Blog0matique

2,000 years of Christianity and what do you end up with? squad-car radios trying to hold rotting shit together, and what else? tons of wars, little air raids, muggers in streets, knifings, so many insane that you forget it, you just let them run the streets in policeman’s uniforms or out of them.

by Charles Bukowski

Apparently, Mr. Strickland isn’t the only one who’s decided to “just say no” to whoring out our students to abstinence only education for the almighty federal dollar.

According to the New York Times:

At least nine states, by one count, have decided to give up the federal matching funds rather than submit to dictates that undermine sensible sex education. Now there is growing evidence that the programs have no effect on children’s sexual behavior.

Hooray for people finally waking up and realizing the morals have nothing to do with knowledge, and usually are quite opposed to it!

I will admit, though, I was surprised about the little snippet below from this article.

Teens in both groups were just as likely to use condoms or birth control, the report found — countering the fears of critics of abstinence-only education, who say children ignorant of how to protect themselves from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases will simply have more unprotected sex.

If abstinence only education is at least not preventing kids from using birth control, I must admit that quells my fears substantially. However, I still believe that creating an environment where kids are afraid to talk about their bodies and actions is unhealthy and helps perpetuate the weird relationship our society has with sex. I’m honestly glad, though, that there’s “only” psychological damage at stake, rather than increasing risk of diseases et al that are sometimes impossible to heal.

I particularly liked this quote:

“We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that’s not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics,” added James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth.

More from the NYT article after the jump.

Continue reading ‘More on sex ed’

Here’s what I learned about Rob Van Winkle today on Wikipedia. Of course, you posers may know him better as Vanilla Ice. Yeah, dat’s right.

• To The Extreme became the first #1 album in the US without a vinyl counterpart release.
• Van Winkle toured during 1990 with Alanis Morissette as his opening act. ALANIS MORISSETTE!!
• On July 4, 1994, Van Winkle attempted to commit suicide and made another attempt later that same year, citing drug abuse and anxiety surrounding his flagging career. Poor Ice Man.

In the Freakonoimics Blog, they talked about an article that I thought was pretty interesting, called “Does a Politically Incorrect Street Name Affect Home Value?” Of course, I’m a real estate dork, so this could all be taken with a grain of salt.

I performed an MLS search for homes in Shady Hollow that have sold since 2000 which are located on the aforementioned streets with gun related names. There have been 71 sales on those particular streets. The average sales price is $179,677, which equals $98 per square foot. I then searched the rest of Shady Hollow, filtering out homes newer than 1993 since all of the aforementioned homes are built before 1993 and we don’t want to polute the results with more expensive newer homes. There were 606 sales of homes with less overt western names. The average sales price is $225,713, which equals $103 per square foot. It appears that the homes with politically incorrect names do not sell for as much compared to other homes in the same subdivision.

The interesting thing is, however, that the politically incorrect homes sold in an average of 37 days while the others took an average of 50 days to sell. This seems conter-intuitive based on the price gap. The politically incorrect homes were an average of 1811 square feet while the others averaged 2144 square feet, which would account for the sales price gap. But smaller homes, in general, sell for a higher per square foot price, and in this case they don’t, which suggests something is out of balance.

I think this is a really interesting question, but I do have to wonder if there aren’t some other factors at play, especially considering the mention of the gap in “time to sell”. Generally, you’d expect that more attractive homes spend less time on the market. The fact that the seemingly less attractive homes sold faster makes me wonder if perhaps the reason they sold quickly was that their prices were considered to be a bargain compared to the other comparable homes. Or perhaps the sellers were more motivated and more willing to negotiate on their sale prices, especially if the neighborhood conditions on those streets had recently changed.

I also wonder about the condition and average age of the less attractive homes. Perhaps they were smaller and lower priced because they were all located in an older part of the subdivision. Although the writer did try to account for this by screening out all homes built after 1993, they do not mention if the average age for the “good” homes is any different than the “bad” ones. This could also account for the lack of a higher price per square foot in the smaller homes, which is usually expected.

Anyway, I love data and I love real estate, so this kind of stuff is right up my alley.

Okay. Space not your thing? How about berries and cream?

I saw a little buzz about an article today announcing scientists have discovered the first “Earth-like” planet outside our solar system.

An Earth-like planet spotted outside our solar system is the first found that could support liquid water and harbor life, scientists announced today.

Liquid water is a key ingredient for life as we know it. The newfound planet is located at the “Goldilocks” distance—not too close and not too far from its star to keep water on its surface from freezing or vaporizing away.

Oh yes. Life as we know it. I’m hoping someone can correct me here, but isn’t a bit egotistical to think that “life as we know it” is the only way life can evolve at all? Is water really the only thing that can lead to life? Considering the infinite possibilities available in the infinite timeline of the Universe, it really seems a bit naive to think that there could be one magic “key ingredient”.

