I have a question. I intend it to be open-ended and simply spawn discussion.

Assuming you, dear reader, happen to be part of the pro-life crowd (all one of you), are there ever any exceptions? The canonical examples, of course, are rape and incest, which I suppose will do. Think about this in the context of your wife or your 15 year old daughter. Ok, maybe not the latter if we’re talking incest, but you get my drift.

Think about this, please, then scroll down.

Time out for a joke… (check out the Obi-Lincoln about 3 minutes in!)

Ok, you ready? Thought about my question?

So… are these legitimate consideration? If your underage daughter were raped by your worst enemy, would you insist that she keep the baby? If your wife were raped by that same worst enemy, would you raise your enemy’s progeny, supporting their offspring as your own?

Yes?

Ok. While I might disagree personally, I cannot in good conscience argue with you. Everything that follows debates your belief system, not your logic. I find your philosophical stance consistent and rational.

But if you didn’t… if you made an exception for these extreme cases, then you absolutely must consider the pro-choice alternative. Because an exception — any exception — indicates that you believe there are bad things that occur out there in the big crazy world and that there are hard decisions that must be made in their aftermath.

Sometimes those hard decisions have moral consequences.

Nevertheless, if there is room for that exception, I assert that this is more of a pro-choice stance than anyone realizes. That there are exceptions — that the world is morally gray — means that hard decisions, nay choices are to be made.

Put another way, if abortion is acceptable given the extremes that we all wish did not exist, then you must admit that there is a time and a place for choice. And if you believe this, then this becomes a non-partisan issue. It becomes an issue of where you divide your grays… where you make the morality call.

Why would we presume to let the state draw that line?

The thing that irks me is that it seems to be a foregone conclusion that tax cuts — especially the Republican version of it — are empirically good.

The Obama folks don’t want to get into this discussion, even though, as I’ll show in about eight paragraphs, they’re right. A tax cut on the middle class, even one financed by the top 5% of income earners, is a significant step in the right direction.

Now, before you conservatives close your entire browser window in disgust, I’ll give you a nod. Categorically, tax cuts should have a stimulating effect on the economy. Go ahead, gloat. Yes, you’re right. When McCain says “a tax increase right now would be bad for our economy”, he’s right. Across the board, if nothing else changes, raising taxes — even if only on the top 5% of wage earners — should have a negative aggregate effect on consumption and saving with an appropriate echo in production.

But the Obama plan doesn’t just raise taxes on “the rich”. It reduces taxes on the other 95% of the population. You can use all the incorrect negative allusions you want, e.g., “socialist”, “redistribution of wealth”, heck, even “unfair”, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is actually a good thing for both (a) more people more of the time, and (b) the economy as a whole.

Why (b), you might be wondering? Because rich people don’t buy more stuff (and therefore spawn more production) when they make more money. That’s the definition of wealth — having everything you need! If someone who takes home $50 million a year suddenly takes home $51 million, will he (sorry ladies, statistically speaking, it’s a dude — that’s another blog post for another day. Don’t kill the messenger!) go out and by 30 new Ford Taurus Sedans? No, he’ll hoard it. He’ll put it in the stock market. He’ll buy some oil futures. Now, yes, if you took Econ 101, you know that this wealth should in theory being put to work in the economy in the form of capital investment — which banks would then loan out to build more factories. But we have a credit crunch, banks aren’t making loans, and it’s a time of historically high inflation (no, it’s not 1979, but it has been over 5% for most of the year — meaning T-Bills are effectively returning a negative rate, but again — sigh — that is another blog post). So, even if those wheels can start turning again, and that extra million dollars gets invested and then spawns some new factories, it will take a while to “trickle-down”.

On the other hand, we have some real problems. In aggregate terms, banks aren’t making loans, and even if you think that this particular problem will subside in a relatively short period of time (and I agree with you — heck, I just purchased some stock in the few banks I think will weather the storm and hold deposits more than our annual GDP in 24 months), trickle-down economics does nothing for the short term. This is aside from the utilitarian aspect that most of us believe government should be about, at least in rhetorical terms. (For those of you that missed that day in philosophy or political science, utilitarianism is the idea that policies should be set up to make the most people the most happy. There are certainly problems with this idea — at some point the pain of the few still isn’t worth it — but I think the generalized version is what public policy should be about. My impression is that most of the population would agree.)

