurate or authoritative. Those complaining about being duped, Scooby Doo-style, by the apparent master of disguise that is Tom MacMaster need to have a word with themselves: it was their openness to being duped, their embrace of the seemingly made-in-heaven ‘gay girl in Damascus’ narrative with its achingly right-on contrast between a morally sensitive LGBT gal and a male-dominated regime, which really blew this blog out of all proportion.

May 17, 2011

The Freakonomics approach to sexual research

Filed under: Economics, Randomness, Science — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:56

Inspired by the Freakonomics team and their “let the data lead the way” methods, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam talk about their new book A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire:

Since we’ve written a book offering new ideas about a very intimate and politicized subject — sexual desire — you may be wondering about our identities and ideologies. We’re both heterosexual males. Ogi is 40 and half-Latino, Sai is 30 and all Indian. We kicked off our controversial research project with one overriding principle partially inspired by Freakonomics: no agenda, no ideology, just follow the data wherever it leads.

And the data led us to some very strange places. Here are some of our findings: heterosexual men like shemale porn, large-penis porn, and fantasies of their wives sleeping with other men. Gay male sexuality is almost identical to straight male sexuality. Women prefer stories to visuals, though women who do prefer visuals tend to have a higher sex drive, exhibit greater social aggression, and are more comfortable taking risks. Men prefer overweight women to underweight women. Heterosexual women like stories about two masculine men sharing their tender side and having sex. Porn featuring women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s is popular among men both young and old. For women, online erotica is often a social enterprise, while for men it’s almost always a solitary one. Most men are wired to be aroused by sexual dominance and most women are wired to be aroused by sexual submission, though a large minority of straight men (and a majority of gay men) prefer the sexually submissive role, and a small minority of women prefer the sexually dominant role.

They then answer a series of questions posed by Freakonomics readers, some of which are quite hostile in tone.

April 4, 2011

No wonder India does not want this Gandhi biography to be published

Filed under: Books, History, India, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:00

Based on this Wall Street Journal review, it’s far from being another hagiography:

Joseph Lelyveld has written a ­generally admiring book about ­Mohandas Gandhi, the man credited with leading India to independence from Britain in 1947. Yet “Great Soul” also obligingly gives readers more than enough information to discern that he was a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist — one who was often downright cruel to those around him. Gandhi was therefore the archetypal 20th-century progressive ­intellectual, professing his love for ­mankind as a concept while actually ­despising people as individuals.

The strongest objection raised in the Indian debate appears to have been the suggestion that Gandhi was bisexual:

Yet as Mr. Lelyveld makes abundantly clear, Gandhi’s organ probably only rarely became aroused with his naked young ladies, because the love of his life was a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder, Hermann Kallenbach, for whom Gandhi left his wife in 1908. “Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom,” he wrote to Kallenbach. “The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed.” For some ­reason, cotton wool and Vaseline were “a constant reminder” of Kallenbach, which Mr. Lelyveld believes might ­relate to the enemas Gandhi gave ­himself, although there could be other, less generous, explanations.

Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach about “how completely you have taken ­possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.” Gandhi nicknamed himself “Upper House” and Kallenbach “Lower House,” and he made Lower House promise not to “look lustfully upon any woman.” The two then pledged “more love, and yet more love . . . such love as they hope the world has not yet seen.”

February 21, 2011

Facebook? Inconsistent enforcement of terms and conditions? Say it ain’t so!

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

Facebook is having another of its periodic mood swings on just what exactly their terms and conditions really mean:

Facebook has announced it is actively reviewing its policy of a total ban on all content relating to sexual activities.

The review follows the deletion on 4 February of Collared Events page following a complaint from a site user. This deletion angered and mystified many members and supporters of Collared, which operates Slaves and Masters Club Nights and which identifies itself as a community non-profit organisation with a focus on safety and socialization. It used the Facebook page merely as a means to communicate.

