Becca Stareyes

Dear New York State Senate,

Stop fooling around with party politics and get some work done. If the same-sex marriage bill dies*, or you don't deal with all the other stuff (tax breaks), I will be mighty pissed at you. So get your heads out of whatever orifices you have shoved them, and get to work.

Yrs,

Becca Stareyes

* Again -- last year the bill was never brought out of committee, IIRC. The governor actually said in an interview: 'interesting ideas or controversial pieces of legislation have always come to [the state capital] Albany to die.'

Went to the department barbecue, where the traditional dish is butter-soaked potatoes and half-chickens grilled over a firepit. Seriously -- they have these metal grates with handles that are like, 2' x 3', and there's like five of them loaded up with chicken halves and they grill for five hours covered in marinade. And they are delicious and filling -- I ate at 3 PM, and am not especially hungry now. Of course, it might have also been the salad, couscous, and desserts (Laura brought chocolate-chip cheesecake to the picnic!).

( My life, so stressful. )

In something less stress-inducing, I did some Slayers fanart!

( Yesterday, Vermont's House of Representatives overrode its governor's veto to become the fourth* state to legalize same-sex marriage, and the first to do so through the legislative branch. )

I found out today that some folks in Massachusetts are trying to get part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act overturned. Good on them.

Okay, basically the DoMA was passed in the 90s and said:
1. Even if the state recognizes same-sex marriage, the federal government doesn't.
2. Other states don't have to recognize each other's marriages if both parties are the same sex.

( Now, I don't like DoMA... )

Warning: the following post contains my political opinion. Discussion is welcome. Flames are not. Most of you folks I like well enough that I trust not to raise a fuss if I disagree with you. And it's more a 'I think about the issues' post than a 'My Thoughts on Yaoi' post.

There is also no Yaoi. The Yaoi is a lie (unless you count the fact I mention a book with a gay couple in it in passing, or my icon that came from a Bad Rpers Suck post). Thank you.

( Ranty rant is ranty. And also obviously written by a nerd. )

I'm surviving without my glasses okay, though I'm getting little actual work done. Boo -- especially since I'm giving a lunch seminar next Monday and have an abstract for a conference due in about a month. Some of that is because the data isn't making sense though. I'll bounce some ideas off of our group on Thursday. Tomorrow, I'll chip away at Hyperion's spin state.

Anyway, something cool. So, I read Dr. PZ Myer's blog, Pharyngula. I don't always agree with it -- I think Dr. Myers does an excellent job blogging about evolutionary biology, and he posts pretty squid and octopus pictures every Friday, but I think he's a little too eager to link all the evils of the world to religion* and somewhat sensationalist. I did see something I liked this weekend in his open post/comments on the Oscars.

( Context is Good, right? )

Let it be said that I despise anti-intellectualism.

So, I'm a fangirl of 538.com from before the election. Now that the election is over (okay, they still haven't decided who has the Minnesota Senate seat, but that is because Norm Coleman is being a jerk and won't just give up), the blog has turned to one part looking at forecasts for the 2010 Senate elections and one part discussing strategy in Washington.

So, one of the bloggers made a post today that pretty much said that the banking bailouts were complicated enough that the only way to have an informed opinion was to be a professional economist or to essentially say 'I think what the expert think'. (I assume this is ignoring things like 'giving the CEOs giant bonuses = not helpful') And then the comments attacked him for being an elitist.

Now, one of the comments had a point is that a lot of economists may have biases based on their political philosophy -- a more conservative economist will be less in favor of government intervention than a more liberal one. That bothers me, in that I can't tell the degree of bias someone might have. (And it's not just a case of 'take the average' -- se King Solomon and the baby for why that's not always a sound policy.)