So, instead, we should give money — in the form of a permanent tax break, which will immediately pad their paychecks — to the working poor and the middle class. Rich people hoard extra money, which takes quite awhile to echo into the system. Poor people go out and buy more toilet paper and better food. Middle class folks go out and buy newer cars and replace those nasty incandescent bulbs with Compact Fluorescents (don’t you?!). Both groups buy more Coca-cola and pay off a little credit card debt (another form of saving just as powerful as the rich guy investing that money, I might add — probably more, in fact, because American Express immediately uses that new capital to loan to the Small Biz right down the street and our aforementioned rich guy took his million bucks and bought a position in a hedge fund that holds a crapload of AIG paper). This has an immediate positive effect on job creation, wages, and aggregate prosperity. Oh yeah, and it makes more of the populace happy.

What’s my point? Well, if it’s an equal sum game — if the total tax revenue collected stays the same — then it is absolutely better in the short term (say, 24 months) for a little bit of belt tightening (that’s maxes out at 4.6% — you know, roughly a third of what the average American pays in regressive payroll taxes… again, another blog post) for the folks that make more money than you, your Mom, and your brother. Put together.

Still awake? Ok, here’s the whammy. Taxes change behavior. What, that’s it?

Well, yeah. Want that as a sound bite? Ok, here’s the kicker: Higher taxes on the rich encourage more capital investment.

In other words, if you raise taxes on the top tier of wage earners, you don’t need to trickle that shizzle down. You get new factories right now.

What? What’s that you say? You say today is election day…?

Ok, here ya go:

Given that our aforementioned Richie Rich makes $50 million a year, he is almost certainly in a position of some power at his company. setting aside state taxes for the sake of simplicity, at a 35% tax rate, Rich takes home $32.5 million. Let’s say this is all in salary because he owns the company. Now, what does he do with that hoard of cash? He spends a couple million, he drops $10 million into a hedge fund, he drops another $10 million on his favorite college so his drunk, mostly lazy son named George can get in to school, and he buys a yacht or two.

Now, let’s say the tax rate is 80%. Yeah, that’s jacked up, I know. I’m not suggesting we do that, I’m just making a point here. The typical conservative response to this is “why would anyone ever work?” Well, do you happen to think that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet give two shits about their net worth? I mean, sure, it matters, but do you really think that either of them planned on being the richest guys in the world? No, they just wanted to get laid. Ok, they wanted to get laid by some gorgeous gal way out of their league several times a week while eating caviar, but you get my point. That higher taxes on the rich discourage innovation is a tenuous argument. You don’t need to be a billionaire to pull a gorgeous girl out of the crowd. A million or two will do just fine, thank you.

Back to my 80% world (which, incidentally, has happened in US history — and during a period of great economic growth, I might add. One might even call it a [baby] “boom”). In this world, Richie Rich gets his corporation to buy that yacht he wants, and the company holds sales meetings on it. The company also uses it to reward employees, which makes them work with more enthusiasm, creativity, and tenacity (all great, with no real loss to Rich’s happiness). He gets the corporation to donate a bunch of money to the school of Georgie’s choice. Of course, the board of directors cuts the endowment a bit, so George has to wait-list and go to junior college for a couple of years, but heck, when he runs for president in another 30 years, that will help him understand his constituents better (again, no real loss to Rich).

In short, Rich takes home less money. He still wants (and will) avoid paying taxes any way possible, so he funnels what he can out of the company, lives a little less high on the hog, pays more taxes in sheer dollars, but pays far, far less than the $40 million implied because he changes his behavior. He lowers his own salary. This leave more money in company coffers, which leads to all kinds of social goodness — the company has more money for salaries and dividends (which Rich gets some of as a shareholder). The CEO as egomaniac factor is reduced (c’mon, high salaries make men more proud. Higher salaries still make them arrogant!). Rich even pushes the company for more social activism, even if it is based mostly on the plight of poor Georgie stuck in junior college.

Oh, and then there’s the core point that I haven’t cycled back to, yet — more money in company coffers means they invest in more production. They build factories, hire more smart people, buy technology, and put money into basic research. All good stuff that yields direct economic growth. Directly, not via some sort of “packaged asset” issued by Lehman Brothers to the hedge fund Rich started back when he took home more than the GDP of most African countries.

