The Solution to Aids is... More Sex?

Admittedly, I haven't gone to the trouble of doing the complete analysis myself, but on the surface, this column does a remarkably good job of claiming that AIDS would spread less if sexual conservatives became less sexually conservative. One wonders what Pat Buchanan and the like would say to this.

Another Cool Instrument

Well, technically I guess these are MIDI controllers, but check out the Audiocubes anyway. Pretty cool.

My Cat

My crazy friend Ren has added pictures of my cat Saint to her cat's blog (yes, her cat has a blog, a facebook page, and probably will require a lot of therapy). So, should you happen to want to see pictures of my cat (or hers), click away.

Abortion, or Death and Suffering

I don't understand what the big deal is about death. So many people seem to think it's the scariest thing there is, and I just can't comprehend that. Death itself doesn't worry me at all. My beliefs being what they are, I'm pretty sure my consciousness won't be around to see what comes next, but even if I'm wrong about that, I'd still be far more curious than scared.

Suffering, on the other hand, is essentially the only bad thing in the world to me.

This viewpoint has consequences in other areas too, which I will no doubt address in later posts, but for the current purpose, I mention it so that you know where I am examining abortion from. Probably obviously, I conclude that it is worth making available to people. I find that whether abortion is a good idea depends on weighing the suffering caused by having the child against the suffering caused by aborting the child. And I think only the parents can really be the ones to make that call with any hope of accuracy.

While I'm on the topic anyway, here are a couple of interesting articles. First, there is the Dutch Abortion Boat, providing "abortion pills" in international waters near countries that criminalize abortion. Second, we have an unusual perspective, partly unusual because it's a male's perspective, and partly because of the health concerns that his wife faced while pregnant.

My Political Platform

If I was running for something, what would I advocate?

Well, for one, I would need to attempt to generate headlines as a form of advertising, so there may be a certain amount of focusing on weird or taboo topics. Luckily for my hypothetical campaign, people are notoriously stupid on a number of fronts, and I'd be able to make controversial statements part of my platform without compromising. I'll start with a few details in this vein:

1. Public Nudity: Seriously. Maybe you can make some arguments against disease spreading etc, but I'm sure that those can be minimized by, say, requiring clothing on buses etc (if that's even a problem in the first place). The point is, if somebody wants to walk around buck naked on their lawn, nobody should have the right to stop them. Now, I'm sure many of you are thinking something along the lines of "It SHOULD be illegal because DEAR GOD, I do NOT want to see wrinkly old man penis". Well hey now. I don't want to see ugly people, but if we're going to let them out we may as well let out the ugly body parts that comprise them. Also, some of you will worry about traffic accidents caused by rampant neck-craning. Although this likely wouldn't be an issue (how many people have actually taken advantage of legal toplessness, for instance?), the important thing is that if you're THAT excited by a naked body part or two, you CLEARLY aren't getting enough pornography. Get yourself a better internet connection (more on that later). More importantly, though many will CLAIM that others' nudity harms them, I don't believe it actually does.

2. Public Sex: Certain concessions may need to be made in the name of preventing disease spread, but seriously. Sex exists, and people should learn about it. To me, that's the end of the story.

3. Legalize It: Who does pot harm? A few people who overuse, and maybe the occasional bit of dealer-related violence/theft/etc. The latter could be all but eliminated simply by making it legal. Given its widespread availability, the former likely wouldn't be affected either way.

4. Gay "Marriage" and Polygamy: Remove all legal references to marriage and let gays and evangelicals whine amongst themselves about what constitutes marriage. This has the benefits of not wasting taxpayer money on keeping track of useless things like morally indicting happy unions. Many will object that polygamy is exploitative of children, but this objection is unfounded since we already have child abuse and statutory rape laws (though they may need to be toughened anyway, I hear that 14 is the legal sexual consent age here, and that seems too young even for me to allow - seriously, a 50 year old and a 14 year old? Yeesh). Anyway... Some may also object that polygamy exploits women generally. While that may be traditionally true, if a woman allows herself to be exploited in that manner, that's her business. We should do all we can to prevent her from being forced into a non-consensual union (we have anti-rape laws already), and try to provide her the ability to leave if she becomes unhappy (we have laws against abuse and provide shelters etc already), but if 3 men and 8 women somehow manage to be happy having a menage-a-onze, who the Hell are we to judge?

