The new power blocs

In the not too distant past, the world could accurately be described as 'bi-polar'. You (in the Nation sense) were either for the Soviets, or for the Americans. The fall of the Soviet "empire" left the world with but a single superpower. With the undeclared armed conflict over, the term 'superpower' is something that has shifted.

From a military point of view, the United States is unmatched. Should aliens from outer space attack, the US military is the only one left that could mount a possible resistance, with leftover Soviet hardware coming a distant second. For more terrestial concerns, US might and decaying ex-Soviet might are all that are left. At least as far as national militaries are concerned.

The big spoiler on the Military front is nuclear weapons. Add in to that a significant missile technology, or even worse a miniaturization of such weapons into the much rumored Soviet "suitcase nuke", and you have a force that can even stand off the US. But that just makes the US think a lot harder about mitigating desperation moves (i.e. nuking a US city just because you can when the tanks start rolling down Capital City main street).

No, from a military point of view, the balance of power has shifted dramatically. The conventional military as we've always known it can out-match anything on the planet. Which brings us to asymmetric warfare (a.k.a. guerilla warfare, terrorism, and the like), which is something that is far harder to combat. We are a superpower in military might, but we have a big weak spot when it comes to public opinion.

Where we still reign supreme is on economics. But that doesn't mean that we lack challengers. We are the worlds largest economy. The US dollar is the reserve currency for many nations, used where gold used to be, and that puts unique pressures on how our economy is managed. If our economy tanks, so do the holdings of other nations. I've heard it said that the largest single holders of US Bonds are actually foreign countries.

There are two contenders for the crown of Superpower when it comes to economics. Japan had been the number two economy for years until the European Union formed to assume that spot. And possibly most worrying, China has made it known that it plans on joining this elite club as well.

China's energy consumption has increased dramatically over the past few years. More immediately, China's Olympic medal count puts it right up there under only the United States and Russia and second only to the US in gold medals. China's government is very forward in advocating their relatively cheap labor to international firms in order to get foreign capitol (in the form of investment in factories) to flow into China. This is a country that plans on going places.

Unlike the Soviet devolution into Russia, the Chinese central committee has carefully planned the modification of their economy from centrally managed to more free market. This has provided a stability that was lacking in Russia, though they haven't had to deal with the break-away republics like Russia had. With the summer Olympic games to be held in Beijing in 2008, China is motivated to prove to the world that they are a world power to be reckoned with.

This idea has been around for some time, but it has been a long time before all parties recognized it. China is one of the nations that has a veto on the UN Security Council. At the time of the UN's inception, China was still a very backward place and only very recently communist. For years the US only recognized the old Chinese republic as represented by Taiwan. It is now very clear that China is a world power worthy of the UN veto.

China is currently in the midst of "crony capitalism" of the sort the US went through in the 1800's. Cheap labor and only vaguely enforced environmental laws make it an excellent place to make things cheaply. World pressure will start environmental actions in due time, and as the Chinese as a people prosper the idea of worker empowerment will eventually take hold. In the mean time, China is fertile ground for investment.

China is not quite at economic superpower yet, but it is the darling of big business already. China is actively promoting that in an effort to pass up the big names on the list of top economies. It won't be long before a change in, say, fiscal policy in China has world reaching impacts the way the US Federal Reserve meeting minutes do.

Instant Runoff Voting

The voting format known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) has been approved for use in San Francisco. IRV has been a favorite of supporters of third party candidates because it allows a better reflection of actual voter preference in the populace. In other words, it can increase the chances of third-party candidates for getting into elected office.

The system is relatively simple. A voter goes into their polling place. They review the candidates for a particular office and vote for their top three (example case) choices. So they mark, "Green, Libertarian, Democract," in that order. When it comes time to cound the votes everyone's first-choice is counted. If that does not give a candidate with a 50%-plus-one majority, the last-place candidate is removed from contention, and ballots with that candidate marked as 1st place now had their 2nd place choices promoted to first place and the count is taken again. In this test case, the Libertarian candidate finished last; but since our voter had that as their 2nd choice no change to their ballot is made yet. The process continues until one candidate has a 50%-plus-one majority.

