Who is going to develop drugs once there is no longer any money in it? At present, the United States represents more than 82% of the global spending on biomedical research and development. Other countries should either pay their fair share, or go without our drugs.
And before you start spouting off with bullshit statistics regarding infant mortality, know that the only valid comparison is patient outcomes for identical issues. Other countries like to grossly under report things like infant mortality by discounting children that died within 24 hours of birth, and those born prematurely. The United States leads in both patient outcomes, and in medical innovation.
How fudged are those numbers? The global warming alarmists have had their hand caught in the cookie jar. Until they release all of their data for outside audit by dissenting scientists, their findings are worthless.
I guess this is why congress and house members feel it's OK to vote for a 1900+ page bill they have not even read all of, nor allowed the public to read before a vote - why bother reading when your corporate sponsors have given you all the soundbytes you need?
They sneak these bills through because they can't withstand public scrutiny. Obama and Pelosi are both liars, not allowing people to view the bill before voting, and holding the vote on a Saturday night to skirt public and media scrutiny is exactly the opposite of their campaign promises.
Yes it does (look through 50TB of data), and how would you design it?
When a users posts a message, I would have the web server pass the message to a server that listens for messages that are being sent. That server would collect the mail then place them as a payload package in the messaging queue when either a fixed number of mail recipients, probably around 500, or a fixed time passes, probably 500ms, whichever comes first. When the payload reaches the front of the queue, the messaging server working on the payload would parse through all the messages building a model of all the data it needs to render all of the messages. It would then send a low priority FQL multiquery requesting all of the data it needs to render and send all of the requests. From there, the messaging server would render both the updated view of the mail when viewing the thread, and view of the thread when viewing the inbox. These would be passed to a persistent memcached setup.
An FQL query would be generated for each user that would increment their inbox message counter, remove the memcached key of the old thread preview from the array of keys representing their inbox while prepending the new key to the array, and append the key to the array representing the thread. When this was assembled for all mail, another low priority multi-query would be sent committing this change.
At this point I'd purge the old thread preview keys from the persistent memcached setup, and store the raw data in a table indexed by both the thread preview key, and the mail view key. The raw data would be stored in case a design change ever necessitated re-rendering all of the mail, or in the case of a user name change.
Finally, I would generate and send an e-mail to each user telling them they have a new message.
This is complex, but it also means that to render an inbox, the only thing that has to be done is to retrieve the array of message thread preview keys, and request each thread preview by key from memcached. Of course, this collection could also be cached.
Note: I intentionally left out some things in the interest of time, like sent message display, read and unread flagging, spam filtering, new message highlighting, and I'm sure others. It shouldn't be difficult to see how this basic model can be expanded to cover these cases.
Don't let it intimidate you. When I started lifting, I was very intimidated by the bigger guys in the gym benching 225 as I was struggling with 115. After five years or so, I am benching 265, squatting 350, and pressing a little over 600. My weight fluctuates between 190 and 210. The bigger guys don't notice anyone that isn't bigger than them. Moreover, the bigger guys are generally really friendly, don't mind giving advice, and know a lot about working out. When I lift weights, I'm intensely focused on what I'm doing, I don't notice what other people are up to.
It was the Democrats fault. They were in charge of the House Financial Services Committee, and refused every effort made by Republicans to increase regulation.
"I worry, frankly, that there's a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn't bail them out. But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing."
Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) House Financial Services Committee hearing Sept. 10, 2003
"I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They're not the best investments these days from the long- term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward. They're in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid. And in fact, we're going to do some things that are going to improve them."
Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) July 14, 2008
"I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."
John McCain May 26, 2006
Here are some additional quotes from the Fannie/Freddie Fraud Investigation in 2004
BAKER (R-LA): It is indeed a very troubling report, but it is a report of extraordinary importance not only to those who wish to own a home, but as to the taxpayers of this country who would pay the cost of the clean up of an enterprise failure.
WATERS (D-CA): Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke, Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines.
