matthearn.com

Heehee snark snark snark!

Don’t worry, not dead. I honestly haven’t posted anything because I wanted to keep the previous post, in which I make myself cold and got to be on the evening news in Philadelphia, atop the page for as long as possible and make sure everyone can see it. Anybody not watched it yet? We’re good? Okay. Now I want to show you this:

In case it’s unclear, a woman attempts to get a marriage license for herself and her (female) fiancee, so that they can legally marry after many years of cohabitation, and having multiple children and grandchildren. Her request is denied. So she grabs a young man whose name she does not know, and requests a marriage license, which is duly processed. What a country.

I’ve been reading up on the whole missionaries to Haiti drama. If you’ve missed it, here’s the short version: a group of “well-meaning” missionaries went to to Haiti after the earthquake and collected up a bunch of orphans with the intent of bringing them back to America for a better life. They just didn’t bother with any of the actual paperwork. So the Haitian government accused them of kidnapping and conspiracy, and has jailed them pending trial. Supporters say the missionaries were doing a good thing, rescuing these poor kids from hunger and deprivation.

the leader of New Life Children’s rescue, Laura Silsby, has had serious legal problems in the past, most recently losing the house she bought for the ministry to foreclosure at the end of 2009. The fact that neither of the churches involved with the missions group vetted her thoroughly before leading a missions trip will open them to lawsuits, above and beyond the legal fees and costs incurred from the current incarceration.

Oops.

Silby’s motives are also suspect in part because she seemed to realize what she was doing, stating in an interview on Monday that the group did not intend to offer the children for adoption. “We intended to raise those children and be with them their entire lives, if necessary,” she said.

Eeek…that’s kinda culty.

It also seems that a plan was in place for an orphanage long before the earthquake occurred.

Eeeeeenteresting. My feelings on the subject are remarkably simple: I wonder how Americans would have responded had a gaggle of, say, well-meaning Swedes showed up and “rescued” a few dozen white orphans from New Orleans in September 2005. I suspect phrases like “doing God’s work” and “This is how you thank us for helping you?” wouldn’t be thrown around.

Lots of interesting happenings in gay rights over the last few weeks. The Prop 8 trial concluded testimony in California last week, with closing arguments and judgments to come later. Yesterday, a major hearing was held on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Michael Mullen, pressing for a repeal of the policy. Conservatives, of course, are opposed. Bill Kristol had this to say:

There is no basic right to serve in the military. That’s why forms of discrimination we would ban in civilian life are permitted: Women have less opportunity to fight than men. The disabled are discriminated against, as are the short, the near-sighted, and the old.

Advocates of repeal will say sexual orientation is irrelevant to military performance in a way these attributes are not. But this is not clearly true given the peculiar characteristics of military service.

He doesn’t actually spell out what those peculiar characteristics are. He also quotes John McCain, who said:

This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels. We have the best trained, best equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy.

This is the same John McCain who said in 2006:

We have the most qualified, the bravest and most capable military we‘ve ever had in our history, and so I think that the policy is working. And I understand the opposition to it, and I‘ve had these debates and discussions, but the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.

Huh.

Responding to Kristol, Glenn Greenwald had this to say, which is spot on:

In American culture, there has long been a group of men (typified by Kristol and [Michael] O’Hanlon) who equate toughness and masculinity with fighting wars, yet who also know that they lack the courage of their own convictions, and thus confine themselves to cheerleading for wars from afar and sending others off to fight but never fighting those wars themselves. It seems that individuals plagued by that affliction are eager to avoid having it rubbed in their faces that there are large numbers of homosexual warriors who possess the courage (the “testosterone-laden tough-guyness”) which the O’Hanlons and Kristols, deep down, know they lack.

Chris Matthews had a fellow named Peter Sprigg of the “Family Research Council” on his show to discuss DADT, and he said:

As Sprigg mounted an increasingly illogical defense of the policy based on discrimination, Matthews pressed him on the question: “Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?”

“I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided,” said Sprigg. “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.”

“So we should outlaw gay behavior?” asked Matthews again.

Yes,” said Sprigg.

How about that.

I love this:

Hey you. You there in the Glenn Beck T-shirt headed off to the Tea Party Patriot rally.

Stop shouting for a moment, please, I want to explain to you why you’re so very angry. You should be angry. You’re getting screwed…Look, you can go back to yelling at me in a minute, but just read this first.

1. Get out your pay stub…

2. Notice that your net pay is lower than your gross pay. This is because some of your wages are withheld every pay period.

3. Notice that only some of this money that was withheld went to pay taxes. (I know, I know — yeearrrgh! me hates taxes! — but just try to stick with me for just a second here.)

4. Notice that some of the money that was withheld didn’t go to taxes, but to your health insurance company.

5. Now go get a pay stub from last year around this time, from January of 2009.

6. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld for taxes in your current paycheck is less than the amount that was withheld a year ago. That’s because of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, which included more than $200 billion in tax cuts, including the one you’re holding right there in your hand, the tax cut that’s now staring you in the face. Republicans all voted against that tax cut…But taxes aren’t the really important thing here. The really important thing starts with the next point.

7. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is more than it was last year.

8. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is a lot more than it was last year.

