A few points:

1) My issue with this is on tactics and not on whether the girl should be allowed to go to the prom with the date of her choice.  I think that’s an issue for the parents within the community to decide.  This is about kids, not adults, and even their freedom is limited until they are 18 (and even at 18, if they are attending a school function).

2) The ACLU is known to use these bullying tactics to push their agenda.  Instead of working for social change by dialog and other forms of speech, they push a lawsuit.  The school district, whether you agree with their reaction or not, was responding to the bullying when they canceled the prom.  The girl said that she didn’t think the school would react the way it did, which I find amusing.

3) Now since the ACLU didn’t get their way, they are pressing another lawsuit to force the school to hold the prom.  More bullying.  This would be like the government passing a law that you cannot discriminate against gay couples for adoption and then forcing the Catholic adoption agencies to stay open instead of closing due to moral obligations.

4) The original lawsuit was not claiming discrimination.  As Ed at Hot Air points out:

It’s interesting to me mainly as a legal matter: Per the ACLU’s complaint, this is not a discrimination claim. It’s a First Amendment claim, alleging that McMillen would essentially be engaged in a form of speech (“communicative content”) about her orientation in wearing a tuxedo and bringing a girl to the prom. That’s weak — she’s not going to prom to make a statement, she’s going because she wants to dance and have fun with her girlfriend — but because the Equal Protection Clause has never been held to apply to sexual orientation, the ACLU really has no choice but to try the speech argument. Not sure it’ll work, but then the point isn’t to win the suit. It’s to turn up the heat on the school district until the bad publicity makes them cave or, at the very least, scares other districts that might do this into thinking twice. Working like a charm so far.

The bottom line is this:  Coercing people to do what you want even if they don’t does NOT bring about good will and social change.  It puts people on the defensive, and actually hurts whatever progress you are trying to make.

Science relies on open debate.   When I first saw the story, my instinct was to give the scientists the benefit of the doubt: many discussions within a scientific research group, if taken out of context and without a thorough understanding of the mathematical and scientific issues involved, could sound to a lay person as “scientific misconduct” especially when people read into them what they want to.  However, the more I read these emails, that doesn’t seem to be the case.  The public is surely blowing some out of context, but with so many of the emails pointing to the same forms of scientific misconduct, there seems to be a very worrisome pattern.  If these emails truly are evidence of what they seem to be, it hurts the scientific community as a whole by degrading public trust.   I keep waiting for someone to put them in perspective from the point of view of CRU, but they seem to be more suspiciously silent than I would expect…

If you haven’t been following the news, basically one of the leading climate change research institutions, the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, or CRU, had their email servers hacked.  The anonymous hackers posted a large file containing emails and some scientific data that they took from the server.  CRU has confirmed the hacking and that the emails appear to be genuine.  There are many news sites and bloggers covering the story, with the previous link being to the Herald Sun, and Australian newspaper.   Ace of Spades HQ picked up the story (twice, lol), which is where I learned about it. 

Let’s put this story into some context, and I’ll be as neutral as I can.  First of all, contrary to what the news media may have led you to believe, the scientific discussion for or against global warming is not a cut-and-dry, black-or-white one.  Even within the community of scientists that believe in anthropogenic (man-made) global  warming climate change (AGW), there is a debate over the details.  There are questions over how sensitive the climate is to additional CO2, whether or not some (if not all) of the warming can be attributed to solar activity, and there is many discussions over just how to analyze – and interpret - the data.  The details of all of this is for a different post.  The important thng to note is this: different ways of analyzing the data can lead to drastically different interpretations nad results, especially when dealing with a politically heated topic as this.   Steve McIntyre, one of the major players in this story/debate - isn’t a climatologist.  However, he has been researching this topic for quite some time, and his arguments have been quite compelling.  He runs the site Climate Audit (which is suffering from major server overload since this story broke), and has been attacking the “Hockey Stick” graph for quite some time, along with the methodology of the authors of the graph, Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes.   The emails that were hacked are correspondence between Mann and other authors at CRU.