5. Lower Governmental Salaries: This is partly a shameless attempt to curry favour with the general populace, but I also advocate doing it in a specific way that makes a lot of sense: Specifically, set salaries for all levels of government (PM, MPP, etc) to the mean (or maybe median) income of the adult population. This gives government a direct financial incentive to create policies that are good for both the people and the economy.

6. Legal Assisted Suicide: Those who want to die should be able to have that right. I do not believe there is value in a life lived because of the inability to die.

7. Legal Prostitution: I think it's already legal in Canada provided that you don't solicit on corners, but I think efforts like Vancouver's sex co-op should be encouraged, not legally obstructed. I've posted on this before, feel free to see plenty more discussion there if you are interested.

Moving on to some of the less controversial stuff,

8. Public Car Insurance, Utilities, Communications, and anything else that is either Mandatory or requires country-wide infrastructure: There are 6 provinces with private car insurance, and 4 with public. Guess which 6 cost the public more! Look at what happened to electricity rates when they were set to be privatized. Look at the 407 highway (privately owned). It's a friggin' ROAD, and it costs more. Look at the fiasco that is Bell's phone lines and the competition rules that force them to lease their equipment to competitors at cost. Sure there are other reasons as well (population density), but here's a hint: when there's zero incentive to build, it's no wonder we massively lag behind places like South Korea and Hong Kong in this area. So, why doesn't the government own/build/maintain the infrastructure, and lease it to anyone who wants to be an ISP? Might even make the government some money while you drastically improve service.

9. Open Source Funding: Take like $1 million a year, and hire a few hackers to help improve Ubuntu, Open Office, or whatever other software the government needs. All improvements would essentially automatically be made available to anyone else who wants/needs them (universities, the general public, businesses, etc), and all of a sudden we as a nation aren't spending insane amounts of money on an American product. Not that I have anything against American products generally, just that we may as well spend less, run something more stable, secure, and easily customizeable, and let's face it, Microsoft just often sucks. There are enough eager people to help create an alternative that they're doing it on their own already. We may as well help accelerate it for cheap.

10. Open Standards Required for Government-related Computing: Much as I may hate MS and closed source software generally, I do not wish to mandate open source everywhere. Open standards, however, should be absolutely required for anything public. Why should we require Canadians to buy an American product to access government documents? We shouldn't. We should mandate the use of formats that are open, preferably the most popular format used by the most popular relevant open source application. Over time, this would also help to eliminate issues like "My Wordperfect document won't open in Word" for the general public.

11. Smaller Government and Fewer Laws: Because not EVERY right-wing idea is completely stupid.

12. Some form of Proportional Representation or Instant Runoff Voting: Currently, if I want to help elect a left-wing government, my BEST strategy would be to start a moderately right-wing party in all seriousness, and hope to split the vote. Does anyone else think the current system is just plain broken? One potential way this could be implemented is to get voters to rank all the candidates in order of preference from best to worst. Then, say you have three candidates, and voting as follows:
40% of people ranked Stephen Harper first, then the other two
35% of people ranked Paul Martin first, then Jack Layton second, then Harper third
25% of people ranked Layton first, Martin second, and Harper third
In the first "round", all the first votes are counted, and whoever has the least is discarded. In our example, this would be Layton. In the second round, all ballots would be renumbered to exclude Layton, i.e. it would now look like:
40% ranked Harper first, then Martin second
60% ranked Martin first, then Harper second
This is of course a simplistic analysis, but it demonstrates how this voting method gets around the problem of splitting the vote.

And this concludes an extremely long post. If anyone has any suggestions/additions, they are most welcome. Criticisms are welcome, but not AS welcome. :)

Think Again

If you should happen to turn out the light in your apartment, and realize that you left the door unlocked, and think to yourself "I know the locations of things in this room well enough to navigate to the door without bashing my shin painfully on the coffee table and likely waking both my girlfriend and cat", I suggest reconsidering.

Why It Doesn't Matter How Good You Are

After a cursory glance at the music industry, many conclude that a "good" song is more likely to succeed than a "bad" song. People might often think that even if Britney Spears isn't musically innovative, lyrically profound, or even a particularly good singer, that something about her songs has that certain je ne sais quoi, that undefinable trait that makes it great. Well, guess what. This article is essentially proof that there is no such trait. If you've ever wondered why there's such an incredibly low correlation between quality and popularity, this is the answer. The article explains it well enough without me chiming in, so I'll shut up now. Enjoy.

