The Binary Circumstance

These stories are so commonplace they are becoming a bore.

I wouldn’t waste my time writing about them except that the Republican party has become so anti-gay while a significant number of their own members frolic through a bizarre series of gay sexual encounters.

The latest is Washington State representative Richard Curtis.

(Olympia, Washington) Conservative Republican Washington state Rep. Richard Curtis is resigning from office a day after a sex scandal erupted that linked him to a gay prostitute.

In a statement saying he was “sorry” and apologizing to anyone he has “hurt” Curtis said he is leaving politics.

“While I believe we’ve done some good and helped a lot of people during the time I served in the Legislature, events that have recently come to light have hurt a lot of people. I sincerely apologize for any pain my actions may have caused.”

Republican leaders will choose a successor for Curtis to serve in the Legislature until the 2008 election.

For days rumors had spread that Curtis was being blackmailed by a hustler. Curtis on Monday denied he was gay and said he never had sex with a male.

Tuesday, though, Seattle police unsealed a search warrant showing Curtis went to police alleging he was being blackmailed by a man he had picked up for sex. (story)

The warrant said that Curtis met the man at a Spokane adult video store and brought him back to his hotel for sex.

An article in SLOG goes into all the sordid details, some of which have been reported on local TV, including the fact that Curtis was wearing women’s lingerie for at least a portion of his encounter with the young man, Cody Castagna, who also has a rap sheet and has appeared in porn. (SLOG graciously provides a link to Cody’s pics.)

Damn, these closeted Republicans are a kinky lot!

Greta Christina explains why she is so angry in a very long but very good post.

As I’ve said before, I dislike the term atheist because it suggests that those who don’t believe in God are without something, which in our culture, they should have. They are defined in relation to theists. They made the rules so they set themselves up as the standard by which everyone else is judged.

It really comes down to rational v. irrational. A rational person requires evidence for his/her beliefs, an irrational person doesn’t.

This is adapted from a nutritionist’s comments I saw on TV:

In every level teaspoon of sugar there are 16 calories. At four calories/gm of carbohydrate, that equals 4 grams.

So every 4 grams of carbohydrate will ultimately break down to the equivalent to one teaspoon of sugar. In some cases, where the label says how many grams of sugar is in a serving, you can quickly compute its equivalent in teaspoons of sugar and ask yourself if you would put that much sugar on your food.

I’ve been trying this yogurt that has 24 grams of carbs (mostly sugars) in it. When I think of it as eating 6 teaspoons of sugar in 6 oz it makes me not want to eat it. I bought it because most brands have 35 grams of sugar which is just shy of 9 teaspoons of sugar.

A serving of pasta has 70g of carbohydrate which is more than 17 teaspoons of sugar.

A 16oz bottle of cola has about 12 teaspoons of sugar in it.

No wonder the whole country is becoming diabetic.

I don’t know about the human race splitting into two species, but I do know this part is true:

…Medicine will weaken our immune system…

By removing the selective force of disease, the ability of our species to resists various form of disease will be weakened. We will no longer have inbred resistance to disease for the simple reason that it won’t be needed. That is until a bug previously unknown to science comes along. Something like HIV but more quickly and easily spread.

The ironic ending to our love of universal health care is that it will leave us a universally weaker species, more susceptible to a widespread pandemic.

Because it is based on irrational premises, it is inherently anti-reason and therefore anti-mankind. It should not be surprising that it also interferes with the process of evolution and the way it creates natural genetic-based resistance to disease.

Just think of anybody who preaches universal health care as an enemy of the species!