There was no explicit imagery or sexual content of any kind and the page was set to “secret”. The page strictly followed the Facebook Terms. Facebook initially cited its user condition (3.7) that: “You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

However, following extensive dialogue with senior staff at the company, including Richard Allan, Facebook’s Head of Policy for Europe, Collared has apparently stirred Facebook into reviewing not just this ban but its entire policy. A wide ranging “internal dialogue” is now under way.

Simon, who runs Collared, told the Reg: “I feel that Facebook are in complete confusion on this issue. The problem is that their policy is inconsistent and whether a site survives or not depends on whether a site is able to lobby the right person in the company — and not offend the wrong one.

Last time it was non-pornographic breastfeeding information groups being banned, and now gay, lesbian, and transgender groups are worried that this new interpretation will have their Facebook pages banned without warning, too. Makes you wonder if there’s been a silent take-over by the religious right, doesn’t it?

December 21, 2010

This goes far beyond accepting the end of “DADT”

Filed under: Asia, Health, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:40

As I posted back in January, one of the problems western troops have in dealing with Pashtuns in Afghanistan is the radically different sexual culture, including barely concealed pedophilia:

The vast gulf between U.S. and Afghan attitudes about homosexuality and pedophilia has generated concern among U.S. advisers in Afghanistan since the American presence there began to expand.

In late 2009, U.S. and British forces ordered a study of Pashtun male sexuality. They were worried that homosexuality and pedophilia among Afghan security forces and tribes could create cultural misunderstanding with allied troops, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Washington Examiner.

[. . .]

“I know Marines and soldiers who have refused to work with Afghan military or police,” said one U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s not about homosexuality as much as it is about the young boys. Some of them like to show pictures on their cell phone — that should be illegal. Some of the Afghans have their own young boys they use for sexual purposes and we can’t do anything about it.”

[. . .]

“Homosexuality is strictly prohibited in Islam, but cultural interpretations of Islamic teaching prevalent in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan tacitly condone it in comparison to heterosexual relationships,” the study states.

For a male to have sex with a boy is considered a “foible,” the report said. By contrast, having sex with an “ineligible woman” would set up “issues of revenge and honor killings.”

Years of living under that cultural construct have greatly altered sexual attitudes, the study said. “One of the country’s favorite sayings is ‘women are for children, boys are for pleasure,” the report noted.

December 17, 2010

Gay and lesbian couples’ income levels

Filed under: Economics, Education, Randomness, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:59

As this article asserts, I don’t remember where I heard the “fact” that gay couples had higher incomes than heterosexual couples, but it seemed likely to be true. Apparently not:

The myth of gay money holds that “gays” (really just gay males) are high-income or rich. Why? Mostly because they don’t have kids, especially not when two guys live together. (That would make them DINKs.)

This myth was relentlessly propagated through the 1990s and persists today. Maybe you couldn’t put your finger on where you heard it (perhaps in a newspaper article?), but the stereotype is out there. And it isn’t true.

[. . .]

Why do gay males have generally lower incomes than straight males?

  • Gay males have more education than straight males, but they do not choose male-dominated professions as often as straight males do. In fact, they choose female-dominated and/or service professions much more often. Male-dominated professions (like construction) have generally higher wages than female-dominated professions (like secretarial).
  • Gay males work fewer hours than straight males.

Why do lesbians generally have higher income than straight females? It’s almost the inverse of the gay-male trend.

  • Lesbians also have more education than straight females, but they work longer hours — because, generally speaking, they are less likely to have children to take care of at home.
  • Lesbians are overrepresented in male-dominated professions that pay better than female-dominated professions.

What about discrimination? It’s a ready excuse to explain away the “few” gays who don’t meet the stereotype of being affluent. (That’s what press coverage would tell you – that just a few of us aren’t affluent. In reality, it’s most of us.) But the statistical evidence for discrimination as a cause of lower gay incomes is weak at best, and of course falls down completely in the case of lesbians, who, most studies agree, have higher incomes than straight females. Discrimination is clearly a factor sometimes; it just isn’t a credible explanation for the whole effect, which doesn’t apply to half of the population we’re talking about.

H/T to Freakonomics blog for the link.

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