Taxes change behavior. Rich guys have control over their own salary. The behavior — how much they pay themselves in the form of wages — will change if taxes rise.

Couple this idea with lower taxes for the average consumer (who, again, immediately consumes with those dollars), a pay down of the national debt (gotta fight that inflation at some point, somehow!), and government investment in infrastructure that private industry won’t readily subsidize (this means everything from national defense to bridges that go nowhere — and all of the completely reasonable things in between, like basic research, high speed rail, and renewable energy), and the Dow might never drop below 10,000 again. Imagine that.

Now, I’m not telling you who to vote for (although I’ll happily do so if you ask), but I am suggesting this: McCain’s rhetoric on what will help the economy is dead wrong. Trickle-down economics via maintaining fiscally imprudent tax breaks for the rich will not improve the economic situation. That is not a sound policy towards maintaining a healthy economy. It will lead to a weaker dollar, higher inflation, and more unemployment.

Oh, and just in case you want to point out that the 1980s under Reagan rocked, let me remind you that the top income tax rate through most of the 80s was 50%. If we let the Bush tax cut expire, the top rate rises from 35% to 39.6%.

So, if you’re in or around Concord tomorrow, head out there for an hour tomorrow and give a solid shout out for equality.

When: Saturday 25 October 2008
Time: From 1:00 to 3:00 P.M.
Where: Willow Pass Rd & Market Street, Concord, CA 94520 (In Front of “Concord Auto Center”)

Courtesy of Phlooq: Are My Friends Going?
Phlooq does not endorse or approve of any content within either this post or blog.
(Want one of these event widgets? Then Contact Me.)

View Larger Map

Finally, just a couple of quick thoughts to those of you who insist that the word “marriage” means something ordained by god:

• Marriage in this context is just a legal term. I don’t think it means anything less for your particular heterosexual marriage. Not to you, not to your church, not to your family, and not to me. If you actually do think it cheapens your own status, then maybe there are some other underlying issues in your marriage you need to consider. Have you told your wife you loved her today? =)
• It’s fair. You may not understand another individual’s sexuality, but you can still understand their desire to make the call on medical decisions and such if they’re in a long term committed relationship. While you may be sure that you’ll never be in their shoes, who’s to say that someone you care deeply about (a sister, a son, a best friend or cousin…) might not be, either today or in the future? Remember, if you’re adamant on your views, they might be keeping their sexual preferences quiet.
• Does it really hurt anyone to let gay folks have their titles? (I mean, really? Ok, maybe that’s not a point, but it has rhetoric.)

First, the article makes two basic claims:

• The cookie that caches your preferences data now only has a two year moving window. This is the cookie that allows Google to customize your user experience. For example, I like to display 50 links on results pages instead of 10 and opt for results only in Latin based languages. This cookie used to be stored with an expiration date of 2038. Now it’s a rolling two year window, meaning the cookie expiration date is updated to “two years from now” every time you touch a google application (or, at least, the search engine — the article doesn’t make that distinction abundantly clear).
• The server logs that record the incoming IP address and preferences ID (for the very same cookie described above) on every search query will be deleted after 18 months instead of stored in perpetuity.

Now, the preferences cookie doesn’t matter because:

• If you don’t use google, you’re not worried about them storing you personal data, and this entire post is irrelevant. In fact, you probably have already clicked away to something else, but if you are still here, I’ve got some good stuff on entrepreneurship and managing real estate. Go check it out.
• If you do use google, you undoubtedly use it more than once every two years. So whatever risks you were taking aren’t going to change it very much.
• If you are concerned about privacy, then you are either paranoid or genuinely up to no good. If it’s the latter, then other than telling you to use public computers (like the library) and internet access points (yay for city-sponsored wi-fi) to search for instructions on enriching uranium, I’ve got nothin’ for ya. Except, of course, don’t be evil. If you want to understand more clearly what I mean by paranoia, keep reading below for my off-the-cuff analysis of the server logging.

Now, the server side logs are a bit more scary. This is because those logs do contain your search terms and link it to you preferences ID.

The recording of the IP address isn’t quite so bad, as long as you’re not doing anything really evil that would get the attention of government agencies, because for most internet users, their IP address changes on a pretty regular basis. That means that the IP address record at Google has to be cross referenced with the records at your Internet Service Provider against the time index in Google’s database for that record. That’s quite a bit of work, from both a political/bureaucratic perspective and a technical perspective.

