Contradictory Headlines

NYTimes: "Conservatives to Dominate Afghanistan"
LATimes: "Karzai Supporters May Dominate Afghanistan's New Parliament"

I am really confused. Says the AP article in the LATimes:

Nearly all winning candidates ran as independents, making it difficult to
determine where power will lie in the 249-seat legislature. But Western
diplomats and other political analysts said it appeared that supporters of
the U.S.-backed Karzai dominate.

"The government has the support of more than 50% in the parliament," said Ali Amiri, a respected political analyst who writes on Afghan affairs. "There are some small opposition groups, but nothing big enough to challenge Karzai."

...

Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said more than half of the winners are regional strongmen, prompting fear that they will block efforts to reform government and bring to justice those responsible for years of bloodshed.

But the NYTimes article states:

Based on early analyses of the full results of the Sept. 18 elections, the
National Assembly will be dominated by religious conservatives and jihadist
figures. They may form a strong base of opposition to the president, Hamid
Karzai.

The AP article seems to be talking only about the 249 member "Wolesi Jirga" or "House of the People". The voting for that Jirga occurred September 18th but results have been delayed due to an investigation into possible ballot-box stuffing. The NYTimes notes that 32 members of the upper house or "Meshrano Jirga" were elected this Saturady. Thirty-four of the 102 members of this legislature will be appointed by Kazai.

Today's Papers over at the Slate mentioned this discrepency in headlines.

Pat Robertson is a nut job

The city of Dover has just voted out all 8 members of its school board who pressed for ID to be taught in the science classroom. This is what Pat Robertson had to say:

I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your
area, don’t turn to God; you just rejected him from your city. And don’t wonder
why he hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they
will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if
that’s the case, don't ask for his help because he might not be there.

Iran with Nukes

There is going to be an article in the NYTimes tomorrow about some of the evidence the US has been presenting to prove the Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon.

There is no evidence that Iran has a bomb, and their is no evidence that they would be able to build one before 2010. Can we please go forward causiously on this one?

Oh Really Mr. O'Reilly?

Boy, I can't agree with Bill on anything. Apparently (I haven't actually watched the show, I've heard and read) that he is after oil companies now for making a profit because of high energy demand.

This is the type of Republican I really hate. They are fanatic about social issues and then it turns out they aren't even conservative when it comes to free markets. If they keep this up people are going to start to realize that the party that truly wants the Federal Government out of our private lives is the Democratic Party and all of the differences on economics issues are trite in comparision.

And if you want something truly aggrovating just read this part of the conversation:

So Mr. Flynn, I mean, I've got stats, man.

PHIL FLYNN, VP, ALLERON TRADING CORPORATION: You sure do.

O'REILLY: I've got them.

FLYNN: Double profits at a time when oil demand is at an all-time high.

O'REILLY: At a time when the country's suffering.

FLYNN: And, guess what? What you didn't show with these numbers, Bill, how much dollars invested did it take to get those profits?

O'REILLY: Stop. Stop.

Riots in France

Here is an interesting description of one of the slums of Paris.

The Economics of Sexuality

Andrew Francis develops (pdf) a model of sexual behavior where, as the cost of one sexual act rises relative to other activities people tended to substitute away from that act. Choices of sexual activity people might choose between are vaginal and oral sex, or protected and unprotected sex. Rising costs for these might include the spread of a sexualy transmitted disease.

What makes this paper very interesting is that he explores the "choice" between hetero and homosexual sex with the introduction of AIDS as the increase in cost. Knowledge of AIDS increases the cost of homosexual sex for men, and heterosexual sex for women. He finds that indeed men shifted towards heterosexual and women toward homosexual when they were more likely to know about AIDS and how it is spread.

What conclusions can we draw? This shift, while significant, occurs on the margin between homo and heterosexuality. Preferences between them in the model are assumed to be biological in nature. The vast majority of men and women do not change their sexual behavior even given the sharp increase in its cost. This suggests though, there is a middle area for both men and women whose members can possibly be influenced by cost.

As Alex points out over at MR, there seems to be a higher number of homosexual men in prisons where the cost of heterosexual sex is extremely high, if not infinite.

One thing we must consider is the implications this has toward sexual policy in this country. If you believe that homosexuality is wrong then you are right to suppose that keeping restrictions on gay marriage and other cultural factors that make it costly to be gay will reduce the population of openly homosexual people. You would be correct in saying that lessoning these barriers would result in an increase in homosexual activity.

I think I remember reading somewhere that women are more likely to report having a homosexual experience than men. This could be explained by the fact that (I think) there is less stigma attached to females having homosexual sex than males. I mean, come on. Two chicks doing it? That is hot.

Via MR.

Congratulations Daniel

One of my favorite bloggers has landed a nice job.

Intelligent Design, Again

There seems to be a very emotional war going on within Christianity right now between conservative Christians and everybody else. I fall in the everybody else side, and I came to an interesting conclusion. I believe in the premise behind what has come to be known as Intelligent Design.

What I have believed since a very long time ago was that God created the universe, the world, us. It so happened, I learned later that this was done through a process of evolution that continues even to this day. Learning about this did not shake my belief in God at all. I simply discounted some of the fanciful stories in the Old Testment. Coming from my version of Christianity (Methodist) this was easy to do. I do not believe that Noah built an boat that housed every species of animal in the world either.

ID goes one step beyond my belief system though. ID states that life forms such as ourselves are vastly too complex to have evolved from single cell organisms without the guildence of a higher being. Therefore, if it can somehow be proven that complex organisms can evolve from the building blocks of life then ID has been disproven. My own personal beliefs would still hold.

This harmony between religious beliefs and scientific discovery is discussed in Jimmy Carter's new book as well.