I guess this particularly caught my eye because just two or three nights ago, Jason and I were trying to decide what will happen to our own blue sphere. I asked him if he thought we’d totally wipe ourselves and everything else out, or if perhaps we’d just wipe almost everything out and maybe something else would evolve and surpass us. He liked the first option; I’m pushing for the second. I like the imagine a world where the number of humans dramatically decrease, opening a possibility for a better life form to evolve and maybe even rule over us. Of course, once I start daydreaming that far, I can’t help but picture Jay and Silent Bob. “In this world gone mad, we won’t spank the monkey! The monkey will spank us!” But, yanno, I think it’d be an interesting way to curb our human ego.

Which brings us full circle to the discovery today. Human ego – telling you how life is made since 8000 BC!

This is why I’m glad Al Gore invented the internet.

So, let’s play pretend. I’m some kind of really weak demi-god with kinda lame powers, and I only got one “smite” per lifetime. Who would I utilize my only smite on? The fucker who invented those plastic shell packs that they put computer parts into. Before those were invented, I didn’t think it was actually possible to ruin the joyous occasion of purchasing gratuitous technology. Now, I know that having that hot little number in my hands is only the beginning.

I just spent a good 7 minutes trying desperately to unleash my XBox Live Points from their polymer prison. I was so excited when the package arrived, but now I can only collapse in an exhausted heap, clutching my hard-earned prize. *sob* It’s like they just sat there and said “Hmm, who are the least athletically inclined people in the world? Computer dorks! Let’s give them packaging only their video game gods can actually open!”

I was interested to see what would come of the alimony case in Florida where a transexual’s exhusband was trying to get out of his alimony payments.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the ruling.

“It’s illegal for a man to marry a man and it should likewise be illegal for a man to pay alimony to a man,” said John McGuire, one of Roach’s attorneys.

Circuit Judge Jack R. St. Arnold, however, ruled that in the eyes of the law, nothing changed significantly enough to free Roach from his $1,250-a-month obligation.

The judge said since Florida courts have ruled sex-change surgery cannot legally change a person’s birth gender, Roach technically is not paying alimony to a man.

I guess in the end, it was a good decision, although I don’t like the judge’s reason behind it (that Silverwolf, the ex-wife, isn’t really a man). That, to me, seems to pretty clearly invalidate an individual’s ability to determine their own gender. I think it’s kind of funny that they referred to it as “birth gender”, since there’s really not such a thing. You have a birth sex, but gender is a social construct.

I wonder what would happen if a F2M transexual and a birth-sexed female tried to marry. Would they rule that it’s a gay marriage? This seems to set the precedent that it could be construed as such. If that’s the case, it’s pretty not-fair that no matter what you do, you are forever locked into your DNA, even down to who the state allows you to love.

Alimony, though, is a weird subject for it to be about though, because I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it either. I think it was created in a time to help women who couldn’t feasibly take care of themselves if they didn’t have a man to support them. That’s not entirely the case anymore, so isn’t alimony somewhat of an outdated, patriarchal concept? At the same time, with the glass ceiling et al, I guess we can’t really get rid of alimony until women are actually earning as much as men. But since Silverwolf in the above case will be living as a man, and therefore receiving the financial benefits of it, wouldn’t that make the alimony no longer relevant?

I’m wondering what other people are thinking about this.

I think I’m officially even more jaded than ever before. Looking over the most recent consumer confidence report findings, all I can think of is: “Gee, isn’t this convenient?”

The recent turmoil in financial markets coupled with the run-up in gasoline prices may have contributed to consumers” heightened sense of uncertainty and concern.

I realize that it would be a stretch to assert that our Powers That Be somehow orchestrated the dip in the Chinese stock markets that triggered the avalanche of terror in the stock market. (Although, at this point, I will believe that they can and do control almost everything.) But the increase in gas prices certainly makes me raise an eyebrow. Seeing that the market was going crazy and that oil would likely skyrocket as a result, you’d think that the Powers would step in and perhaps provide some sort of relief so that we didn’t get hit hard at the gas pump. Just something to hold our hands and tell us everything is okay. The sky isn’t falling, the damage in the market will be controlled, etc.

Instead, they let oil do what it does best: panic and skyrocket. And I realize that government intervention in markets is down-right ill-advised, but you’d think that with the way the Reps are losing the popularity contest right now, they’d want to do everything they could to make people think they’re safe and sound with the old GOP.

But then I started thinking. Maybe this is exactly what the White House and the poor, outnumbered Republican Congressmen want. Maybe they want the economy to go to shit the minute that the Dems take over. Let’s ignore the fact that the economy has been teetering on the brink for quite some time. Let’s ignore the fact that the housing bubble basically burst while the Reps were still in power. Let’s just focus on who’s in power when we’re actually feeling the effects of past decisions.

If we could just focus on the shit-tastic economy, maybe we’ll forget about Scooter Libby, the Attorney General’s mishaps, Jack Abramoff, and all the other bad stuff that’s gone down. Heck, maybe we’ll be so worried about our own economy that we’ll stop bitching about our troops in Iraq! Hey, America, how can you possibly worry about foreign policy when your wallets are being deflated?

And then, I calm down and realize that I’m officially a conspiracy-theory spouting loony.