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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
This is a joke, right?
You know, I understand that fucks like this guy shouldn't have a soapbox to preach their hate, but if he's qualified to address the Gulf fiasco, I'm going to set aside my disgust and let him get to work.
http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/
Here's my question--for you, too, Dan--if a massive meteor or some other catastrophe were going to hit Earth, and of the experts with a reasonable chance of solving the problem including a white supremacist, a homophobe, and a radical Islamist, would you all exclude the three of them from the group? Or does the potential good of one's ideas unrelated to their personal views outweigh their personal baggage?
He's a bigot, sure, but this guy's also a fucking idiot. What's he doing on a science panel? I mean... that's a statement nobody with an undergraduate degree ought to be able to make, to say nothing of whatever credentials a guy on an "elite" Presidential panel ought to have.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, give a little thought to the shape of the head of a penis. Why's it look like that? Here's a hint: that backwards-angled rim is not ornamental.
Plus Obama already appointed a proud sexist: Lawrence Summers.
I need to read more. But, it seems to me that his work with an panel on the oil spill is not about the gays.
And yes people can be great minds in one area and bigots in another. If he's qualified to do something about this oil spill I don't feel the need to play Thought Police on his views elsewhere. If he was being appointed to Surgeon General or to a tax-payer paid position? Different Story. But to merely seek his opinion on an entirely different issue? Meh.
A quick correction. Secretary Chu is Energy Sec. not Interior.
Just looking out for you.
Huff Post has a funny take on the "rag-tag band of big-think scientific renegades" just assembled.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17…
"I have to tell you," Katz says, suddenly jumping onto the comm-link, "I really hate homosexuals."
Affleck, shaken by this, careens into the ocean floor, explodes, and billions of gallons of oil erupt and burst into flames under water-- it's a bad spill, guys! Flaming whales wash up in Biloxi, Mobile, Houston, Naples and even Cancun, charring beach goers and burning down the entire gulf coast.
Katz immediately holds a press conference, grim-faced.
"Yes, to answer your questions, this is the fault of the homosexuals. Captain Joseph Griggs is a gay. And also, so are Aerosmith. And half of this media pool. Good day, sissies and sirs."
I think if this guy has an idea that can fix the oil spill, we should hire him. You have to realize that he is most likely one of maybe 1-10 people in the world that can solve this problem. Scientists are not the most diverse nor tolerant bunch, but we have to take heart that a lot of the racist old codgers are going to die eventually. But right now we kind of need these cranky old white guys to pass their knowledge onto a younger and more tolerant generation of scientists and solve some serious problems.
Also, my private version of hell has that Aerosmith song playing on infinite loop. Hearing it has always made me feel like screaming.
***end of sarcasm***
Maybe we should start a pool on when he'll come out of the closet?
You mean, like David Acer?
"Barbara Webb, a retired schoolteacher and grandmother whose cheerful countenance and courageous campaigning on behalf of AIDS sufferers inspired fellow patients, died Saturday -- four years after learning the source of her illness was her dentist. She was 68.
Webb is the fourth patient of dentist David Acer to die.
She died there Saturday of AIDS complications, said hospice spokeswoman Maureen Hoyt. It was her 25th wedding anniversary.
Webb was among six patients the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed was infected with HIV by Acer. Like Kimberly Bergalis, Acer's first and most famous victim, Webb championed the cause of mandatory testing for health care workers.
Acer died of AIDS complications in 1990. Two days after his death, a letter he wrote to local newspapers was published in which he revealed he had AIDS and recommended to his hundreds of patients that they be tested for HIV.
"She was never bitter," Montgomery said. "She never lamented over it. Facing death the way she did impressed me as much as anything. She was a very courageous person."
Dentist David Acer, who died of AIDS complications in 1990, is the only health professional known to have transmitted HIV to his patients. Six are known to have been infected."
Is this another Reker rent boi?
1. At what point would it NOT be okay to appoint him? If the spill were a local gas tanker on a highway? If someone spilled milk in the kitchen? Or would it ALWAYS be okay?
