Games!

Blogging's been a bit tricky recently- I haven't been able to as often as I wished. As you probably noticed from the gap since my last post. This is probably the last post for at least today, so I leave you with a game.

First, go read Pandagon, where Amanda Marcotte wrote a great piece about "midnight basketball", the use of scare quotes to frighten wingnuts about it, and the way its used to attack scientific research.

Then go read Townhall, and the article that she's responding to. It's attacking the notion that the earlier you have (consensual!) sex, the likelier it is that you will neither be delinquent nor suffer from sexual dysfunction. Some of the criticism is valid: they suggest that the connection may be spurious, and both may be connected to a third or fourth confounding factor. Great! No disagreement here. That's always a problem with social science research.

But then there's this:

As for the study finding that those engaging in consensual teen or pre-teen sex are less likely than their abstinent cohorts to be delinquents, it ignores one important fact right at the outset. Because the age of consent across America is 16 or older, a substantial portion of teen and all pre-teen sex is illegal – and thus constitutes delinquent behavior on its face.

This is hilarous. It's delinquent because we made it illegal, and delinquents break the law, so HAH!

So here's the game: modify this paragraph to justify ANYTHING.

Here's one that I like:

As for the study finding that those engaging in gay sex are less likely than their abstinent cohorts to be delinquents, it ignores one important fact right at the outset. Because we have laws against sodomy, gay sex is illegal – and thus constitutes delinquent behavior on its face.

Too sexy? Ok, how about this, more Republican friendly version:

As for the study finding that those engaging in target shooting are less likely than their gun-free cohorts to be delinquents, it ignores one important fact right at the outset. Because children aren't allowed to possess firearms, target shooting is illegal – and thus constitutes delinquent behavior on its face.

Or, hell, how about those beloved kitties? They're bad too!

As for the study finding that those engaging in petting kittens are less likely than their catless cohorts to be delinquents, it ignores one important fact right at the outset. Because our state constitution clearly states that cats are the tools of Satan, petting kittens is illegal – and thus constitutes delinquent behavior on its face.

Go ahead! Try your own. Do something about alligators, I don't know, they're pretty cool. If we make alligators criminal, only criminals will have alligators, whatever.

Until next time.