MEEKS (D-NY): As well as the fact that I'm just pissed off at OFHEO, because if it wasn't for you, I don't think that we'd be here in the first place, and now the problem that we have and that we're faced with is: maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you've given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the, uh, the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they've done a tremendous job. There's been nothing that was indicated that's wrong, you know, with Fannie Mae! Freddie Mac has come up on its own. And the question that then presents is the competence that -- that -- that -- that your agency uh, uh, with reference to, uh, uh, deciding and regulating these GSEs. Uh, and so, uh, I wish I could sit here and say that I'm not upset with you, but I am very upset because, you know, what you do is give -- you know, maybe giving any reason to, as Mr. Gonzales said, to give someone a heart surgery when they really don't need it.
ROYCE (R-CA): In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks.
CLAY (D-MO): This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines.
FALCON (OFHEO Regular to MEEKS (D-NY)): Sir, Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply accounting rules. Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not fail to manage earnings properly. Freddie Mac did. So
Very true. Hourly billing and the ability to quickly provision systems is what makes these services. For our newest application, we only purchased enough equipment to handle the application base load. Our application then monitors the acceleration of system response times, load, and requests to automatically provision cloud servers. Essentially, we'll transfer messaging servers to the cloud, then internally re-provision to handle the new application loads, depending on what the actual load looks like. When the load falls, we'll transition back.
The benefit of cloud computing is that for a few dollars a month, we can provision a few extra servers for the relatively few hours of peak load. This allows us to reduce our upfront cash outlay, while also allowing us to maximize our server usage.
Having had a friend die at 21 from a heart defect, then seeing the family's reaction to all the Facebook wall posts and tagged images, I think you're mistaken. The family was grateful for the outpouring of support, and his profile essentially turned into a memorial maintained by the family. They were the ones that requested that everyone add whatever photos they had, and continue posting remembrance messages. Many of the arrangements and a memorial service were announced through Facebook as well.
They shouldn't be breeding at all. By giving them tax credits, it encourages them to do so, to the detriment of everyone else. Look no further than the inner cities for proof of this, where welfare recipients have too many kids to increase their "paychecks".
Absolutely, that's why I believe that anyone should be able to marry, so long as they pass a fitness test. If they don't, they should still be able to commit civilly and receive all of the same benefits, except for any tax relief.
The correct way to evaluate it is to have a study on both single parents, and gay couples. Both such studies exist, and, so far as I know, no study on gay couples demonstrated any problems in child development in such families.
I'd agree with that, and I did take the time to look at some of those studies. The issue that I found with those studies is that they didn't match the socioeconomic background of the parents. At this point, rearing children as a gay couple is both expensive and difficult. Because of this, the majority of the gay couples that are currently raising children are quite fit for the task. By lowering the barriers of entry through tax breaks, tax credits, and the like, child rearing will be open to less fit couples. I'd like to see a study that compares middle-income or lower-income same-sex couples with equivalent heterosexual couples.
Yet, I don't support gay marriage. It's really nothing personal. The primary reason I oppose gay marriage is because of the huge body of evidence which suggests that single motherhood produces unfit offspring.
Wait wait... what?
You don't support gay *marriage* because *single parent* households produce "unfit offspring"? Ignoring for the moment your assertion that single parent households are bad (something I suspect is wrong... my guess is that single parent household == "unfit offspring" is a case of correlation without causation), wouldn't allowing gay marriage create more *two-parent* households?
There is a clear analogy between a child raised by one parent of a single gender, and two parents of a single gender. Is the problem lack of attention, or lack of exposure to people of multiple genders? There isn't enough evidence either way.
In my view, many of the same issues that plague children that grow up in single parent households, will also plague those that are raised by same-sex couples.
Uhuh. Yeah, that's not bigoted at all.::rollseyes::
I suppose you have some evidence for this utterly absurd notion? Hell, do you even understand what the "issues" are that "plague children that grow up in single parent households"? Because I do, having grown up in one. The biggest are reduced household income and decreased parental involvement because they're busying making ends meet. A dual-parent, same-sex couple, on the other hand, has all the advantages a hetero couple has: either a dual income, or a single income plus a dedicated parent who can stay at home.
