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October 27, 2006
The sky is still up there
Ganking a bit on gay marriage from the Wall Street Journal op-ed page:
Social conservatives suggest that legal recognition of same-sex couples has harmed society. Sen. Bill Frist has stated that "years of de facto same-sex marriage in Scandinavia has further weakened marriage"; similar claims have been made by Sens. John Cornyn, Rick Santorum, James Inhofe and Sam Brownback.
However, there is no evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry weakens the institution. If anything, the numbers indicate the opposite. A decade after Denmark, Norway and Sweden passed their respective partnership laws, heterosexual marriage rates had risen 10.7% in Denmark; 12.7% in Norway; and a whopping 28.8% in Sweden. In Denmark over the last few years, marriage rates are the highest they've been since the early 1970s. Divorce rates among heterosexual couples, on the other hand, have fallen. A decade after each country passed its partnership law, divorce rates had dropped 13.9% in Denmark; 6% in Norway; and 13.7% in Sweden. On average, divorce rates among heterosexuals remain lower now than in the years before same-sex partnerships were legalized.
...
Is there a correlation, then, between same-sex marriage and a strengthening of the institution of marriage? It would be difficult, and suspect, to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between these trends in heterosexual marriage and marriage rights for gays and lesbians. But the facts demonstrate that there is no proof that same-sex marriage will harm the institution of marriage...
Facts can be so annoying at times.
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Jenny Craig for President?
I'm out here in California this week, and I'm seeing plenty of campaign ads on the morning news shows. One in particular caught my ear:
"I was really fat, so I lost 70 pounds. I kept that promise to my family, and I'll keep my promise to you. I will lower your insurance rates."
So, we're supposed to elect him because he went on a diet?
Then again, this is California.
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October 10, 2006
Hmmm, we might be jumping the gun...
I'm seeing some reports here and there (sources I don't feel reliable enough to quote, i.e. Drudge and Redstate), that the page that Foley was interacting with online was 18 for most of the quoted interactions and was only a few weeks shy of 18 for the rest of them. Apparently, the age of consent in D.C. is 17, though I don't have a citation for this detail.
So... it's a reasonable question to ask, were Foley's IMs/emails actually breaking criminal law? I'm pretty sure we're in black-letter law for things like sexual harrassment and the likes of that, but those are civil laws, not criminal laws.
On the other hand, where there's smoke there's probably fire, so it's worth digging some more. He's clearly acting as though he's guilty of something, but before we sharpen the pitchforks and light the torches for a good old fashion Capitol Hill lynching party, we might want to take a collective breath and see if an actual crime was committed here.
If not, well, the cynic in me can't help but be reminded of Dan Rather's imfamous memo, released without sufficient research shortly before a national election.
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October 05, 2006
OPEC thinks gas is too cheap...
From the news...
OPEC will take one million barrels of oil a day off oversupplied world markets as soon as possible with its first output cut in more than two years, OPEC officials said on Thursday, sending oil prices back above $60.
...
The United States was dismayed by the news. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said he would tell OPEC ministers the world still needed all the oil OPEC could pump heading into winter. He noted that at $60 a barrel oil was still near record highs.
For those of you don't know, oil was near $20/barrel just a few years ago.
So, this confuses me... wasn't it those Evil Republican Oil Excecutives who are supposed to be responsible for our high gasoline prices?
Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (3)