The preferences ID is pretty scary if you have a google account, meaning you use gmail, Google Docs, etc., and have given them your real name. You probably did; I usually give out my real name because it’s the easiest for me to remember in the event I forget my login data. This is because, despite the relatively complex relational keys, the link between your usage patterns (via preferences ID), server requests (via server logging ), and your identity (because you gave it to them) are all readily accessible in a database (or three) housed within the same corporation.

This is particularly nerve racking because the big G has a history of capitulating to government pressure. Even in the United States, government access to those records is simply a matter of issuing a subpoena. Given the current habits of American government, the idea that this would, could, or is possibly already happening is a very real concern. This is, incidentally, probably why Google is issuing this policy in the first place. You can’t subpoena records that don’t exist. (Which is a side note worthy of pointing out — they’re doing this to protect Google’s interests, not yours.)

That being said, 18 months is a pretty long window, so whatever dangers were present until today are probably still there. If you’re still worried about it, you should at least make sure you log completely out of all google services before using the search engine.

Now for a brief discussion on what I considered paranoia:

• Believe, me no one cares that you look at naked people on the internet once in awhile. Go on with your bad self.
• If you vehemently oppose the idea of Big Brother just on ideology, then oppose stuff like the PATRIOT act, write letters to your elected representatives, and generally make an effort to effectuate change at the Big Brother level. Google is too good of a tool to not use, and, in fact, you’ll need it to change the world. If you don’t live in the United States, this stuff still applies. The rules of the game just vary.
• Google is only storing search data as it pertains to improving its algorithm. They aren’t capturing keystrokes, passwords, recording your bank account balance, or otherwise recording any data that doesn’t assist its bottom line. Google is a for-profit corporation, and even if they’re “Don’t Be Evil” edict is getting watered down with every minute increase in market share, they still (a) won’t aggregiously break the law because it puts their ability to continue profitable operations in jeopardy, and (b) won’t go out of their way to store data they don’t need to, because there’s a cost incurred both in terms of data storage (the physical media) and the ability to make sense of the deluge of data they’re storing. They might, of course, track specific things in the interests of market research, but that’s a macro-level question (if we build it, will 200 million people use it?), and they don’t care about individual usage.
• Your MySpace profile is probably a bigger issue.

This is a controversial topic. Let me know what you think by posting a comment!

The similarity… among all men throughout evolutionary history points to an important concept in evolutionary biology: female choice.

Women often say no to men. Men have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. Men have built (and destroyed) civilization in order to impress women, so that they might say yes.

See, ladies, just start noticing us for how great we are (instead of the dork with the guitar, the meathead with the biceps, or the slimy guy with the platinum amex) and the world will be a much better place! We’re just victims of our biology.

The full article is entitled Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature. It also covers such unmentionable concepts like:

• Monogamy is better for both males and society.
• Everyone really does want Barbie (women want to be her; guys want to… well, you know).
• Suicide bombers just need to get laid. And that whole bit about 72 virgins in heaven is very bad for society.
• Pretty people have more daughters; wealthy people have more sons. (Pretty girls and rich boys are more “reproductively successful”, i.e., they get laid the most. Amazingly, biology seems to follow function.)

Now, if ultimately sex is the driving force behind male ambition — which makes me vaguely ponder if I would be more ambitious if I were less attractive — what is the driving force behind female ambition?

Put another way, what exactly is behind Hilary’s mojo?

Opinion polls show consistently that half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve but were created, along with all living creatures, by God 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

The museum has a series of rooms depicting the darkening of a world that abandons a literal interpretation of the Bible. Two teenagers, apparently indoctrinated with evolutionary teaching, are shown at home. The girl is talking to Planned Parenthood and the boy is looking at pornography on a computer. These images culminate in a wrecking ball, labelled with the words “millions of years”, smashing down a church.

…

“Dinosaurs are one of the icons of evolution, but we believe they lived at the same time as people,” Mr Ham said. “The Bible talks about dragons. We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth . . . We like to say, ‘You’ve captured them for evolution, and we’re going to take them back.’ ” All those fossils, some of which are exhibited in the museum, were created not millions of years ago but by the biblical floods.