But only the influence of one gender. Men and women, contrary to political correctness, approach many situations differently. This bias is a disadvantage for a child.
Therefore, given that marriage is designed to encourage family life,
It is, is it! Well, shit, I better tell my wife... we don't plan to have kids, but we're married. I guess we better get divorced as, evidently, our marriage isn't meeting the design requirements.
Isn't that what this is all about, the tax credits given to married couples for children. If it wasn't about money, then wouldn't civil commitment be good enough?
I do not support gay marriage as I feel it would be unfair to the child
Uh, what child? The child who lives in a two-parent household where the parents aren't allowed to formalize their relationship? Yeah... good job defending that poor, innocent child.
For your position, it would be more logical to campaign against gays adopting children, not against gay marriage (especially since they don't need to be married to adopt).
Forgot this bit. I have no problem with that, it's not encouraged with tax breaks. I don't think that any particular gay couple is any less fit than any particular straight couple, or any particular single person for that matter. To encourage it through tax breaks, however, I think every married couple should be required to prove fitness.
Right, but my question is still why you take single parent homes as your analogue? I don't dispute that a child raised by a same-sex couple might face some unique challenges. But I think they would be unique ones, not those analogous with single parent families. Is your argument that same sex couples have a greater rate of parental absenteeism for some reason? I'm not trying to tell you anything, I'm curious what your reasoning is.
My assertion is that the primary reason children raised by a parent of a single gender are at a disadvantage is because of their limited experience in dealing with people of the gender that their parent isn't. In much the same way, the child of a same-sex female couple would be at a disadvantage because they don't have a male influence. In short, there doesn't seem to be enough empirical evidence one way or the other, so an analogy must be used.
I think it's quite alright for anyone to marry whomever they choose, so long as there are no tax benefits. As soon as there are tax benefits, we're encouraging a behavior; in this case I believe the behavior would be detrimental. Therefore, in the interest of fairness, anyone should be able to marry anyone, but there should be a fitness requirement to receive tax benefits.
Who would decide whose marriages are "in the best interest of society" and what criteria would be used?
Not sure who would decide exactly, but I don't see why you couldn't use criteria like annual income after taxes, employment status (how often are you employed), and criminal status (i.e. have you been convicted of sex crimes against children, other crimes).
It would be hard to nail down fair, clear criteria unless it was something very simple like couples can only be married if they are currently raising minor children. Study after study (http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html) has shown that kids raised by 2 gay parents fare about as well as those raised by 2 straight parents. The more significant component seems to be having two actively involved parents raising a child, rather than their specific gender or sexual orientation. Even then, there are plenty of single parents who do a much better job of raising their children than many couples, even married couples who are the biological parents of the child.
I am sure it is, right now. It's considerably more expensive to have children as a gay couple now, than it is as a straight couple. There is the cost associated with artificial insemination, surrogacy, or adoption. It would only make sense that those gay couples that are most fit are those that are having children now. I would expect that their children actually perform better than most, if they don't, it wouldn't bode well for children of same-sex couples.
Most importantly though, it's undeniable that people (straight, gay, single, coupled) are going to continue having children regardless of their ability to marry. Don't those children deserve the protections conferred by the parents raising them being able to marry?
By providing tax credits, we promote certain practices. This has real effects on the number of people that engage in a practice. They should still be able to marry, just not receive any tax benefits for doing so.
Even taking children out of the equation, there is a clear case to be made for supporting marriage. I mean, nobody's ever worked hard to ban or dissolve the marriages of people who either could not have or chose not to have children, right? Married people tend to fare better than those who are single with regard to happiness, longevity and health.
I'd agree with that, but it's not really marriage that I'm opposed to, it's the tax benefits associated with marriage. If they are unfit parents, they should still be able to commit to each other, just receive no tax benefits for doing so.
And I'm all for parental fitness being a pre-requisite for marriage. I know plenty of straight couples that have done a terrible job raising children.