2. So would everyone still be saying the EXACT same thing ("shut up gays, he's our only choice, sorry for the inconvenience") if this guy wrote that he was any of those options Dan offered? Like, "sorry Jews, I know he's a vicious anti-Semite who blames y'all for the Holocaust because you were only thinking of your own Jewiness, but he's our Obi-Wan." Really? And if not, then why is it okay for the gays to "take one for the team" but not anyone else?
"The human body was not designed [...] to be promiscuous"
This statement is so obviously true that we are unsure if you are being ironic or are a FUCKING IDIOT....
People who abstain until in a lifelong relationship and are monogamous thereafter (with a partner who makes the same lifestyle choices) do not get STDs.
People who are promiscous get STDs.
The more promiscuous they are the more STDs.
It's what they call a "direct correlation".
Let's recapitulate-
Promiscuous Life=STD
questions?
We got troubles. Most of the oil from that spill has been "swept under the carpet." It's sitting in large pools on the bottom of the ocean, mixed with detergents and solvents to keep it from floating to the surface. Now, someone has realized that it's nearing a point where the "loop current" that flows through the Gulf of Mexico will pick it up and sweep it towards the Florida Keys and then up the Atlantic Coast. Not only could we lose the Gulf fisheries, but a big chunk of the Atlantic fishery, a significant dent not only in the seafood industry, but in the world's food supply.
As long as the homophobe isn't in charge of hiring, firing, personnel policy, housing opportunity, civil rights enforcement, or anything else where his opinions on sexuality make a difference, let's wish him well in working with the other panelists to find a solution, quickly.
A) Hope it actually misses us with a 50% chance.
B) The Earth dies with a 50% chance.
C) Hire the pedophile/anti-semite/homophobe/KKK Grand Wizard who alone has the smarts to possibly save us, I'd put survival of the species above anything else.
The real question is does the Gulf spill rise to that scale of "life and death", since no sane person can argue against any option but "C" above, the more I think about it. But that's a ridiculously binary example... so it comes down to the context of the disaster and situation.
Would you hire the homophobe to stop Chernobyl?
The next Holocaust or Rwanda-level slaughter?
Would you hire one if he had a foolproof plan to permanently eliminate Al Qaeda?
If he had a feasible plan to permanently eliminate nuclear weapons?
If he could stop Global Warming?
If he was a financial genius that could balance the US budget and eliminate the deficit in 20 years while being apolitical (aside from his homophobe douchebaggery)?
Doesn't Dan tell you girls you have to enema and douche and triple condom and put plastic on everything before you do the dirty deed?
And if you don't do anal RIGHT you'll get EColi teeming SHIT all over yourself?
Hasn't Dan told you girls that over and over?
Because; (repeat with us...): "The human body was not designed ... to engage in homosexual acts......"
Could that be because "The human body was not designed ... to engage in homosexual acts."?
Sorry, you're not smarted than #4. The human body evolved to survive and propagate the species the same as every single larger mammal species evolved. We got some ridiculously lucky evolutionary breaks along the way in the form of thumbs, our bipedal nature, and the fact our brains evolved more quickly than those of other related species. If the Neanderthals or Cro-Magnans had been a bit smarter, we could be sitting here on a planet inhabited by 6,000,000 of them, or on a planet with parallel evolution of big species for all we know.
Hint: I don't think AIDS or syphillus were big concerns in 450,000 BC. Getting meat and protein for the development of our bodies and brains were big concerns, as well as basic survival and impregnating as many females as possible to keep the tribe (and ergo species) going amidst what was doubtless insane death rates. That kept up until the modern day--you ever notice that wives as recently as in the pioneer Old West days would pop out 10 kids? That wasn't for fun; that was a practical need for hands.
"The human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles, it was not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts."
So do you believe the human body was designed to share hypodermic needles as well?
We are curious about the depth of your FUCKING IDIOCITY....
If not, then why is it okay for the gays to keep getting screwed?
I simply cannot imagine that there is no smarter and available person in the country who can work on this situation.
And given that he has offered his biases as based in logic and nature, why on earth should I have faith that the rest of his science is sound?