The advantage here is that people can vote for their doomed-to-fail candidate without fear of 'spoiling' the election for the democrat/republican who will actually get the position. And perhaps maybe, enough folk will start voting for non-major party candidates that perhaps one might slip in as everyone's #2 choice in a race that is hotly contested.

In a sort of real-world example, take the 1998 Govenors election in Minnesota. The actual margin was very minor:

37.0% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
34.3% Norm Coleman, Republican
28.1% Hubert "Skip" Humphrey, DFL
00.2% other minor candidates

Jessie won with with barly over a third of the populace voting for him. Had this election gone with IRV, the results would have been different.

First Round
37.0% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
34.3% Norm Coleman, Republican
28.1% Hubert "Skip" Humphrey, DFL
00.2% other minor candidates

No one at 50% yet, so mark up the 2nd choices of 'other candidates'

Second Round
37.1% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
34.3% Norm Coleman, Republican
28.2% Hubert "Skip" Humphrey, DFL

Still no one above 50%, so remove Humphrey from contention, and mark up 2nd choice candidates of Humphry ballots

Third Round
55.2% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
37.7% Norm Coleman, Republican

Presuming that Democratic voters would rather have Jessie, more liberal than Norm Coleman, than the traditional enemy, more would choose Jessie as their #2 than Norm or 'minor party' candidates. Since minor party candidates have already been dropped from the election, 3rd or even 4th choices by democratic voters would be counted to get to a valid candidate.

This would have resulted in a much clearer 'mandate' for Jessie Ventura. Nationally, Clinton never got 50% of the overall vote thanks to Perot being in both races. Both were called "unelected" by their detractors. IRV would give a credence to such candidates that plain old top-vote-getter doesn't.

I'm glad that IRV is getting more attention of late. I believe that it is a valid thing to have. It allows supporters of minor party candidates a chance to actually vote for their candidate but also still enable them to NOT detract from the major-party "lesser of two evils" canddiate.

Abu Graib, still here

Abu Graib has falled from the front page. This was lifted recently when one of the guards directly involved in the torture was brought before court, but things have died down again. Back when the story was fresh there was a lot of speculation over what could happen to the Bush administration over this topic. Abroad the topic is still being discussed, though not in front-page stuff; opinion pieces mostly.

This is something to be concerned about. If Bush were to win a second term I believe this issue would start heating up again. If the fault is to lay at the feet of the Bush administration, him NOT winning re-election would be cause enough to let the matter drop as settled as the Voters took the matter into our own hands. On the other hand, if he is still around and in power it becomes more prudent to show the world that we're Doing Something. Or rather, it may be prudent.

Keep in mind that the Watergate scandal broke before the 1972 election. Nixon managed to win re-election that year, and faced pointed Inquiry the following year which ultimately led to his resignation. Personally, I do not think that events will get us that far again; this particular #@$! won't flow that far up hill.

Should the Democrats take the Senate this November, it is possible that pointed inquirys will be launched. However, the House is where any such inditement needs to come and things are not looking THAT good for the Democrats this year. 1994 taught us that surprises can happen, but I'm not counting on one this time around.

America would really rather forget the events of Abu Graib, as they are uncomfortable. The world, which is increasingly anti-USA, won't let us. The way certain members of the opposition party cracked "President Hillary" jokes during Clinton's presidency, "throw me in Abu Graib" jokes are showing up in the international press. This is an example of a smudge on our national honor that those who oppose us will point to and giggle at.

Which isn't helped when other rumors of torture start circulating.

And so it begins...

The case that sparked off the latest round of gay-marriage debate has been heard by the California Supreme Court and been struck down.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3560050.stm

However, it seems that the court ruled that the Mayor did not have authority to issue such licenses, and did not rule on the constitutionality of the law banning same-sex marriage.