And on an entirely separate note, here are some "contronyms", which seem rather similar to my biggest grammar pet peeve from a few days ago.

The One Respectable Republican

First There was Colin (who pronounces their kid's name "Colon" anyway?) Powell. He gained respectability by advocating sex education and condom use. Sure, he did some other stuff, but as a Republican, that's what made me go "hey, this guy might actually have some credibility". Of course, then he basically resigned in disgrace after the WMD claims, and now nobody seems to really like to talk about him, Republicans because he isn't one of their ranks anymore, and Democrats because they all used to say "he's the GOOD one", but don't want to anymore because of his public pariah status. I personally suspect that he was essentially conned into saying what he said, but perhaps leaders have a responsibility not to get conned when it comes to making claims that cost thousands of lives.

Next, there was John McCain. He gained respectability in my eyes by not shying away from talk show appearances etc, and by appearing to be honest about things that could actually cause him slight political harm. Everybody may not LIKE a guy who says what's on his mind, but everyone respects him. Well, everybody respects him until he starts making ridiculous claims and backing them up with evidence thinner than the fabric covering the emperor's ass. I'm talking primarily about the claim that it's safe to walk around in Iraq, backed up by footage of McCain taking a leisurely stroll around a Baghdad market in a bulletproof vest accompanied by something like 100 armed soldiers, 3 helicopters, and 2 gunships. There's also the fact that he didn't seem to have a position on whether or not condoms prevent STDs. Maybe Colin Powell should talk to him about that...

With previously decent-appearing right-wing politicians disappearing like this, who will step in to fill the void? I suppose Dennis Kucinich gets some points for trying to impeach Bush, but I suspect that will fail, and at this point it's hardly worth the bother. Alternatively, my right-wing choice du jour could be Ron Paul, who I keep hearing good things about. Sure, he's got some wacky/stupid traditional Republican traits (I hear he's anti-abortion, for instance), but he gets major kudos for having the balls to oppose the Iraq war and vote no to the patriot act, and he also seems to actually espouse some of the views Republicans are supposed to, like smaller government and fiscal responsibility. Shrug. Anyone have any nasty comments about either of these since I'm too lazy to research them myself? Or anything positive to say about any other Republicans?

My Biggest Grammar Pet Peeve

For the most part, I don't really care that much about grammar. If people invent new words, they might be hard to understand at first, but at worst I just won't bother to figure out what they're saying. If people ignore proper structure but their meaning remains clear, no harm done, right? There's really just one thing that gets me: when what you say undermines what you mean.

The primary example of this that I encounter is "I could care less". Of course, it is almost certainly literally true that people could care less whenever they say this phrase, but that's not really the point of it. The proper phrase is "I couldn't care less", and is supposed to indicate "I care so little that it is not possible to care any less than I do". Those of you that say the incorrect version should really look up "hyperbole", but if you're the type of person who says that phrase, you probably won't.

Sadly, vastly more people seem to say the incorrect version than the correct one. Normally I tend to consider widespread usage as the definition of proper, but when the meaning is butchered like this, it simply undermines the integrity, usefulness, and intelligibility of our language. You ever wonder why English spelling and grammar rules always have exceptions? Because people don't think about what they say, and blindly parrot others. I suppose this is what happens in a society where the best predictors of your religion and political views are those of your parents.

So Long, Leafs

Sadly, the Islanders beat the Devils today, thus eliminating the Leafs. Yes, a bit confusing, but it was a very close race. Anyway, I suppose it's unlikely that any of the teams involved in the race were REALLY likely to do much in the postseason (well, maybe Tampa). I wish they would just use Aubin the whole season, personally. Shrug.

Hmm...

Okay. I may have to admit it. Tom Green has managed to make me think that rap may in fact involve some semblance of skill. Shrug. I still hate it. Judge for yourselves:



Edit: video temporarily gone.

Most Effective Safe Sex Ads Ever

These are just plain scary.

Unless of course you're the kind of person that likes this. In which case I find you confusing but really no worse than a meat eater in practice.

My First Retrospective

Looking back at previous posts, I submit this mind-bogglingly depressing story about a child prostitute in NY. It contains at least two reasons why criminalizing prostitution isn't helping:
1. This 13-year-old girl is a criminal.
2. It gives her pimp more ways to have control over her since:
a) she's committing a crime, and
b) she can't very well seek protection from the law.