In one exhibit two palaeontologists – a light-skinned creationist and a dark-skinned evolutionist – are shown digging up a dinosaur skeleton and, of course, reach different interpretations. The message is that it is OK, even scientific, to defy evolution.

— The basis of creationism is belief in the Bible’s literal truth. Most creationists believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old

— They believe that life did not evolve gradually through natural processes but was formed supernaturally by God

— The only changes possible in plants and animals are negative ones of degradation or extinction

— Natural processes are seen not as self-sustaining but as maintained daily by God. Miracles are thus seen as God’s choice to do something differently

I’m so taken aback that I don’t know where to start.

First of all, I don’t see why the two ideas have to be so diametrically opposed. They can both be true. See the wikipedia entries on Theistic Evolution. Can’t we all just get along?

Now, take the creation in six days story seriously and literally, and I’m once again speechless. T-Rex was a vegetarian that lived in the Garden of Eden? Right. And things degrade when left alone without God’s direct influence? Where do I begin…?

Well, the first thing that comes to mind would take a lot of work to articulate properly, but I’ll give it a quick shoot-from-the-hip attempt. The beauty of sex, aside from the obvious pleasantries, is that it allows for the recombination of DNA. That means that traits from two seperate entities gets combined, and the children are somewhat different from the parents. Add to that some environmental factors, like plenty of protein-rich food, and you get 7 foot tall dudes that can dunk a basketball before they fully awaken in the morning. Practice helps, but at some level, Michael Jordan just had really good genes.

Groups with diversity in their gene pool are more capable of adapting to their surroundings. They’re typically stronger, faster, smarter, and considered more attractive. I’m not talking about people of color directly. I’m simply talking about diversity. Mixed kids are cuter and better at lots of things. I don’t really want to point to significant groups, because I imagine that a bushman born in the Khalahari desert is lacking diversity in a similar manner to a man born in Tibet. And being of mixed race is not necessarily a meal ticket. It’s just an extra card dealt during 5 card stud — a slight advantage, not something out of science fiction. It also may not be completely obvious from appearances — if you refer to yourself as “white” instead of “Irish” (or whatever European strain fits better), and you cannot determine precise lineage, then chances are you’re pretty diverse, too. In other words, this doesn’t just mean Tiger Woods. Angelina Jolie, Keanu Reeves, The Rock, Vin Diesel, and yes, Michael Jordan all count, too.

However, if this is true, then either it’s a “miracle”, or changes can and are made to the gene pool ever time someone procreates. And some of these are generally considered positive.

Then there’s that trivial, minor issue of Carbon-14 dating (and, um, even if you don’t understand how that works, dinosaur bones are made of STONE! Remains from 6000 years ago generally still have some CALCIUM in them, for crying out loud! How can they come from the same time period?). And the incredibly large teeth on a so-called vegetarian.

And, finally — and this is the easiest argument I’ve ever posited — why would any omnipotent being make a system that needed his constant upkeep? This is why we computer guys like to use Linux instead of Windows for running servers! They stay running without intervention. And we’re silly little dorks that play video games in our 20s! Why would some all-powerful creator dude create a system he had to reboot every other day?

It’s not like the dude has to keep releasing updates so that we keep paying for upgrades. What does he have, a quarterly prayer quota to maintain or something?

First, I have a few thoughts on the business side of Project Red. I don’t remember how much my Project Red shirt from the gap cost me, but with the simple white tank top I bought for my female college-age cousin, it cost me about $50. I’m not sure I would have gone to the Gap at all to buy her gift — my plan B was to drop some money on her Verizon plan and enclose the receipt in a birthday card. Along with something small and personal, like just the simple white tank top without any “red”.

So a few pennies out of my would’ve-spent-that-money-anyway birthday present budget went to humanitarian efforts. Beautiful.

So everyone wins, right? Companies like American Express, The Gap, Motorola, Converse, and Apple have spent $100 million promoting Red products — money they likely would’ve spent anyway on other marketing. And Project Red has generated $18 million in donations.