And yet promiscuity will ALWAYS lead to STDs.
strange.
Abuse the body and it gets disease.
Eat crap and get diabetes and heat disease.
Because the human body was not designed to eat massive quantities of refined sugars and not get exercise.
Engage in promiscuous sex and get STDs.
Because "The human body was not designed [...] to be promiscuous"
What has Dr Katz said that was irrational or prejudiced?
It's all about context. Life and death? If my car was burning I could give a shit if Dan Savage, Strom Thurmond, Sarah Palin, Osama Bin Laden or the Biggest Homophobe Ever Of All Time pulled my wife out of the car and saved her.
For all the other situations, there is no right and wrong answer but scale, is what I'm arguing. It's not OK for the gays to be screwed any more than it was for the blacks for so long or any other group.
As for his scientific record, the big difference between science and quackery is that science is peer reviewed, so that's a defense there. Anyone that gets invited to DAVID is almost certainly a legit scientist in their field, but even scientists have blind biases. Einstein was right about virtually everything, but religious bias prevented him from lending support to quantum theories.
Everyone needs to not boil everything down to binary black and white decisions, because--while a great deal of life is binary--not everything is. Here are my answers off the top of my head.
Would you hire the homophobe to stop Chernobyl? N
The next Holocaust or Rwanda-level slaughter? Y
Would you hire one if he had a foolproof plan to permanently eliminate Al Qaeda? N
If he had a feasible plan to permanently eliminate nuclear weapons? Y
If he could stop Global Warming? Y
If he was a financial genius that could balance the US budget and eliminate the deficit in 20 years while being apolitical (aside from his homophobe douchebaggery)? N
Which has an immediate effect on life and death, or certainly to affect widescale life and death long term?
It's a reasonable question. When I first read the "smart in some areas, stupid in others" argument I immediately thought of some of the absent-minded professors described in Alfred Bester's short story The Men Who Murdered Mohammed.
The difference here, of course, is that Katz's ignorance is willful and malicious. The facts are available to him, but he's chosen to ignore him. HIV, or other diseases, may not be Katz's particular specialty, but, if he had any integrity at all, he'd realize he doesn't have any knowledge in that area and shut up about it.
Given that Katz has demonstrated a lack of integrity, however, given that he's demonstrated a willingness to give his own personal ideology greater credence than facts, how credible is he really as a scientist in any field? Willful and malicious ignorance is fine if you're a SLOG troll, but if your reputation depends on being able to make judgments based on facts then such stupid remarks as Katz has made should undermine that reputation.
Bzzt, wrong on the absolute language. "Almost certainly get it over time" would be accurate. "Definitely get it" would be wrong, as much as some people can go their entire lives drinking 10 cups of coffee and smoking a pack a day and die at 90. Pedantic, yes, but true.
Or how about you cite a scientific non-religious study that backs you up?
Are you actually disputing that promiscuous sexual behavior correlates to increased rates of STDs?
As far as this guy goes, I know that the differences between geology and reproductive biology are so profound that one man can be forgiven for succeeding in the former area and utterly failing in the latter. The facts may be available to him, but that doesn't mean that he understands them.
All this reminds me of Albert Einstein. He was, of course, one of the greatest scientific minds ever, but he was a slave to deeply held beliefs about God, and these deeply held beliefs prevented him from ever accepting many subsequent discoveries in his own fricking specialty, physics. He dismissed some of Neils Bohr's radical findings with the pithy quote that "God doesn't play dice," meaning that things don't happen by chance. But things DO seem to happen by chance.
If Einstein could be so wrong about some things in his own field, it still doesn't mean his profound findings are suddenly in question. So, too, if this guy decides his own internal beliefs about sexuality trump what research biologists actually know about that topic, it doesn't automatically call his work in geology into question.
It's not a bully pulpit or an opportunity for soapboxing. It's not a position related to his prejudices in the slightest. I wouldn't care if they hired him to take care of the roads in my town either if he was qualified, the difference being that lots of people can do road work, whereas Katz is one of the very very few qualified to fix this disaster.