Additionally, I've decided that my post on affirmative action is by a fair margin the least coherent and least well-thought-out thing on my blog to date. I still think all the things I said there, but I don't feel they are laid out as well as the rest of my stuff so far. Mental note: next time Terry gives me a topic, take a bit to gather my thoughts before rushing out to post.

It's Like Goldy And Bronzy, Only It's Made Of Iron...

Looks like someone's predictions were about 23 years too late.

Someone Covered My Humps?

Again for those not as inclined to read a long post:

This is funny, but it's also kinda edgy and awkward and gets old fast. I couldn't watch the whole thing, but it seemed worth a post.

What is going on? Seriously. This is just weird.

Affirmative Action

Aside from the fact that I can't seem to dissociate this topic from Brent Spiner, it seemed interesting, vaguely relevant to my N-bomb post, and Terry and I have agreed to experiment with requesting blog topics from each other, and he requested this. So, for starters, if any of you have any requests for topics, fire away.

Getting back to the topic at hand, the hardcore left-winger in me is tempted to condemn Whitey for his horrifying abuse of his fellow man and demand reparations, and the logical part of me is tempted to dismiss the whole concept out of hand because, at least by my definition, treating someone differently based on the colour of their skin is racism. Let's consider a few potential arguments for affirmative action:

1. White people stole the ability to make an honest living from black people. The money earned by whites on the backs of blacks was passed down through generations, and today's whites owe it to blacks.
There is some truth to this, but a host of problems too. The problems I see are:
a) How do you quantify who got what and who owes what?
b) If we are to follow principles like this, presumably large parts of North America need to be returned to the Natives, Most of Israel should be returned to Palestine (or was someone there before them?), etc etc. The point is, the changes grow large and impractical in a hurry.
c) Surely some historical whites and many present-day whites have never done anything racist and should not be punished.
d) Crimes demand trials, and how does one try a long-dead slave owner?
These problems are not necessarily unanswerable, but they're not easy, and they're almost certain to displease a lot of people.

2. Blacks have been left in a state of economic decay by slavery, the effects of which continue today. As such, whites must help by [insert some sort of preferential treatment of blacks here].
This one is perhaps a bit more practical, but still has some major problems. For one, it essentially is fighting racism with more racism. It is generally tacitly assumed that the preferential treatment of blacks will be less negative to whites than slavery was to blacks. The details of how to make this occur in a remotely fair fashion remain murky. The reason I say it is potentially more practical is that it can be addressed in a way that helps more black people but is not in fact racist, in my books at least. Specifically, if it is true that more blacks are poor due to the conditions they inherited, then better unemployment and social programs for the poor will result in preferential treatment of blacks without ever having to mention the word black or consider the colour of one's skin. It may be worth mentioning also that colour is a spectrum, and it is not always easy to define whether someone is black or not.

Up 'til now, you're probably thinking I sound pretty opposed to affirmative action. Here's the argument that I find most convincing, despite it being odd:

3. Traditionally, certain types of education are culturally dominated by non-blacks. For example, computer science at the university I did undergrad at was, to a gross approximation, mostly Asian and white, and not black at all. As such, although it is of course available to black people, those that wish to take it are stuck forging a path through cultural unfamiliarity, where they will likely know nobody and may have trouble finding people to work with etc. In practice, racial relations I saw were quite friendly, but the perception that those of a different race are unlikely to be a CLOSE friend persisted. Anyway, the point is that even though blacks can of course take computer science, there are incentives preventing them from doing so in the form of "no other black people are currently doing it".
Now, one can fairly logically dismiss this on the grounds that it's not our responsibility to have equal numbers of races in any given field, that blacks may have some social or genetic predisposition to prefer not doing computer science, or maybe other reasons too. Still, in practice, it is harder for a black person to follow that path than a white one, and if it's not too hard I think it might be worth doing something about that.

So, to sum up, the main points in favour of affirmative action are:
1. A great wrong was committed and never really punished/righted.
2. Blacks continue to face greater barriers in some areas.

The main points against it are:
1. It would be good to NOT submit innocent whites to discrimination on the basis of race.
2. Economic disparities by race can be addressed in a way that is practically preferential to that race, without resorting to any discussion of race, simply by adjusting the way we treat the poor.