Because Climate Audit is running so slowly right now, I suggest reading the story at Watts Up With That (WUWT), who mirried Climate Audit’s post.  WUWT has a good selection of damning emails here. 

  Here are a couple of selections (below the fold):

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich

Taken by itself, I wouldn’t say that this was evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.  As a scientist, we are always processing our data in ways that we believe justifiable in order to demonstrate what we believe the trend to actually be.  However, manipulating your data in order to cover up unwanted results and support a hypothesis that the data doesn’t support is evidence of scientific misconduct.  Throwing out a data point because you believe the instrument malfunctioned or you have dirt on a sensor is one thing, but changes to “hide a decline” seems to be pushing it.  The question I have is whether Jones was being careless in how he phrased his data processing, or if this is part of a larger pattern. 

Other emails seem to point to the later:

From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit

In the above email, “CA” is referring to the previously mentioned website Climate Audit.  Now,  McIntyre have been trying to get his hands on the raw, unprocessed data from Mann, et al in order to try to reproduce their analysis.  This is actually part of the scientific process – scientific data is supposed to be open to peer review.  Mann, et al, have been resisting calls to release their data – even claiming it was lost.  There was even a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed (and here), and emails would’ve been subject to such a request…

A couple of months ago, by the way, McIntyre, with the help of some scientific journal editors, did manage to get the raw data.  I’ll find the link and post it later, but what McIntyre found was an intentional manipulation of the data to produce the Hockey Stick.  When he averaged the data in a way that made a bit more sense (the authors of the study would disagree of course), he found that it completely wiped out global warming trends…

And by the way, speaking of lack of global warming, how about this email:

 

From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.

This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
***

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.***

Emphasis added by Bolt at the Herald Sun, who I’m copying and pasting from.  There’s more at the links. 

Exit question: Hacker or whistleblower?

So I watched dancing with the stars last night for the first time. Some of the ball room dance instructors seemed fake and manipulative of their celebrity students…I suppose that’s because they were on tv and dealing with celebrities. They couldn’t possibly be like that in real life, right? (And yes, I know not all ballroom instructors are like that, so don’t get all pissy…)

I did enjoy the dancing, though, Aaron carter is an idiot. I hope he gets voted off. That snowboarder is an idiot, too, but his teacher is hot. So he should get to stay.

I think I found the gay area of Vancouver, but I can’t be sure without further observations that I don’t really feel necessary.

And Sam, I have some cash on me. :-p

I’m at a different restaurant, but I’m eating lasagna again tonight. The waitress said people like it better than the chicken.

This part of the city literally has a coffee shop on every block. Sometimes more. I’ve seen starbucks on opposite sides of the street right across from each other. Draw your own conclusions.

Coffee is one of those things that really highlight the differences between liberals and conservatives.

To a liberal, the brandname on the cup of coffee you are carrying aroud is a status symbol. It tells a lot. Is the coffee from a local shop? Or a chain? Where did the bean come from? A country or company conscious of it’s social responsibilities? And the most important two factors: does it impress the right people and did it cost a lot?

To a conservative, coffee is simple. Whereas the above list are items of conversation to liberals in a coffeeshop, a conservative would have a conversation like this: “dammit, my machine is broken. Just pour me a cup so I can get to work. What? What the hell is a venti? Flavor? No black please Fine whatever. I need to get to work. How much?! Are you out your mind? This would cost a $1 at the gas station. Whatever, I need to get to work. Here. Thanks.”

The lasagna was lacking and the bread tasted funny. But the tiramisu (sp?) was wonderful. Now for a drink…

And later…

Sweet. I made it back to the hotel in time to catch the end of dancing with the stars! It’s a dance off! So louie (the snowboarder) has the hotter pro partner, Chelsea, but I like Michael Irvin better. His partner is pretty too, of course, and doesn’t seem as big of a…nm.

Oh wait, we’re supposed to decide based on dancing. Louie, dancing a jive, messed up on a pivot, which I can relate to, and Michael was struggling with his samba technique. This is a tough choice. Overall, I felt michael’s was cleaner. I vote for them…and the judges say…they agree!

