SansPretense

Not sure how many of my 5 readers have heard about this story, but I wanted to comment on it.   The gist of it is this: A school district in Mississippi canceled the high school prom because the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of a lesbian student, named Constance McMillen (18 years old).   She wanted to bring her girlfriend (another student) to the prom and wear a tuxedo.  The school said no to the tux and no to the “date” (they apparently could go separately?).   The school, at the time they canceled, said that they hope a “private party” would step-forth to hold the prom.  Presumably, this was their way of taking the legal and political (remember, small-town Mississippi politics in the middle of the Bible-belt) issues surrounding the lawsuit out of their hands.   I cannot fault them for this decision, and several private parties have stepped-up to help these kids have a prom, including a hotel owner from New Orleans who offered to bus the kids down from northeastern MS and hold it for free at one of his properties.

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.

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For any of you keeping up on today’s major blog story, I thought I would make some comments from the perspective of a scientist on the controversy. 

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):

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So now I am sitting in another Canadian restaurant and bored again. So time for more stereotyping and generalizations…

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…

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I hope my credit card works…

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…

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Is this a joke or do these guys have no sense of irony?

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.

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