Random

[stakebait]

A good cause doesn't make you a good poet. *cringe*

If you've been upset in the past when your political opponents take your polls? Don't announce the new poll to everyone that took the old ones. This announcement brought to you by the letter duh and the number d'oh.

Oddly for completely unrelated reasons I have a sudden intense desire for a song on the dangers of self-selected samples. Something catchy.

Study shows abstinence pledge no help in fighting STDs. Thanks to cyan_blue for the link.

Does anyone have a transcript of Joss' interview on NPR yesterday? And do you know if it's got spoilers?

flowery_twat has interesting thoughts on the morality of understanding and remembering evil. I can feel something inside stirring in response, but it hasn't actually made it to words yet.

Astronauts win.

Comments

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

I listened to the interview and posted a link to the segment in my LJ. No Angel spoilers.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Thanks! If it's the one I saw, though, it was a sound link, right? I can't do those. Gotta be typed text.

Mer

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

Ah, bummer. Yeah, it's a sound link.

I didn't have time to transcribe, but I noted anything I found funny and/or important in my summary.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Re: that announcement? I was thinking the same thing; then again, it shows they are not in possession of an Evil!Gay!Sympathiser!Filter...

Speaking of the AFA, is it wrong for me as a Christian to snort out loud when reading this on their page?

Organizations and ministries such as Pure Life Ministries, based in Dry Ridge, Kentucky, have been seeing a dramatic increase in the number of women seeking help in breaking free from sexual sin.

::is twelve::

study

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

I think a better title for this one would have been "study shows pledge is no help (or not much)". The last line of the article is a bullet-point that says "99 percent of non-pledgers and 88 percent of pledgers have sex before marriage." If 88% of pledgers don't keep the pledge, what's the point? Or does this mean that they've already caught the STDs before they pledge?

Re: study

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I think no help is accurate. The relevant bullet point for STDs is not how many people have sex, but how many people catch STDs. So the key sentence was But the two groups' STD rates were statistically similar.

The pledgers don't use condoms as often as non-pledgers do. (Because they're not planning for it, they're doing it in the heat of the moment). So even though they have fewer partners and fewer of them have sex, the ones that do have more unsafe sex and therefore as a group they get STDs just as often as their promiscuous but prepared compatriots.

And yeah, it means 88 percent of them break their promise. It's not about pre-existing STDs. Presumably the point is that 11 percent more people are not having sex, which is a win for those who think premarital sex is immoral. But if this study is reliable, the public health benefit is now shown to be nonexistant.

Mer

Re: study

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

"Presumably the point is that 11 percent more people are not having sex, which is a win for those who think premarital sex is immoral."

It didn't occur to me that 11% might count as a victory. Too many years of reading experimental papers?

Re: study

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Heh. Or you have too good a sense of proportion? I certainly would think that something which had an 88 percent failure rate was a failure, but I guess if they're comparing it to *not* doing it and that 99 percent, it is a comparative success for the forces of not getting laid. One hopes for the sake of their problem solving skills that they are at least busily planning alternative methods which might have more than 11 percent success, whether as a supplement or an alternative. Not that I *want* to promote abstinance. I am a big proponent of consensual sex. But I do want to believe that people are basically rational. :)

Of course, they're likely to have other issues with methods that are likely to have a better success rate, such as giving out vibrators and instructions on masturbation.

Mer

[mpoetess.livejournal.com]

Cavemen win, because they mate with the astronauts, and spread their genes out into the population, secretly becoming the astronauts, so slowly that no one realizes or remembers.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[wackinessensues.livejournal.com]

The first link is now 404, ha. See what you did?

NPR should have the Joss transcript up by now, and no there were no spoilers in the interview.

Side note, last night's meeting in Portland resulted in a decision to meet again in two weeks to discuss the Gay Marriage issue at greater length. Gay couples are still getting married in Multnomah County today.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

It's not my fault, I tell you. :) At least, not mine alone.

Thanks for keeping me posted!

I was going to reply to the abstinence thing

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

But I realized I was rambling on, so I posted it in my own lj. kuzibah

And thanks for the links.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

The dangers are ample/
With a self-selected sample

Give me time; I might do better.

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

Last night, I caught up on the three most recent episodes of 'Angel'.

Neither side wins. The cavemen go underground to keep from having rocks dropped on their heads, and they all die in horrible earthquakes. The astronauts stay in orbit to avoid the cavemen, and they run out of air.

Fairies win.

[sdelmonte]

Rocks fall, everyone dies!
Rocks fall, everyone dies!

[batyatoon]

...

I love you so. much.
*hugs*

[vaspider]

Re: the first. Ahem. Ye{.

I guess I just have a tendency to be over-polite.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*blink* To whom? Did I miss something?

In such circumstances, I have a tendency to just be silent. But since the observation wasn't provoked by anyone who reads and comments here, I felt safe in venting a wee bit. :)

Mer

[vaspider]

To the author in question. ;)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. :)

[miggy.livejournal.com]

I reacted like you to the, urm, poetry: wince faintly, say nothing, close the window.