Bye Chelsea. Sorry I had to go with Michael and anna. Call me?

Ok time for another drink…

Wtf is Canadian food? So far all I’ve seen is non-Canadian themed restaurants and upscale places.

I feel lost without my iPhone internet but data roaming is expensive. To me this is justiication for invading Canada and creating a new US territory. AT&T should lobby for it.

Judging all canadians stricly by this one small upscale, touristy area of Vancouver, I have come to the conclusion that Canadians have a lot in common with San Diegoans.

That was intended as an insult to one of the superior city.

The cream puff cake is simply a white cake with a literal cream puff baked inside.

At the info desk of the airport sunday, the girl behind the encounter I found quite pretty…except for the mustache. Though it was a bit of a feminine French mustache. Not the manly American mustache.

I really hope my credit card works…

There is a Scottish couple sitting at the table next to me. Just FYI.

I really hope my credit card works…

Sweet! It worked. Ok going to find some trouble to get into…

At a joint press conference with Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30years, the report said.

“Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses,” ElBaradei was quoted as saying.

Chalk this up to one more reason the UN has no credibility. They are in Tehran for talks concerning Iran’s recently revealed secret nuclear site. They’ve given them two weeks to let them inspect the site – which is pleny of time for iran to hide anything they want to hide. Iran has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction. Yet Israel is the bigger nuclear threat on the middle east? And to make matters worst, this announcement was made in Tehran.

I think Saudi Arabia would disagree since they’ve agreed to allow Israel to use their air space for any future strikes on Iran. Israel better hurry. The West seems hellbent on allowing Iran to build a bomb.

“I’m convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. Very simply, they want to be left alone in peace and safety to take care of the family by earning an honest dollar and putting away some savings. This may not sound too exciting, but there is something magnificent about it.”

Lori Roman is founder of RegularFolksUnited.com, the bully pulpit for regular folks.

From the Washington Examiner via Hot Air.

This morning I was thinking about my daughter’s new Easter dress.  Yesterday, when my daughter put on her bright white dress with pink flowers, I could see her smile just light up the room.  I could tell she felt beautiful.  People complimented her and smiled as she walked by in church – I felt like my prized jewel was on display.  

It’s funny how a dress can make you feel special and beautiful and confident.  It’s happened to me before.  Even when every other day of the year I loathe some part of my body, all it takes is the right dress to make me feel beautiful.  The right dress that you’re not only comfortable in, but that you know compliments you in just the right places.  When that dress is on, you can’t help but think that everyone can see the beauty they may have overlooked before.   

Knowing how good my daughter felt when people complimented her, I made it a point to compliment other little girls yesterday.  It worked every time – the girls would raise their chins a little higher and the smiles would go from ear-to-ear.  

I think we all need to hear compliments from time to time – it’s a reminder of the good in us.  The RCIA instructor at my parish (Elaine) says 99% of us is gold and 1% is shadow, but most of the time we focus on the negative 1% and forget about how good and beautiful we actually are. I agree.  We should all be more accepting of the good in us, and be better about recognizing it in those around us.

I mention this fact only because I was doing my daily reading of news and came across a blog about Ann Coulter’s new book titled “Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and their Assault on America.”  The Right Wing News blog was a summary of the best quotes in Ann’s book.  I have to say most of the quotes are right on.  

However, one of the quotes (from Ann’s book) in the blog was the following:  

“Getting pregnant isn’t like catching the flu. There are volitional acts involved — someone else explain it to Dennis Kucinich. By this purposeful act, single mothers cause irreparable harm to other human beings — their own children — as countless studies on the subject make clear. Not only do single mothers hurt their children, they also foist a raft of social pathologies on society. Look at almost any societal problem and you will find it is really a problem of single mothers.” 

I’ve never been punched in the face, but I imagine it is less painful than reading the above.   

