Visit Carnival of the Godless #45 for some great critical thinking.

This sounds reasonable to me: “[Philadelphia] plans to evict a Boy Scouts council from its city-owned headquarters or have the group pay a fair rent price unless it stops discriminating against gays.”  Why?  The Boy Scouts’ “‘discriminatory policies’ violate city policy and law, and … city officials have not been assured the group will not discriminate.”  [via Apostropher]

I have a very hard time agreeing with this judge.  Anyone thinking Schiavo?  “A judge ruled Friday that a 16-year-old boy fighting to use alternative treatment for his cancer must report to a hospital by Tuesday and accept treatment that doctors deem necessary…”  Both the child and his parents do not want to pursue this treatment.  He already had it once, it made him sick and destroyed whatever “living” he might have enjoyed, and his cancer still came back.  What am I missing?  All governments need to get the hell out of private medical decisions.

Liquid Sculpture.  Who knew you could make fluid dynamics could look so absolutely beautiful…  [via Steve at Modulator]

So how’s that war in Iraq going anyway?  Wanna know what the Iraqi government says?  They obviously don’t see the good results we see: “We know there was a corrupt regime in Saddam, but a regime should be removed by surgery, not by butchering.  The U.S. occupation is butcher’s work under the slogan of democracy and human rights and justice.”  That’s a direct quote from the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament.  While not calling for the withdrawal of American troops, they are getting pretty upset about our interference in their politics.  “‘Leave us to solve our problems,’ he continued. ‘We don’t need an agenda from outside.'”

Finally, a very interesting tidbit on gay marriage.  It doesn’t look good for all the hateful bigots who swear recognizing homosexual relationships will destroy marriage and civilization.  To wit [via Ed Brayton]:

[T]hose [states] which have passed both state laws and also state constitutional amendments prohibiting same sex marriage… lag dramatically in terms of divorce rate improvement when compared to same sex marriage friendly states.

Among those US states that have no laws on the books specifically prohibiting same sex marriage or civil unions — WY, NM, NY, MA, RI, CT, NJ, MD, VT — the average divorce rate drop ( unadjusted for population changes ) was -8.74%. No states in this group had divorce rate increases in 2004 and 2005.

Among those US states that are most opposed to same sex marriage which have also provided divorce data for the time period — ( alaska ? ) AR, KS, KY, MI, MS, MO, NE, NV, ND, OH, OK, OR, UT, TX — the average divorce rate ( unadjusted for population changes ) for 2004 and the first 11 months of 2005 increased 1.75%. This group contains 4 of the 5 states with the highest divorce rate increases in the US during 2004 and the first 11 months of 2005.

[…]

Meanwhile, the one state in the United States Of America that has legal same sex marriage, Massachusetts, will be among the top ten states – or better – with the largest drop in divorce rates in America during 2004 and 2005.