In fact my introduction to Ray Romano was when he was one of Dr. Katz's patients...
The fact that Katz would be ostracized for saying horrible things about African Americans or Jews, but not gays is a symptom of the tepid "support" we have from the left.
No matter what kind of "genius" this guy is, his appointment is a slap in the face.
Another in a long line of slaps.
How many more times will we be asked to "take one for the team"?
It's different. I know the rhetorical model is that, because homosexuality is genetic, gays are just like {blacks, Jews, women, etc.}. And I like and use that rhetorical model for lots of things. But it's intellectually dishonest to pose a "thought experiment" to test a demonstrably false premise.
Gays and lesbians have been systematically persecuted at various points in history, and are being systematically persecuted today. But when you're talking about sexism or Antisemitism or racism, you're talking about attitudes underlying various institutions that basically amount to slavery -- and, of course, can lead to genocide. But from a policy perspective, being a homophobe is sort of like hating everyone who's left-handed. It leads to a very different type of evil. Still evil. But not equivalent.
The homophobic flavor I get from him is mind-eating, bitter jealousy. He just can't stand it gay men can have sex, find sex easily, have sex without a woman to nag him, have sex without ever having to see the person again, have sex with a buddy and then go back to buddy stuff, have 3-ways, 4-ways without paying for some of the participants, etc etc. I bet he's a mysoginst asshole who watches a lot of dirty, hardcore porn and is jealous because of a sneaking suspician gay men can actually have porn-like sex lives unlike him.
But on the plus side, you end up being ambidextrous! My ex-girlfriend and two of her close relatives are ambidextrous because of that.
Its not just about this man Katz. Its about the acceptability of being a "proud homophobe."
Obviously we are not to the point where being viciously anti-gay is considered unacceptable, even with a supposedly 'progressive' administration and congress.
If you haven't read "In Defense of Homophobia" you should. Because its not just a list of grievances to the homosexual community, its even more deeply offensive than it sounds.
If the person appointed had been queer and the homophobic were screaming that he was therefore undeserving of the job I bet I could hear the noise from 2,000 miles away.
People are allowed to be douchebags. As long as the douchebag in question is busily addressing the problem of oil spewing into the Gulf and not using it as a bully pulpit to promote his views on sexuality (unlike Mr. Rentboy), he should be allowed to get on with the job.
It's still appropriate for people to complain.
If this guy fills some critical, obscure niche and he's the only qualified individual around who can do so in a timely fashion, then I'm willing to hold my nose until he's no longer needed.
It does seem unlikely to me that there are few-to-no equally skilled marine oil drilling specialists in this country. It's such a huge industry and employs so many; is this man really the only game in town? If he isn't, then it would make a lot more sense for Obama's administration to appoint someone equally qualified but less abrasive on the job. Everyone's entitled to publicly state their loathsome opinions, but sometimes those public statements mean you aren't picked for a job that involves serving a public government.
Just got an email from AmericaBlog.
Granted, maybe he does know his oil stuff. Still, I wouldn't want him on any other kind of panel reserved for those with actual, logical, analytical minds.
What did Katz get wrong?
And, most of the time, neither does being gay. On the other hand, being gay has also never gotten you 400 years of slavery. And while being gay did, at one time, get you rounded up into concentration camps and murdered, it only happened if you got caught -- it was the conduct, not the attribute, that was persecuted.
Otherwise, way to miss the point.
How many people have been murdered for being homosexual?
Suck on that, straight people are designed for sluttiness.
You called a bluff and lost.
"A number of critics have asked if monogamous homosexuals are also culpable. Quite apart from the question of the definition of monogamous (sexual contact with only one person in a lifetime? serial monogamy? some cheating? etc.), I suggest the following analogy: A man joins the Ku Klux Klan. He is not violent, and would never hurt a fly; he just wants a safe place to express his racist feelings. Is he culpable for the Klan's past acts of violence? I believe that even though he is not criminally responsible for acts that occurred before he joined, he is morally culpable for joining the Klan. The Klan has blood on its hands, and anyone who joins must share the guilt. So, too, with the homosexual movement. "
I mean, really?