Exactly. The problem isn't gay marriage in particular, it's marriage itself. If we are going to provide huge tax incentives for people to marry and have kids, they should apply to everyone that is fit, but only to those that are fit. As far as I can tell there is no empirical evidence either way for same-sex couples, single parenthood is the closest relationship I can draw.
I should clarify a bit here. I'm not opposed to gay couples having children, in fact I think in some cases it would probably be beneficial, but I do oppose encouraging it in the general case. Perhaps there should be some sort of fitness test for marriage in general, so that anyone could marry whomever they choose, so long as it is actually in the best interest of society. Certainly there are a large number of homosexual couples that are considerably more able to care for children then some of the heterosexual couples that marry and pump out kids they can't take care of.
That said, there is no justification for opposition to same-sex civil marriage that doesn't (a) reduce to homophobia or (b) apply equally strongly to anti-miscegenation laws (which are much more widely recognized as undue limitations on freedom).
Except there is. As a straight man that has a roommate and friend that's a gay man, and is good friends with two lesbians, I don't believe I'm homophobic. Yet, I don't support gay marriage. It's really nothing personal. The primary reason I oppose gay marriage is because of the huge body of evidence which suggests that single motherhood produces unfit offspring. When you control for all other factors, single motherhood plays a huge role in the success of a child. In my view, many of the same issues that plague children that grow up in single parent households, will also plague those that are raised by same-sex couples. Therefore, given that marriage is designed to encourage family life, I do not support gay marriage as I feel it would be unfair to the child, and ultimately to society as a whole as they will ultimately have to pay for the child.
Because, as it turns out, running the last mile is really, really hard.
It's only hard because it's heavily regulated on the local level. My county specifically designed their franchise laws to allow multiple operators. Because of this, we currently are serviced by two cable companies with their own infrastructure, and Verizon with Fios.
Slashdot Mirror
Who is going to develop drugs once there is no longer any money in it? At present, the United States represents more than 82% of the global spending on biomedical research and development. Other countries should either pay their fair share, or go without our drugs.
And before you start spouting off with bullshit statistics regarding infant mortality, know that the only valid comparison is patient outcomes for identical issues. Other countries like to grossly under report things like infant mortality by discounting children that died within 24 hours of birth, and those born prematurely. The United States leads in both patient outcomes, and in medical innovation.
How fudged are those numbers? The global warming alarmists have had their hand caught in the cookie jar. Until they release all of their data for outside audit by dissenting scientists, their findings are worthless.
I guess this is why congress and house members feel it's OK to vote for a 1900+ page bill they have not even read all of, nor allowed the public to read before a vote - why bother reading when your corporate sponsors have given you all the soundbytes you need?
They sneak these bills through because they can't withstand public scrutiny. Obama and Pelosi are both liars, not allowing people to view the bill before voting, and holding the vote on a Saturday night to skirt public and media scrutiny is exactly the opposite of their campaign promises.
Yes it does (look through 50TB of data), and how would you design it?
When a users posts a message, I would have the web server pass the message to a server that listens for messages that are being sent. That server would collect the mail then place them as a payload package in the messaging queue when either a fixed number of mail recipients, probably around 500, or a fixed time passes, probably 500ms, whichever comes first. When the payload reaches the front of the queue, the messaging server working on the payload would parse through all the messages building a model of all the data it needs to render all of the messages. It would then send a low priority FQL multiquery requesting all of the data it needs to render and send all of the requests. From there, the messaging server would render both the updated view of the mail when viewing the thread, and view of the thread when viewing the inbox. These would be passed to a persistent memcached setup.
An FQL query would be generated for each user that would increment their inbox message counter, remove the memcached key of the old thread preview from the array of keys representing their inbox while prepending the new key to the array, and append the key to the array representing the thread. When this was assembled for all mail, another low priority multi-query would be sent committing this change.
At this point I'd purge the old thread preview keys from the persistent memcached setup, and store the raw data in a table indexed by both the thread preview key, and the mail view key. The raw data would be stored in case a design change ever necessitated re-rendering all of the mail, or in the case of a user name change.
Finally, I would generate and send an e-mail to each user telling them they have a new message.