What hurts is not that what Ann stated is false.  On the contrary, I know first hand that single-parent households can open the doors for kids going into gangs, drugs, abuse, low self esteem, etc., but it is the generalization that ALL single mothers are causing a problem and creating society’s evils.   

Believe it or not, I kept reading.  At the bottom of the blog was a link to another of John Hawkin’s pieces: “Ann Coulter on Single Mothers…”  Below is a clip from Ann’s book cited in Hawkin’s blog:  

“Here is the lottery ticket that single mothers are handing their innocent children by choosing to raise them without fathers: Controlling for socioeconomic status, race, and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy-two percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single-mother homes. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced. A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.

Various studies have come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, children from single-parent families account for 63 percent of all youth suicides, 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies, 71 percent of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse, 80 percent of all prison inmates, and 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children.

A study cited in the Village Voice produced similar numbers. It found that children brought up in single-mother homes ‘are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.’ Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts.

….Many of these studies, for example, are from the 1990s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under eighteen were being raised in one-parent homes (mother or father), and 71 percent were being raised in two-parent homes. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the United States were illegitimate. That’s a lot of social problems coming.

…Imagine an America with 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, 70 percent fewer teenage births, 63 to 70 percent fewer teenage suicides, and 70 percent to 90 percent fewer runaways and you will appreciate what the sainted single mothers have accomplished.” — P.37-38

Well, if the first quote I read was a punch in the face, the second link and more detailed context of Ann’s book was definitely a dagger to the heart.   

It hurts me deeply to know that my daughter could end up as a statistic – it hurts to know that the odds are against me, even if I do everything I can to be a good mother.   

That being said, I want to go back to Ann Coulter.   

As a former liberal, I could not stand Ann Coulter.  As I’ve changed and have become more conservative, I have learned to appreciate many of the things she says.  Although I understand her point about single mothers, I feel she is doing the same thing a liberal would do: cry foul, without true remedy, i.e. she has become a victim.  

It is fine to point fingers and say that single mothers “choose” to be single mothers, or incite people by titling one of her chapters “Victim of a Crime? Blame a Single Mother.”  No matter what the statistics are, this is generalization at its finest.  Not to mention that she’s alienating people that might otherwise give what she is saying (which is an important point) a valid chance.  Worst of all is that she doesn’t get to the root of the problem.  Yes, single motherhood is bad for society, but what is causing this trend, what is at the root of this problem?    

Here’s an example.  I was abused as a child.  I lived with my abuser in my home until the age of 18 when I could no longer stand the sight of his face and could legally leave my home.  I was alone, naive and fell in love.  I got engaged and pregnant all by the time I was 19.  My daughter was born.  My daughter’s father wanted to marry me – and it would have worked out were it not for the fact that he raped me and turned out to be a child molester.  Does Ann call this “choosing” to be a single mom?  I would give my life to be with the man I love and have a family and a father for my daughter, but there are limits to what one can stand in the name of staying together.     

I know there are many single mothers that have done a great job in raising their kids alone, without being on welfare or sucking up taxpayer money, or raising thugs.  Single mothers that have raised kids that contribute to society.  I also know many married couples that could not control their kids and they ended up as criminals. 

So maybe it is not so much raising kids alone that is the problem, as it is raising kids with moral values.  It does not take two parents to teach a child that stealing is wrong (although it is ideal), or that rape is monstrous, or that a child is wonderful in God’s eyes and they deserve the best.  

I will be the first to agree with the study that Ann cites, which states that a home where the parents are married is the best place for a child to grow up in, but that does not change the fact that there are good single parents, and that not all children in single-parent homes are society’s downfall.   

I know Ann is trying to sell books, but I wish she would be more conscious of how she delivers her message.

You know, I understand that Miley Cyrus cannot be perfect, and that she will make mistakes (i.e. photos of her cleavage popping up (pun intended) on the internet, or weird and freaky Vanity Fair cover, etc), but this one takes the cake. Let me explain. 

Plain English:  Miley is 16.  Boyfriend is 20.  The two of them dating = wrong – borderline illegal. 