So, assuming that these are all products that would have been purchased anyway, we’re just lifting a point or three off the top (Apple’s red iPod is about 6% of gross, for instance, while Amex is only 1%) and donating it to a good cause. The corporations in question get some positive PR and a tax deduction (why do THEY get it? ugh). And we, as consumers, get to identify with the brand and feel good about ourselves. It is, perhaps, akin to un-athletic people sporting Nike gear because it makes them feel like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, but screw it. As consumers in a capitalist society, that’s half the reason we purchase most of the goods and services we consume every day — beginning with our car (talk about an extension of identity… I sometimes play the “what kind of car do you drive” guessing game on first dates to gauge how accurately my date has conveyed herself!) and ending with our socks (do you really need a Nike swoosh on your athletic socks? Are they really of different or better quality?).

So it’s a good thing all around given a zero sum game. That’s for certain. Any way that this can be duplicated in your own business, btw, can have a very powerful PR effect for you. I recall Mervyn’s doing it years ago with their pledge to donate 5% of profits to public schools. I don’t know if Target still does that (Target and Mervyn’s were once the same company), but it’s a nice move. Other methods of being a “good corporate citizen” have pretty profound effects from a PR standpoint. Starbucks and their commitment to providing health care to employees comes to mind, for instance, as does Costco’s union-friendly habits. I wonder how the world would perceive Wal-mart if they had done any of these? (This is not to say that I endorse of despise any of these companies. I haven’t studied the details enough to make that kind of call. I’m sure that every publicly traded for-profit organization has a skeleton or two in their closet.)

But back to Project Red. What about the possibility that consumers have made extra purchases because of the campaign? What if a measurable percentage of those $35 shirts and $300 iPods and RAZRs would not have been purchased at all without the rationalization in the consumer’s head that “it’s going to a good cause”?

Then it was a bad call. Enter BuyLessCrap.org, which urges consumers to not buy silly red shirts and instead donate their $35 directly to a number of reputable charities, including the benefactor of Project Red, The Global Fund. The idea being that the $35 is a heck of a lot better than the 70 cents The Gap would have given on your behalf.

I agree, although I submit that this is only true if consumers have spent more because of the Project Red angle. Other than that, I think that the campaign is a winner. I, for one, am glad I that a few pennies of the money I would’ve spent anyway on my cousin’s birthday present went to someplace good. It all adds up.

Notable sources of this meme:

A ti(red) campaign: Bono feeds his ego, makes little difference

Oct 2006 article by Matt Diehl (pro-red)

Inc(RED)u(LESS) About Project (RED) — see the comments on this one. A representative from the Gap even chimes in.

There was a an op-ed piece printed in the February 18, 2007 San Jose Mercury News written by William Saletan entitled As sexual orientation is decoded, what then?

The mercurynews.com web site, which I’ve linked to above, indicates that the URL is a temporary one, so here’s the entire article text again, for brevity:

Just up the road from Brokeback Mountain, closeted away in their own private Idaho, the gay sheep were getting it on.

Well, it wasn’t exactly private. They were doing it in front of scientists at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station near the Idaho-Montana-Wyoming border. The scientists arranged the trysts. It’s called “sexual partner preference testing.”

According to an article by researchers involved in the project, here’s how it works. In a 15-by-10-foot “arena,” a young ram is offered four choices: two ewes in heat and two rams. “The four stimulus animals are restrained in stanchions so that they can only be approached from the sides and rear.” For 30 minutes, the unrestrained ram does as he pleases. The scientists count his “anogenital sniffs,” “mounts” and “ejaculations.”

A bare majority of rams turn out to be heterosexual. One in five swings both ways. About 15 percent are asexual, and 7 percent to 10 percent are gay.

Why so many gay rams? Is it too much socializing with ewes? Same-sex play with other lambs? Domestication? Nope. Those theories have been debunked. Gay rams don’t act girly. They’re just as gay in the wild. And a crucial part of their brains — the “sexually dimorphic nucleus” — looks more like a ewe’s than like a straight ram’s. Gay men have a similar brain resemblance to women.

Charles Roselli, the project’s lead scientist, says such research “strongly suggests that sexual preference is biologically determined in animals, and possibly in humans.”

Roselli’s interest is in the science. He figured the political upshot, if any, would be gay-friendly. After all, surveys show that if you think homosexuality is biologically determined, you’re less likely to be anti-gay.

