I sat today and read the flashing news for Californians that Prop Eight...the proposition passed in the state there to ban gay marriages...was ruled unconstitutional. It's a fascinating ruling. If you didn't catch the fact...the judge involved...is openly gay and admits it. So the shock value is virtually zero in this case.
On top of that, was the emphasis of the entire ruling....the 14th Amendment has this clause that says everyone's equal. Everyone has the same rights as everyone else. You can't out-right anyone...male or female, under this deal. It's simple in utilizing the clause...but it amazes me that the Justice could write up 136 pages on this explanation here. It's too bad we can match up the Pelosi crew and the Judges...and start having 2,700 page rulings that would be unreadable.
I'm leaning forward to watch the Supremes eventually take this case and render some 300-odd page verdict on this matter. I doubt that they really want the case...seeing it more as a state matter than a national matter.
At some point, enough interpretation will exist to allow marriage to be about as creative as you want. If you wanted three wives...you're find a state to allow it. If you wanted a marriage between yourself and a ghost...it'll happen. If you wanted a marriage a day for 365 days...it'll be possible somewhere.
I've reached this point where I'd like to go back to the 1700's version of marriage...where you just do your thing and it's not recognized or supported by the local, state, or national government. You find some person or religious figure...and just "do it". And if you owned property or wanted to share out your wealth, then you do a civil union pact to make it legal (but this would be open to cousins sharing a house, two friends buying a business, or a grandfather sharing out the farm to the granddaughter as well).
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Sorry
The White House is about to send off a U.S. delegation. Their job? Present themselves at a ceremony in Japan that centers around the 65th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
This was kind of a sudden decision...which was just announced and folks stood there asking questions but it's basically an absolute situation now...with no chance of changing things.
An apology mission? Likely...although we won't hear it until it is uttered.
Some folks got wind of this today and are fairly upset. There's a difference of opinion over history and what happened with the nukes in 1945. Since the early 1960s...there's been this growing US discussion over apologies and terrible feelings how things were done with the nukes.
I sat and pondered over this concept of apology and what history has passed. There are some things to consider.
From the day that Hawaii was bombed...there was this vast number of epic battles in the Pacific which amazed not only the US Navy and Marines....but historians who later went viewing facts.
The Japanese...from island battle to island battle...simply never surrendered until it was a vast and terrible ending. US Marines would come to fight Japanese forces on islands that numbered from the thousands to the tens of thousands.
Each battle consumed horrific causalities for the Americans. As our Marines came to find the remainder of the Japanese force....the Japanese Captains and Commanders were generally always dead...from suicide. They never surrendered and they would not allow their own troops to consider surrender until it was too late.
As Naval intelligence reports came back to Washington DC...this image of a cold-blooded force came to be noted by the leadership in Washington...both military and civilian. Month after month....the direct comments came to paint a very difficult war in the Pacific.
By the end of 1944...there's this growing anxiety building up in Naval circles and the White House.
You've got the anti-Soviet guys who want a demonstration of their 'toy'. You've got the 'end-the-war' crowd who just wants the war to end, period. Then you've got the 'nuke' crowd who spent vast sums of money on this technology and visualize it as a weapon...AND nothing else but that.
So the smart guys have this image. We've fought throughout the Pacific and kinda cleaned up the mess up to the shores of Japan. What now?
If the leadership sticks to the game-plan used throughout the Pacific...then every Japanese citizen is a soldier until his or her death. You could be fifty years old and a baker...but the battle by the invading Americans into your valley will demand that you donate your life for the supremacy of Japan.
So intelligence came to this conclusion...two simple scenarios. You invade with thousands of Marines and Army personnel and spend months...perhaps even a year or two...fighting to the ends of the Japanese islands. The experts figured 100,000 dead Marines and Army personnel in the end. Speculation over the Japanese deaths went way beyond that number.
The second scenario involved a demonstration of nuclear capability. The causalities would be less in nature for both sides. Being sorry using nukes...was the least of the issues to be determined in 1945. Having a 100,000 GI's return home alive...for some reason...was a higher priority.
So months and years have passed. We've progressed as a society...where a segment just doesn't feel good.
They think just being sorry or offering an apology will fix everything.
After you think about this apology stuff...you start to wonder why the Cherokee nation doesn't demand the same kind of yearly apology for the Trail of Tears?
Then you start to think about the Seminoles in Florida and why they don't rate for an apology as well.
Oh, and then there's the southerners affected by Sherman's march through Georgia....where entire towns and farms were burnt to the ground.
Then, there's the Americans who faithfully paid their taxes...only to face Charley Rangel who won't apologize to them for being dishonest and trying to avoid taxes.
After a while...with enough apology burned into your brain...you start to consider why the Romans never have apologized for the crucification of Christ or the Red Sox apologizing to Boston folks for trading Babe Ruth away almost a century ago.
So, in the end...a couple of American guys will fly first class to Japan...sit through a ceremony and look woeful. At some point, one of the guys will stand and say something that will be understood as an apology. Japanese folks stand around and laugh over these stupid Americans who showed up and did a fascinating "sorry" for the photography crowd.