And, well... consider medicine. I can doctor myself to some degree. I know enough human anatomy and pharmacology to take care of minor illnesses (cold, stomach problems, flu, headaches, cramps) and injuries. I also know enough to diagnose 'emergency' versus 'go into the doctor in the morning'. For more advanced things, I'm going to see someone who has been trained. It's not a matter of him/her being smarter than me, or even that s/he gets drugs I can't get without permission or has a lab to run tests in, but that s/he spent the time I spent learning astronomy learning both the theoretical and practical aspects of medicine, and presumably keeps reasonably up to date on new developments in the field.

Similarly, I know enough economics to invest my own money and understand the newspaper. Whether the country's banking system is going to crash, how bad the fallout will be, and if/how the government can prevent it is just beyond me, and I honestly don't know which way to talk to my Congresscritters about it. (Besides, 'find some good economists and ask them'.)

I guess the problem is that, in this case, not all opinions are created equal. In a democracy, the public should be able to set what is a priority and what isn't, but implementation is best left to the experts. (Heck, one reason I vote is so I don't need to know everything required to make a government managing 300-million-plus people work. I trust that my various representatives take my lists of 'these are important to me' and the occasional more specific opinion, and turn it into something that works. And if they don't do that, I vote for someone else and also yell at them.)

Blogging a lot today. And mostly about politics. This is unusual.

Saying "It's only a theory" with regards to science is the equivalent to saying "It's only Manhattan" with regards to superhero-power accidents -- it just makes you look rather foolish (or, at best, ignorant) to anyone who does understand the scope of things. That was my random observation yesterday.

Now, something that has me angry, from tammy212. This news article tells the story of Amy Brian, who served in Iraq, and returned home to be part of the Kansas National Guard. Except now she can't, because one of a civilian co-worker told the Guard she was a lesbian, and so she lost her job and the pension and benefits she got for being a convoy driver in a terribly unstable region. Yeah, some way to appreciate the service of the troops.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is in serious contention with my undergrad university's "Dry Campus" program as 'the biggest joke of a policy I've heard'. The 'dry campus' thing might win out, if only because 'don't ask, don't tell' actually hurts people*, which is less funny. The article itself notes that discharges for homosexual conduct have gone down since we started fighting in Afghanistan, so you just get situations where they'll ignore you being gay if you're risking your ass in combat**, while if you're serving at home or in a safer spot, you'll get discharged. That's really respecting our troops, huh -- gay people can risk their lives for their country, but when they get home, they lose their benefits if they kiss someone while checking out groceries at Wal-Mart.

* Okay, the dry campus thing might be hurting people who don't get help for their friends' attempts at self-inflicted alcohol poisoning out of fear of getting in trouble.

** Technically speaking, women in the military are not assigned to combat positions. This is also a joke, as there are plenty of nominally non-combat positions that may involve getting shot at.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell bothers me for that reason. It's still discrimination, and, worse, it can be used like this, which almost feels worse than just not allowing any GLTB person in in the first place.

( This isn't strictly about the 2008 election, but it does concern USA politics.  )

Well, aside from the fact the department cannot keep a color printer full of ink. I had gone to a nice colloquium and had a successful group meeting. More on that later, though.

Then I come home, and after a game of Katamari Damancy, I log on and start reading Livejournal.
( Lots of bile here )

Politics depresses me. Perhaps moreso because my own conscience won't let me slide into the Benjamin-esque sentiment of 'things will continue like they always have -- badly'. I want to do something, to encourage the evolution of a system in the way I want to to go, or at least prevent it from getting worse. I just don't know how to go about doing this.

( Warning, political talk ahead )

There's always this question, if someone -- say, George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson -- ran for president of the US today, would they win?

( Thinking Aloud... )

So, back in 2000, when I was but a wee Becca Stareyes (read: I hadn't graduated high school), one of the big internet memes* was the HamsterDance. Soon, everyone was making pages full of dancing .gifs of cute animals, Jesus, and even the people in Election 2000.

Technology has advanced since then.

* Before anyone but the informational theory geeks knew what a meme was.

Last night I had a dream that there was a bear in my bed that was threatening to break my arms and legs if I didn't vote for the right person. (I don't think it liked my answers.)

Stephen Colbert was right about bears...