Roselli didn’t just prove homosexuality in rams was natural. He tried to engineer it. In a 1999 grant application, he proposed “to determine (whether male-oriented) preference behavior can be artificially produced in genetic male sheep” by depriving male lamb fetuses of estrogen stimulation. Seven months ago, he reported that the experiment failed. The point wasn’t to promote homosexuality. The point was to learn what causes it.

You’d expect conservatives to demand that the government stop funding this research. But science is tricky. If you figure out how to make sheep gay, you can probably figure out how to make them straight. And maybe you can do the same to people.

Roselli studies hormones, brains and behavior. He works at Oregon Health and Science University, a medical institution. But his collaborator, Fred Stormshak, is an animal scientist affiliated with Oregon State University, which focuses more on agriculture and economics.

Gay rams are “a costly problem for sheep producers because breeding rams are worth $300 to $500 each,” Stormshak told OSU’s agricultural newsletter a decade ago. “Outwardly, there is no way to tell whether a ram is male-oriented, so the producer runs the costly risk of buying an animal that will never produce any offspring.”

Identifying gay rams wasn’t enough. In 2000, Stormshak described an attempt to “alter” them. The idea was to “enhance their sexual behavior or performance” by making them act like straight rams. Three years later, Roselli told an OHSU committee that, among other things, “information gained about the hormonal, neural, genetic and environmental determinants of sexual partner preferences should allow better selection of rams for breeding and as a consequence may be economically important to the sheep industry.” OSU President Ed Ray says the research “may define biological tests that can be used to identify” gay or asexual rams, “thus eliminating their use for general breeding purposes.”

Notice the lack of animus in these explanations. Breeders don’t care whether rams are gay or simply unmotivated. All that matters is “performance.” And when Ray talks about “eliminating” such rams from breeding, he leaves open the possibility of a happy old age munching grass. But you can smell the slaughterhouse.

Which brings us to the animals whose breeding we really care about: our children.

Passing on your genes is life’s deepest drive. You don’t just want kids. You want grandkids. An Israeli woman, with court approval, is already using her dead son’s sperm to inseminate a stranger. I know a guy whose future mother-in-law put him through a fertility test before approving his marriage.

Then there are all the parents who pressure their adult children to marry and procreate. In a recent survey, 73 percent of Americans said they’d be upset to learn that their child was gay. To many parents, “I’m gay, Mom” means “No grandkids for you.”

Roselli offers lots of evidence that human homosexuality is linked to biological conditions, some of them genetic. If he figures out how to manipulate sexual orientation in sheep, will others try to manipulate it in humans? We already have. Doctors used to “treat” homosexuality with hormone injections. Some still do. This idea failed miserably in adults, but it might work in fetuses, because their brains are forming.

And if we can’t engineer sexual orientation, maybe we can select it. Millions of Asians have used modern sex tests to identify and abort female fetuses. If we learn how to recognize gay brains in development, look out.

But killing is the horror scenario. The more likely path is gentler. Science will gradually convince us that sexual orientation is innate, more like the color of your skin than like the content of your character. Condemnation of homosexuality as a sin will subside. Freed from the culture wars, we’ll turn to the biological differences between race and sexual orientation: Homosexuality defies the aspiration to procreate with your mate, and it’s easier to isolate and alter in embryonic development. Resentment will give way to pity. We may come to view homosexuality as a kind of infertility — a disability, like deafness. The rhetoric of “acceptance” will shift from liberals to conservatives. We’ll inoculate our offspring against homosexuality out of love, not hate.

The sheep researchers intend nothing like this, of course. But they didn’t foresee the initial uproar over their work, either. It has come from the left, not the right. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has tried to quash their research, falsely depicting them as bigots. PETA, like President Bush, thinks that bad ideas come from bad people, and you have to stamp out the whole lot.

But bad ideas — communism, eugenics, wars of liberation — don’t happen because they’re bad. They happen because, in the beginning, they’re good. What we do with the biological truth about homosexuality, for good or ill, isn’t written in our hormones or our genes. It’s up to us.

I think that “If you figure out how to make sheep gay, you can probably figure out how to make them straight. And maybe you can do the same to people” is probably the single most disturbing statement I’ve read in a long time. At least since the rest of the country started noticing that hundreds of thousands of people were dying in Iraq under the leadership of “The Decider” and expressing some dissent. At last. But I digress.