The court did not resolve whether the California Constitution would permit a same-sex marriage, ruling instead on the narrow issue of whether local officials could bypass state judicial and legislative branches.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/12/national1326EDT0587.DTL

It seems that the Court is not commenting on the coming case, and the State Legislature is remaining mum on the issue. Wisely so, since it could be a year or two before it gets to the Supreme Court, and a lot can happen in that time. Perhaps Kerry will make it. Perhaps November will bring the Senate back to the Democrats. Perhaps Bush will win a second term and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage will be circulating State legislatures looking for approval. Hard to say.

But the marriages themselves are annulled. Even if the Supreme Court decides that the law is unconstitutional, the marriages already performed won't count.

Citations:

British Medical Journal; BMJ; International edition; London Jun 15, 2002 324; 7351 p. 1407-1408
Written in response to recent events in Britian, specifically the legalization of second-parent adoptions by a second mother. It seems that studies on the effects of being raised in same-sex environments started in the seventies, and that at that time:

These young adults did not differ from their counterparts from heterosexual families in terms of quality of family relationships, psychological adjustment, or quality of peer relationships. With respect to their sexual orientation, the large majority of children from lesbian families identified as heterosexual in adulthood.

It was specifically noted that these early studies were primarily done on women and children where the child was born in a hetersexual marriage, and followed by divorce or separation. It would seem logical that children born to two women through assistive reproductive technologies such as artificial insemination would suffer fewer problems than the earlier children born in families that were eventually divorced.

American Sociological Review. Vol 66(2), Apr 2001, pp. 159-183
A rather interesting article in its coverage of how research in this field is performed. Research can be tainted a number of ways, and researchers on both sides claim the other is tainting the research through flawed design. This particular author is of the opinion that no credible research exists that supports the idea that same-sex parenting of children is in any way harmful to the child.

We wish to acknowlege that the political stakes of this body of research are so high that the ideological "family values" of scholars play a greater part than usual in how they design, conduct, and interpret their studies. Of course, we recognize that this is equally true for those who cricize such studies (including Wardle [1997], Lerner and Nagai [2000], and ourselves).

This particular author goes into detail relating to the various studies done, and critiques them. She also identifies the key researchers producing studies showing that such parenting is harmful.

Even though the American Psychological Association expelled Paul Cameron, and the American Sociological Association denounced him for wilfully misrepresenting research (Cantor 1994; Herek 1998, 200), his publications continue to be cited in amicus briefs, court decision, and policy hearings.

and

Wardle(1997), like other opponents of homosexual parenthood, also relies on a controversial literature that decries the putative risks of "fatherlessness" in general. Thus, Wardle cites books by Popenoe (1993, 1996), Blankenhorn (1995), and Whitehead (1993) when he argues[...]

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Vol 43(4), Sep 2002, pp. 335-351
I wasn't able to get the full article, only the abstract. However, the abstract did contain this line:

Children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers did not systematically differ from other children on any of the outcomes. The studies indicate that children raised by lesbian women do not experience adverse outcomes compared with other children. The same holds for children raised by gay men, but more studies should be done.

Mom'n'Pop dems & marriage

I just read a commontary in the Washington Times describing the recent constitutional amendment in Kansas. It seems that the powers over there managed to get the question to come up on the Primary instead of the General ballot. This presumably would benefit the democratic position, as democrats cast more primary ballots.

Yet the measure failed by a sizable margin. Seventy something against, a lot like the Hawaii vote coming on ten years ago.

The author of this piece claimed that this is because a sizable (and presumably silent) majority of Democrats do not like the idea of same sex marriage enough to vote in a strict ban. The author then went on at length to detail the reasons why they are doing this, including the frequently-quoted line of "it is bad for the children." This particular challenge is untrue, even if 'common sense' seems to say otherwise.