Why is it my problem?  It’s not.  It bothers me because I have a 10 year old daughter that loves Miley’s music.  Although I’m not worried about my daughter emulating Miley’s behavior – I truly believe I am giving my daughter a good foundation of values and faith for her to make good choices in life, I am worried about the millions of girls out there getting the message that it is okay for them to be underage and dating GROWN MEN.  Not all of these girls have bodyguards, or millions of dollars to protect themselves from a guy should something go wrong. 

Miley states in the interview that her Dad introduced this guy to her.  What the heck???? This is normal?  I’m going to introduce a full-grown man to my teenage daughter and be okay with them dating?  Really?  Maybe in Nashville it’s ok (sorry to TN residents) - but not in the world of common sense.

Someone needs to tell this girl that she is an idol to many girls, like it or not her actions are out there for girls to see and act on.  This latest move is putting girls in danger.  It is widely known that dating abuse is a problem, that keeping young girls safe is a problem – why add to these problems? 

In the end, I blame the parents.  I know Miley is “growing up fast” because of the business she is in, but that doesn’t excuse her parents from knowing better. 

Miley is getting paid a lot (A LOT) of money to entertain, and with that comes responsibility to your fans (girls 7 to 17 probably being the majority of those fans).  How about doing the right thing, and not just what “feels” right. 

Ugh.

Melissa Etheridge, champion of gay rights, declared back in November 2008 that because the people of California voted to keep marriage between a man and a woman, she would no longer pay taxes.  Her “reasoning” (I call it emotional blabbering) for not paying taxes was that it made her a “second class citizen” so she no longer needed to pay taxes.  Taunting the government, she blogged that the government would not be getting her “half million” in taxes owed.  Too bad that California and the country are going through tough times Melissa stated, she was keeping the extra money.  Who cares that she still uses California services, she no longer needed to pay her share.  Here’s the story.  

Anyway, for some reason, this story is still “news”, as it was on the front page of my AOL welcome screen a few days ago, and it made me think.   

As a single mom, I have worked hard to make something of myself (despite not going to college), and this year I am told by the government I owe taxes.  You can imagine how reading Melissa’s little tantrum makes me a little bit frustrated. 

Here is some reality for Ms. Etheridge.  I will be paying over $1,200 in Federal taxes this year (may seem small compared to her amount, but let me tell you that the money is needed much more in my household).  Do I like the fact that I am paying the taxes…no.  However, do I understand it as being part of living in this society, yes.  Is it then my right to be ABOVE THE LAW just because I don’t feel like paying taxes for whatever whimsical reason I can concoct today?  Let’s see, I am upset at a lot of things lately – maybe I should withhold paying my taxes because I disagree with Pelosi spending it on contraception?  Maybe I should withhold taxes because Obama is now paying for baby murder with my hard earned money?  Maybe I should withhold it because greedy politicians will end up stuffing it in their pockets anyway?   

Where does it begin and end? 

Here’s the kicker – before Prop 8, Ms. Etheridge had the same rights she has today.  She is able to legally be with her partner (just without the use of the word marriage).  Nothing has changed.  She is no more a second class citizen now than she was last October 2008.  Come and talk to me about being a second class citizen when you are really mistreated and denied your rights, like not being allowed to vote, or denied access to a restaurant because you’re gay – not just because the majority of California has an opinion different than yours.   

In her blog, Melissa also asks “Since when did we start legislating morality?”  Here’s the answer - always.  Does she not realize that when the government says “Murder is wrong” it is legislating morality?  Or how about when the laws state that it is not okay for a 40 year old man to rape a 10 year old girl?  That is legislating morality is it not?   

Anyway, I expect that if this woman does not pay her taxes, the full authority of the law will come down on her.  I’d ask Wesley Snipes how he would feel about Melissa getting away with not paying taxes.  

If they allow one person to skip taxes based on ideology, then maybe it’s time we all did.  After all, how many people can the government actually fit in Federal prison?   My guess is there’s not enough room to hold every single American that hates to pay taxes.