So, I essentially would propose the following:
Treat the poor a bit better (especially in the US), and allow organizations to provide extra discriminatory support for ethnic groups FOR NOW. This would have minimal effects on innocent whites. I further would propose that the ability to establish scholarships for certain groups should be tied to the lack of students of that group in that field, for instance, we should not be promoting more males in engineering when the male-female ratio is 85:15, etc. That way there is a certain natural safeguard against it going "too far". Finally, since my proposed solution is essentially a bit unfair in favour of blacks, I think that any such additional assistance should be legally required to exponentially decrease over time. The goal would be that in 100 years or so, there would be no ability to discriminate based on colour, and that IF we had artificially created a situation where there were too many black computer scientists, it would eventually correct itself.

I figure it's either adopt some complicated system like the one above, or go with the simple one: no discrimination based on race for things like university admission, scholarships, pay rates, and so on.

How Government Should Address Gay Marriage

For those of you with attention spans too short to read that last post...

The government should remove any reference to marriage from the law entirely (what the Hell are we doing providing tax incentives to marry anyway?). Gay people will say they're married, and the crazy religious people will say marriage is ordained by God and is for one man and one woman only, and they can bicker amongst themselves. Problem solved.

Why I Should Be Able To Drop The N-bomb

If you define racism as "treating people differently based on the colour of their skin" (and if you don't, then people who do probably think you're a racist), then you are stuck allowing everybody to say it, or allowing nobody to say it.

Still reading? That's it. That's the whole argument. Nothing else should need to be said on the subject, but in the interests of getting more specific and possibly more provocative, I'll elaborate:

For one thing, if we as a society believe in free speech, people should be allowed to speak without regard to whether or not they are racist. Moreover, if we as a society believe that a calm, pleasant, logical discussion should help people realize the errors of their ways, then people who are in fact racist should be encouraged to express what they believe, provided that they do it calmly and pleasantly. As for those that are not racist, why would we even consider censoring them? Consider this statement:

"Nigger is an example of a racial slur."

Now, although I'm sure there will be the occasional dissenter somewhere, HOPEFULLY everyone reading this can agree that what I just said is not, in fact, me being racist or inappropriate. A few notes to mention here:
1. It's wrapped in quotes, as if someone other than me said it and I'm only reproducing it in the interests of accuracy.
2. It's stated in a way that implies the speaker is not condoning the pejorative use of the word.
3. It's stated in a way that is not intended to express hatred.
I contend that any one of the above three descriptions should be enough to make the use of the word acceptable. Examples follow:

1. The head of the KKK said, and I quote, "All niggers should be burned."
2. The negative connotations of nigger began with a link to slavery.

For an example of 3, I'll use a story that happened to a friend of mine. My friend, a white, bald, Polish university student, was meeting a friend of his in a reggae bar. He walked in, saw his friend (who is also white), and affectionately yelled "hey, my nigga!" He then looked around the bar and noticed that the entire rest of the bar (black) was staring at him. One guy went so far as to walk over and say "don't EVER do that again".

Now, IF the guy lecturing my friend would allow black people to say it (a fairly safe bet), then he is being racist. If not, then at least he's not being racist, but I still think that happily allowing it is the healthier approach.

Also, a word to address a common argument against the use of this particular slur. The common argument says "White people have never been victims of systematic racism, so they can't understand what it's like to be black, and as such black people should get to determine how racial issues are dealt with." While it is of course true that black people should have input into how racial issues are dealt with, and that I have never been systematically subjugated in all walks of life, here are some questions to those that would buy into this argument:
1. What about women? Gays? Jews? They've certainly dealt with more than their share of bigotry. Are they qualified to understand what it's like to be black? Further, since I and many black people have never been female or gay or Jewish, does this mean that we do not get any say in how female or gay or religious issues are addressed?
2. Reversing the argument, one comes up with: Black people HAVE been in a position of subjugation, and as such cannot understand what it's like to be a member of a race that traditionally held all the power and is now looking for equal treatment including the usage of certain terms.
3. Under these conditions, what prevents black people from demanding whatever they want?
4. I have been blessed with the ability to extend, infer, and predict. Of course I'll occasionally make mistakes, and I'm happy to listen, but... I should be expected to try to imagine myself in that situation and treat those actually in it accordingly, not to avoid putting myself in their place because "I can't understand". Lack of understanding is one of the CAUSES of racism, so we shouldn't propagate it further.

More Instrument Fun

The cool instrument of the day is this. Touch screen MIDI controllers are awesome. Too bad they're like 2000 Euros.