Back in college when the first round of "gay marriage" legalization started with Hawaii, I did a paper on the topic of the children of such unions. This was in the mid 1990's, and there were several studies on this very topic. One of the big fears at the time (now seldom heard) was that children of such families would end up in same-sex relationships themselves. The actual incidence of homosexuality among such children was higher, though not markedly so (12% vs 9% for instance, JUST outside the margin of error). Another area of concern about such children was mental health and adjustment to society. Again, these children showed nominal or even better health when compared to the standard population. These studies were started in the early eighties, so research into this has been going on for a number of years already.

I haven't had a chance to look at current research. The children in the earlier studies would be hitting college and getting married now, so they would be very valuable research subjects. I want to actually dig up some citations, which I will post once I find them.

Snark factor 9, cap'n

Once Upon a Time, MTV played music videos. This didn't end of being the revenue source they thought it would have been, so they started throwing other music oriented content. Then the whole MTV-Generation thing started kicking up and then MTV played content theemed at what are now the GenXers. The very first thing we watched when we got cable oh, those many years ago, was ZZ-Top's 'Legs' on MTV.

But take a look at what's hot right now. MTV has many channels now (MTV2, VH1 to name the most well known). What seems to be the it-thing right now is retrospectives on how bad was it? Like, the hair? We used to wear it like that! How could we do that? Etc.

CMT is almost as bad these days.

There is a particular host that seems to be on the retrospective snark-fest shows a lot. He is now hosting a show called, "What I hate about you." This particular show takes a couple and both get to air their chief grievance about the other person and go into depth about it. A panel then decides who is the martyr of the relationship, and they get revenge of some form. This particular host is a snark-maven. He can come up with a disparaging but humorous remark for ANYTHING.

This holds true in a lot of other areas as well. I stopped reading Slashdot years ago. Things got to the point where the shoot-from-the-hip cynicism so drowned out discussions of the idea that it was just unreadable. "It'll never work" is the first response to any genuine new idea, and culture has shifted to the point where later posters riff on that one topic.

The unscripted "reality" shows out there have helped this out. Part of the formula for these shows is 'behind the scenes' interviews with the participants where they give their impressions of recent events. Or look back on what happened. Due to the intensely competitive nature of these shows, such opinions are fairly biased. And the more biased, the more shocking, the more likely it is to get airtime. These shows have been on the air enough that contestants going into these things are aware of that.

And all this makes me thing of the "put-down culture" that prevailed in my High School. The art of the put-down was held in high regard, if infrequently exercised on school grounds. At the time, this was a predominantly black-street thing; but the idea seems to have changed a bit and morphed into the mainstream. Still annoying.

Vatican & Feminism

The Vatican has released a letter to bishops describing the role of women in the Church. This particular document is very based in the past, and has been signed by the Pope. The ban on female priests has been further continued. The main beef the Vatican has with Feminism seems to be the idea that men and women are fundamentally the same.

This is one of the prime tenants of feminism, with the differences being largely physical and cultural in nature. The Vatican sought to underline the differences between men and women, lest such distinctions be blurred. Yes, there are differences but not in terms of what each is good at.

What is interesting to note is that this document was released in order to address a perceived hostility. This hostility is what the Vatican believes exists between men and women as a result of north American style feminism, in the sense that it is almost a class issue. This document was released in order to provide a more Christian method of handling these issues.

The BBC had a nice article giving the views of a feminist on this, and was very complimentary. The Church has actually addressed feminism for the very first time, some forty years late. But it has addressed it. This is big, in her view. Very big. We're still no where near female priests, but no longer is the official view that women do not belong in the work-place.

One of the real downsides to the underlining of the differences between men and women was another attack on homosexuality. It seems feminism has also promoted the idea that gay people can create healthy families, and that just isn't the case. Ahem. I have to remind myself that this *IS* the Catholic Church here, and that it'll probably be several decades after same-sex marriage is legalized nationally before they get around to admitting that maybe it isn't so bad afterall.