No matter what everyone says, he does not sound particularly intelligent. Plus, all this stuff about souls and sins is pretty unscientific.
How many people in the United States have been murdered for being homosexual?
-Of the hate-crime murders NOT motivated by homophobia or biphobia, one was anti-black and one was anti-Hispanic. There were no others. Although homosexuals and bisexuals make up less than 10% of the population, the clear majority of hate-crime murders and rapes (5/7 and 6/11 respectively) are committed against them.
-Of all 9,168 recorded incidents of hate crimes in 2008, 5,542 (or 60.4%) were listed as crimes against persons, with the remaining 3,626 (39.6%) listed as crimes against property. When only sexual-orientation-motivated hate crimes are considered, the percentage of crimes against persons jumps to 72.2% (1,168/1,617). Essentially, being black or Hispanic or Jewish or Catholic might cause someone to smash your window or burglarize your car. Being gay just might make people beat you up or rape you.
And this is in America, an apparently civilized nation.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2008/data/table…
"Being gay just might make people beat you up or rape you."?
Poor poor homosexuals...
6 rapes?
That's terrible.
How about being a woman?
Being a woman just might make people beat you up or rape you.
Women are raped 90,000 times a year in America.
Ninety Thousand.
(those are just the reported ones, only a small percentage of actual number...)
We couldn't begin to count the number of women beaten.
.
Poor poor homosexuals.......
6 people raped because they were homosexual.
six?
really?
How many people have homosexuals raped?
Human Rights Watch estimates that there are up to 140,000 violent homosexual rapes every year just in American prisons.
And that is just in prison.
Compare to 140,000 homosexual rapists exactly how outraged are we to get over your six rapes, again?....
.
Human Rights WatchNo Escape: Male Rape In U.S. Prisons. Part VII. Anomaly or Epidemic: The Incidence of Prisoner-on-Prisoner Rape.; estimates that 100,000-140,000 violent male-male rapes occur in U.S. prisons annually; compare with FBI statistics that estimate 90,000 violent male-female rapes occur annually.[www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/offenses/violen…;
Being a child seems to be a much deadlier pastime than being a homosexual in America.
That's terrible.
Just terrible.
At that rate we may run out of homosexuals one day.
From the CDC:
"Consider these facts:
AIDS has been diagnosed for more than half a million MSM. Over 300,000 MSM with AIDS have died since the beginning of the epidemic.
MSM make up more than two thirds (68%) of all men living with HIV, even though only about 5% of men in the United States reported having sex with other men."
Men having sex with men has killed an average of 10,000 homosexuals every year for 30 years.
Currently the figure is closer to 15,000 a year.
Hate crimes kill 5.
MSM kills 15,000.
That's scary.
@82: Most of the male-on-male rape in prisons doesn't actually involve any gays. If brains were bread, you'd have starved to death years ago.
@81-84: My point is that homophobia, by the numbers, is a bigger threat to homosexuals than racism is to racial or ethnic minorities. It is commonly accepted that racism is a viable and dangerous problem in this country.
Your point was that homophobia isn't any sort of big threat to gays and lesbians.
My point renders your point invalid. SUCKERS.
It is not about sex.
As a percentage and in raw numbers women are much much more often victims of hate and violence than homosexuals. Not that self-centered white yuppie male homos are going to care one iota...
Most?
Pray tell, how many of the 140,000 homosexual rapists are 'gay'?
How many are bi?
They are ALL homosexual rapists and predators....
THE POINT is that criminally dangerous, selfish, irresponsible behavior by homosexuals against other homosexuals , by the numbers, is an enormously bigger threat to homosexuals than homophobia.
15,000 deaths annually vs 5.
3000 to one.
Does Dan spend 3000X as much effort going after guys like Canadian Steven Paul Boone as he does railing against 'homophobes' (aka anyone who disagrees with Dan...)?
Boone by himself will infect and eventually kill more homosexuals than all the "Hate Crime" violence in this country for a whole year.
The threat homosexuals pose to themselves dwarfs the threat from 'haters'.
Get a clue.