Mr. Saletan makes some very poignant observations, first by pointing out that “science is tricky” and following that up with the very human desire to both procreate profusely and control our destinies, if not the destinies of our progeny. In stark contrast to the scary statement above, “Science will gradually convince us that sexual orientation is innate, more like the color of your skin than like the content of your character. Condemnation of homosexuality as a sin will subside.” is grossly optimistic and, if taken out of context, might make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

But then, despite the rational realization by most individuals that skin color doesn’t matter, people of color in this country are still at the mercy of a very real glass ceiling. But, again, I digress.

The sentiment subsequently expressed is downright disgusting. “We may come to view homosexuality as a kind of infertility — a disability, like deafness. The rhetoric of ‘acceptance’ will shift from liberals to conservatives. We’ll inoculate our offspring against homosexuality out of love, not hate.”

Ok. So should we bleach the skin of all black people, too? If, indeed, gayness is analogous to skin color, then why not? Because it’s not too much of a stretch to argue that being a person of color in America (black, brown, or even yellow) is a disability, too.

Now, I’m not suggesting this as a possibility. I’m simply trying to illustrate how incredibly ridiculous this idea is. If homosexuality is a handicap, and the majority of newborns are “cured” of the condition before birth, then how much worse will oppression be against this group in the future? If 5% of the population today is so oppressed that half of the population feels compelled to hide in shame, how much worse will this be when it’s only 2%? And all of them coming from lower socioeconomic groups, to boot?

[You think that this "cure" will be available to all? No, sorry, it will only be available to those with health insurance, and then only actually executed by controlling (conservative?) parents. Futhermore, poor parents don't care. Only the top half of the socioeconomic stratas care.]

This isn’t acceptance. It’s not even “tolerance”. If I can take license and use the word to describe any group, rather than just an ethnic group, it would be a form of (attempted) genocide.

The fact that genocide is presented as positive in a mainstream newspaper (published in California, no less) just makes my skin crawl.

–

As a side note, I think that this research is good, because the more individuals who are convinced that homosexuality is genetic, the better. Because I believe this does lead more of us closer to acceptance — the real definition of the word.

One thing struck me as mildly hypocritical:

“I know some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind. We have an obligation to help ensure that every citizen shares in this country’s future. The fact is that income inequality is real; it’s been rising for more than 25 years. The reason is clear: We have an economy that increasingly rewards education, and skills because of that education. One recent study of male earnings showed that someone with a college degree earns about 72 percent more than someone with a high school diploma. The earnings gap is now twice as wide as it was in 1980 — and it continues to grow. And the question is whether we respond to the income inequality we see with policies that help lift people up, or tear others down. The key to rising in this economy is skills — and the government’s job is to make sure we have an education system that delivers them.”

…but it’s framed in “we need to work on education”, which no one on either side of any fence can really argue with. Better education is always a good thing. I have an issue with presenting education as the only reason income inequality exists — other things, from tax policy to lobbying for government contracts, not to mention that little concept of globalization, are just as much of a factor. Probably a great deal more impactful, actually. I might even go so far as to say that my list is causal and that better education just helps improve the ability to adapt.

Interestingly, he goes on to talk about executive compensation a little later, and doesn’t tie the two together at all. Corporate boards and CEO pay are mentioned within the context of corporate governance — another pretty important issue if we want New York to remain the financial center of the world. (It’s been sliding against London ever since Sarbanes Oxley.)

“Government should not decide the compensation for America’s corporate executives, but the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders. America’s corporate boardrooms must step up to their responsibilities. You need to pay attention to the executive compensation packages that you approve. You need to show the world that American businesses are a model of transparency and good corporate governance.”

This article I read today from Associated Press via Yahoo was misleading. It implied that the CEO pay was mentioned in conjunction with income ineqaulity, which piqued my interest enough to go read the whole damn thing. That would be pretty surprising given how cozy George and big business have always been.

Alas, the AP article failed to capture the spirit. I guess that’s what you get for pushing out short USA Today style reports in a hurry. I should pick up a copy of the Wall Street Journal tomorrow and see what their army of analysts has to say.

btw, I read the full transcript of the speech here.

Dedication Honors Nude Britney Spears Giving Birth: Pop-Star’s Pregnancy Idealized in Brooklyn ‘Monument to Pro-Life’

Funny how abortion was the last thing on my mind when I first saw this. And this is supposed to remind me of Christian values?