This is complex, but it also means that to render an inbox, the only thing that has to be done is to retrieve the array of message thread preview keys, and request each thread preview by key from memcached. Of course, this collection could also be cached.
Note: I intentionally left out some things in the interest of time, like sent message display, read and unread flagging, spam filtering, new message highlighting, and I'm sure others. It shouldn't be difficult to see how this basic model can be expanded to cover these cases.
Don't let it intimidate you. When I started lifting, I was very intimidated by the bigger guys in the gym benching 225 as I was struggling with 115. After five years or so, I am benching 265, squatting 350, and pressing a little over 600. My weight fluctuates between 190 and 210. The bigger guys don't notice anyone that isn't bigger than them. Moreover, the bigger guys are generally really friendly, don't mind giving advice, and know a lot about working out. When I lift weights, I'm intensely focused on what I'm doing, I don't notice what other people are up to.
It was the Democrats fault. They were in charge of the House Financial Services Committee, and refused every effort made by Republicans to increase regulation.
"I worry, frankly, that there's a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a
threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn't bail them out . But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing."
Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.)
House Financial Services Committee hearing
Sept. 10, 2003
"I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They're not the best investments these days from the long- term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward. They're in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid. And in fact, we're going to do some things that are going to improve them."
Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.)
July 14, 2008
"I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."
John McCain
May 26, 2006
Here are some additional quotes from the Fannie/Freddie Fraud Investigation in 2004
BAKER (R-LA): It is indeed a very troubling report, but it is a report of extraordinary importance not only to those who wish to own a home, but as to the taxpayers of this country who would pay the cost of the clean up of an enterprise failure.
WATERS (D-CA): Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke, Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines.
MEEKS (D-NY): As well as the fact that I'm just pissed off at OFHEO, because if it wasn't for you, I don't think that we'd be here in the first place, and now the problem that we have and that we're faced with is: maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you've given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the, uh, the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they've done a tremendous job. There's been nothing that was indicated that's wrong, you know, with Fannie Mae! Freddie Mac has come up on its own. And the question that then presents is the competence that -- that -- that -- that your agency uh, uh, with reference to, uh, uh, deciding and regulating these GSEs. Uh, and so, uh, I wish I could sit here and say that I'm not upset with you, but I am very upset because, you know, what you do is give -- you know, maybe giving any reason to, as Mr. Gonzales said, to give someone a heart surgery when they really don't need it.
ROYCE (R-CA): In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks.
CLAY (D-MO): This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines.
FALCON (OFHEO Regular to MEEKS (D-NY)): Sir, Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply accounting rules. Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not fail to manage earnings properly. Freddie Mac did. So
Very true. Hourly billing and the ability to quickly provision systems is what makes these services. For our newest application, we only purchased enough equipment to handle the application base load. Our application then monitors the acceleration of system response times, load, and requests to automatically provision cloud servers. Essentially, we'll transfer messaging servers to the cloud, then internally re-provision to handle the new application loads, depending on what the actual load looks like. When the load falls, we'll transition back.
The benefit of cloud computing is that for a few dollars a month, we can provision a few extra servers for the relatively few hours of peak load. This allows us to reduce our upfront cash outlay, while also allowing us to maximize our server usage.
Having had a friend die at 21 from a heart defect, then seeing the family's reaction to all the Facebook wall posts and tagged images, I think you're mistaken. The family was grateful for the outpouring of support, and his profile essentially turned into a memorial maintained by the family. They were the ones that requested that everyone add whatever photos they had, and continue posting remembrance messages. Many of the arrangements and a memorial service were announced through Facebook as well.
People have a right to tax breaks?
They shouldn't be breeding at all. By giving them tax credits, it encourages them to do so, to the detriment of everyone else. Look no further than the inner cities for proof of this, where welfare recipients have too many kids to increase their "paychecks".
Absolutely, that's why I believe that anyone should be able to marry, so long as they pass a fitness test. If they don't, they should still be able to commit civilly and receive all of the same benefits, except for any tax relief.