I won’t ask you to dig up old paychecks from 2008 and 2007, but this has been going on for a long time. Every year, the amount of your paycheck withheld to pay for your health insurance goes up. A lot…That’s what I meant when I said you really should be angry. That’s what I meant when I said you’re getting screwed.

I’d add more, but I’ve nothing to add. Go read the whole thing.

Someday, I’d like someone to explain to me why it is that Americans think they have a right to never be scared by anything. Over the last few weeks, Gilbert Arenas has been waving guns around, and a guy tried to blow up an airplane with his crotch, and suddenly everyone’s losing their minds.

Arenas will probably do serious jail time, and may never play in the NBA again, despite the fact that nobody actually got shot. A couple of schmucks waved guns around, and because they’re black, the white establishment thinks “Boyz n the Hood” and drops the guillotine. To put things in perspective: Gilbert Arenas may end up in jail longer, for a victimless crime, than Michael Vick was for murdering dogs. (My feelings on Vick’s rehabilitation can be found here.) He may get an suspension from the NBA that’s longer than Ron Artest got for charging into the stands and beating up the wrong fan. I’m not saying that Agent Zero shouldn’t get disciplined; at the very least, he’s demonstrated that he can’t be trusted with firearms. So take them away, suspend him for a while, fine him, whatever. But let’s not take away his freedom and livelihood for merely frightening David Stern.

Along the same lines, in response to one idiot lighting his dick on fire, the TSA is enacting restrictions that make flying about as enjoyable as prison rape, and don’t do a damn thing about making flying any safer, and just makes folks drive long distances instead of flying them. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good road trip, but you’re more likely to die by driving from Chicago to New York than by flying. (Folks like to throw statistics around that say that, in 2006 for example, only 655 people died in airplane accidents and 45,316 died in car crashes, but that ignores the fact that the average American drives, what, a hundred times as many hours as he flies? So for each hour, I’d say the odds of dying in a plane crash are about the same as in a car crash. It’s certainly not the 2 orders of magnitude difference that flying enthusiasts say. The problem is that driving a given distance takes roughly 10 times as long as flying it, so for a given trip, it is an order of magnitude difference.) The problem is that news reports about brown bearded men trying to blow up planes scares people, and driving around in a 3 ton SUV makes them feel in control. So thanks, TSA, for killing Americans. You’re doing a bang-up job.

Dear America: you need to make a decision about whether you want to feel safe, or be safe. Locking someone up for a victimless crime (be it drug use, or “being stupid with a gun”) does not make you safer; every time you put someone in jail, he becomes far more likely to be a violent criminal than he was when he went in. So congratulations: you turned someone from “moron” to “mugger.” Just take his guns away, put him on probation, help him stop being an idiot. TSA: the odds of me blowing up the plane with my iPhone are remarkably low. How about we just agree that I can use it anytime I want, and I’ll promise to not pack C4 into my scrotum? Awesome. Citizens: sometimes scary stuff happens. How about you stop being such wusses?

Happy belated New Year! Did you make a resolution? Jonah Lehrer bets it falls apart!

Willpower, like a bicep, can only exert itself so long before it gives out; it’s an extremely limited mental resource.

Given its limitations, New Year’s resolutions are exactly the wrong way to change our behavior. It makes no sense to try to quit smoking and lose weight at the same time, or to clean the apartment and give up wine in the same month. Instead, we should respect the feebleness of self-control, and spread our resolutions out over the entire year.

My own resolutions are unsurprising: I need to lose a whole bunch of weight, and I want to have a complete early draft of a first novel. I’m scared that the first resolution will be easier, given that I still don’t know what I want to write about.

I’m a little leery of setting an actual “weight” goal, because I intend to facilitate slenderization via dieting, a little cardio, and a whole lot of muscle-building. It would be foolish to say “I want to weigh 200 pounds” if I get myself crazy ripped and still weigh 235. I think what I’m going to do is set a goal of having a waist measurement the same as my inseam (34), which is a good long way off. I’m around 40 inches around now, so frankly if I get down to 36 I’ll be pleased as punch.

What are your resolutions? To be more awesome?

Here’s a nice story about the emerging awesomeness of my new ‘hood:

A growing group of residents and business owners – new and old – wants to uncover Claymont’s built-in beauty, revive its flagging spirit and improve its sagging property values.

The goal is daunting, but the coalition has not recoiled from the fact that its community needs a lot of work – inside and out.

“If you can’t handle honesty, you can’t live in Claymont,” said Ellie Kwick, who has lived there all of her 63 years.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was fraught with obesity! I ate so much that I did not have to eat again for roughly 14 hours. (Given that I’m usually rustling through the pantry every 30 minutes, that’s a major accomplishment.) Note that I said I didn’t have to. That didn’t stop me from doing so: there was pie, you see. I had four pieces!

In the interests of goodness and kindness in this holiday season, I want to share with you a blogpost that every American should have to read. It is entitled: People Who Back Into Parking Spaces Can Kiss My Ass. And every word of it is true. Please retweet, or whatever.

For Veterans’ Day, here’s a Denver Post piece detailing a young man’s struggles with the military and his own life as a reporter and photographer followed him for 27 months during basic training, advanced infantry training, and a tour in Iraq. It’s really spectacularly done, and the photography is revealing and often heartbreaking.