The correct way to evaluate it is to have a study on both single parents, and gay couples. Both such studies exist, and, so far as I know, no study on gay couples demonstrated any problems in child development in such families.
I'd agree with that, and I did take the time to look at some of those studies. The issue that I found with those studies is that they didn't match the socioeconomic background of the parents. At this point, rearing children as a gay couple is both expensive and difficult. Because of this, the majority of the gay couples that are currently raising children are quite fit for the task. By lowering the barriers of entry through tax breaks, tax credits, and the like, child rearing will be open to less fit couples. I'd like to see a study that compares middle-income or lower-income same-sex couples with equivalent heterosexual couples.
Yet, I don't support gay marriage. It's really nothing personal. The primary reason I oppose gay marriage is because of the huge body of evidence which suggests that single motherhood produces unfit offspring.
Wait wait... what?
You don't support gay *marriage* because *single parent* households produce "unfit offspring"? Ignoring for the moment your assertion that single parent households are bad (something I suspect is wrong... my guess is that single parent household == "unfit offspring" is a case of correlation without causation), wouldn't allowing gay marriage create more *two-parent* households?
There is a clear analogy between a child raised by one parent of a single gender, and two parents of a single gender. Is the problem lack of attention, or lack of exposure to people of multiple genders? There isn't enough evidence either way.
In my view, many of the same issues that plague children that grow up in single parent households, will also plague those that are raised by same-sex couples.
Uhuh. Yeah, that's not bigoted at all. ::rollseyes::
I suppose you have some evidence for this utterly absurd notion? Hell, do you even understand what the "issues" are that "plague children that grow up in single parent households"? Because I do, having grown up in one. The biggest are reduced household income and decreased parental involvement because they're busying making ends meet. A dual-parent, same-sex couple, on the other hand, has all the advantages a hetero couple has: either a dual income, or a single income plus a dedicated parent who can stay at home.
But only the influence of one gender. Men and women, contrary to political correctness, approach many situations differently. This bias is a disadvantage for a child.
Therefore, given that marriage is designed to encourage family life,
It is, is it! Well, shit, I better tell my wife... we don't plan to have kids, but we're married. I guess we better get divorced as, evidently, our marriage isn't meeting the design requirements.
Isn't that what this is all about, the tax credits given to married couples for children. If it wasn't about money, then wouldn't civil commitment be good enough?
I do not support gay marriage as I feel it would be unfair to the child
Uh, what child? The child who lives in a two-parent household where the parents aren't allowed to formalize their relationship? Yeah... good job defending that poor, innocent child.
The child raised by only men or only women.
For your position, it would be more logical to campaign against gays adopting children, not against gay marriage (especially since they don't need to be married to adopt).
Forgot this bit. I have no problem with that, it's not encouraged with tax breaks. I don't think that any particular gay couple is any less fit than any particular straight couple, or any particular single person for that matter. To encourage it through tax breaks, however, I think every married couple should be required to prove fitness.
I'm not sure how this factors into it at all. It's fairly obvious that any marriage, gay or not, isn't "single", pretty much by definition.
Single parents and gay parents have one distinct commonality, they are raised by parents of a single gender.
Right, but my question is still why you take single parent homes as your analogue? I don't dispute that a child raised by a same-sex couple might face some unique challenges. But I think they would be unique ones, not those analogous with single parent families. Is your argument that same sex couples have a greater rate of parental absenteeism for some reason? I'm not trying to tell you anything, I'm curious what your reasoning is.
My assertion is that the primary reason children raised by a parent of a single gender are at a disadvantage is because of their limited experience in dealing with people of the gender that their parent isn't. In much the same way, the child of a same-sex female couple would be at a disadvantage because they don't have a male influence. In short, there doesn't seem to be enough empirical evidence one way or the other, so an analogy must be used.
I think it's quite alright for anyone to marry whomever they choose, so long as there are no tax benefits. As soon as there are tax benefits, we're encouraging a behavior; in this case I believe the behavior would be detrimental. Therefore, in the interest of fairness, anyone should be able to marry anyone, but there should be a fitness requirement to receive tax benefits.
Who would decide whose marriages are "in the best interest of society" and what criteria would be used?
Not sure who would decide exactly, but I don't see why you couldn't use criteria like annual income after taxes, employment status (how often are you employed), and criminal status (i.e. have you been convicted of sex crimes against children, other crimes).
It would be hard to nail down fair, clear criteria unless it was something very simple like couples can only be married if they are currently raising minor children. Study after study (http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html) has shown that kids raised by 2 gay parents fare about as well as those raised by 2 straight parents. The more significant component seems to be having two actively involved parents raising a child, rather than their specific gender or sexual orientation. Even then, there are plenty of single parents who do a much better job of raising their children than many couples, even married couples who are the biological parents of the child.
I am sure it is, right now. It's considerably more expensive to have children as a gay couple now, than it is as a straight couple. There is the cost associated with artificial insemination, surrogacy, or adoption. It would only make sense that those gay couples that are most fit are those that are having children now. I would expect that their children actually perform better than most, if they don't, it wouldn't bode well for children of same-sex couples.
Most importantly though, it's undeniable that people (straight, gay, single, coupled) are going to continue having children regardless of their ability to marry. Don't those children deserve the protections conferred by the parents raising them being able to marry?
By providing tax credits, we promote certain practices. This has real effects on the number of people that engage in a practice. They should still be able to marry, just not receive any tax benefits for doing so.
Even taking children out of the equation, there is a clear case to be made for supporting marriage. I mean, nobody's ever worked hard to ban or dissolve the marriages of people who either could not have or chose not to have children, right? Married people tend to fare better than those who are single with regard to happiness, longevity and health.
I'd agree with that, but it's not really marriage that I'm opposed to, it's the tax benefits associated with marriage. If they are unfit parents, they should still be able to commit to each other, just receive no tax benefits for doing so.
Because being raised by a person of only one gender is bad, it very well may be just as bad to be raised by two people of only one gender.
And I'm all for parental fitness being a pre-requisite for marriage. I know plenty of straight couples that have done a terrible job raising children.
Exactly. The problem isn't gay marriage in particular, it's marriage itself. If we are going to provide huge tax incentives for people to marry and have kids, they should apply to everyone that is fit, but only to those that are fit. As far as I can tell there is no empirical evidence either way for same-sex couples, single parenthood is the closest relationship I can draw.
I should clarify a bit here. I'm not opposed to gay couples having children, in fact I think in some cases it would probably be beneficial, but I do oppose encouraging it in the general case. Perhaps there should be some sort of fitness test for marriage in general, so that anyone could marry whomever they choose, so long as it is actually in the best interest of society. Certainly there are a large number of homosexual couples that are considerably more able to care for children then some of the heterosexual couples that marry and pump out kids they can't take care of.
That said, there is no justification for opposition to same-sex civil marriage that doesn't (a) reduce to homophobia or (b) apply equally strongly to anti-miscegenation laws (which are much more widely recognized as undue limitations on freedom).
Except there is. As a straight man that has a roommate and friend that's a gay man, and is good friends with two lesbians, I don't believe I'm homophobic. Yet, I don't support gay marriage. It's really nothing personal. The primary reason I oppose gay marriage is because of the huge body of evidence which suggests that single motherhood produces unfit offspring. When you control for all other factors, single motherhood plays a huge role in the success of a child. In my view, many of the same issues that plague children that grow up in single parent households, will also plague those that are raised by same-sex couples. Therefore, given that marriage is designed to encourage family life, I do not support gay marriage as I feel it would be unfair to the child, and ultimately to society as a whole as they will ultimately have to pay for the child.
Because, as it turns out, running the last mile is really, really hard.
It's only hard because it's heavily regulated on the local level. My county specifically designed their franchise laws to allow multiple operators. Because of this, we currently are serviced by two cable companies with their own infrastructure, and Verizon with Fios.
Security/Separation of Duties.
Hooray! Liberal utopia. Take care of me, I can't handle myself.
Then how do you explain the gifts to Gore and Kerry. They're both losers.