This was kind of a sudden decision...which was just announced and folks stood there asking questions but it's basically an absolute situation now...with no chance of changing things.
An apology mission? Likely...although we won't hear it until it is uttered.
Some folks got wind of this today and are fairly upset. There's a difference of opinion over history and what happened with the nukes in 1945. Since the early 1960s...there's been this growing US discussion over apologies and terrible feelings how things were done with the nukes.
I sat and pondered over this concept of apology and what history has passed. There are some things to consider.
From the day that Hawaii was bombed...there was this vast number of epic battles in the Pacific which amazed not only the US Navy and Marines....but historians who later went viewing facts.
The Japanese...from island battle to island battle...simply never surrendered until it was a vast and terrible ending. US Marines would come to fight Japanese forces on islands that numbered from the thousands to the tens of thousands.
Each battle consumed horrific causalities for the Americans. As our Marines came to find the remainder of the Japanese force....the Japanese Captains and Commanders were generally always dead...from suicide. They never surrendered and they would not allow their own troops to consider surrender until it was too late.
As Naval intelligence reports came back to Washington DC...this image of a cold-blooded force came to be noted by the leadership in Washington...both military and civilian. Month after month....the direct comments came to paint a very difficult war in the Pacific.
By the end of 1944...there's this growing anxiety building up in Naval circles and the White House.
You've got the anti-Soviet guys who want a demonstration of their 'toy'. You've got the 'end-the-war' crowd who just wants the war to end, period. Then you've got the 'nuke' crowd who spent vast sums of money on this technology and visualize it as a weapon...AND nothing else but that.
So the smart guys have this image. We've fought throughout the Pacific and kinda cleaned up the mess up to the shores of Japan. What now?
If the leadership sticks to the game-plan used throughout the Pacific...then every Japanese citizen is a soldier until his or her death. You could be fifty years old and a baker...but the battle by the invading Americans into your valley will demand that you donate your life for the supremacy of Japan.
So intelligence came to this conclusion...two simple scenarios. You invade with thousands of Marines and Army personnel and spend months...perhaps even a year or two...fighting to the ends of the Japanese islands. The experts figured 100,000 dead Marines and Army personnel in the end. Speculation over the Japanese deaths went way beyond that number.
The second scenario involved a demonstration of nuclear capability. The causalities would be less in nature for both sides. Being sorry using nukes...was the least of the issues to be determined in 1945. Having a 100,000 GI's return home alive...for some reason...was a higher priority.
So months and years have passed. We've progressed as a society...where a segment just doesn't feel good.
They think just being sorry or offering an apology will fix everything.
After you think about this apology stuff...you start to wonder why the Cherokee nation doesn't demand the same kind of yearly apology for the Trail of Tears?
Then you start to think about the Seminoles in Florida and why they don't rate for an apology as well.
Oh, and then there's the southerners affected by Sherman's march through Georgia....where entire towns and farms were burnt to the ground.
Then, there's the Americans who faithfully paid their taxes...only to face Charley Rangel who won't apologize to them for being dishonest and trying to avoid taxes.
After a while...with enough apology burned into your brain...you start to consider why the Romans never have apologized for the crucification of Christ or the Red Sox apologizing to Boston folks for trading Babe Ruth away almost a century ago.
So, in the end...a couple of American guys will fly first class to Japan...sit through a ceremony and look woeful. At some point, one of the guys will stand and say something that will be understood as an apology. Japanese folks stand around and laugh over these stupid Americans who showed up and did a fascinating "sorry" for the photography crowd.
The Justice
For the past month, I've sat and watched the Supreme Court appointment game with Elena Kagan. She will clearly pass and make it to the court.
My impression is that she will find an open door to the Court and friendly justices...but she will probably never fit. She's never served as a judge ever in her life...being only a professor the entire time.
The touted reason for her nomination, which is always flashed by the news media...is that she can engage deeply into a discussion and bring people to accept a different argument. She's supposed to be "the wind" to bring Judge Kennedy back onto the liberal view of the court.
I suspect that as she tries to engage and use her one chief talent...each Supreme Court justice will put on his judge hat and let her know that this type of classroom argument doesn't work well with them. After a few times of playing the professor game....I think Justice Kagan will be wondering how this will all work.
She'll be there for twenty-odd years...with no doubt. But I think she'll eventually agree that she was the outsider from day one and likely never found the inside track.
My impression is that she will find an open door to the Court and friendly justices...but she will probably never fit. She's never served as a judge ever in her life...being only a professor the entire time.
The touted reason for her nomination, which is always flashed by the news media...is that she can engage deeply into a discussion and bring people to accept a different argument. She's supposed to be "the wind" to bring Judge Kennedy back onto the liberal view of the court.
I suspect that as she tries to engage and use her one chief talent...each Supreme Court justice will put on his judge hat and let her know that this type of classroom argument doesn't work well with them. After a few times of playing the professor game....I think Justice Kagan will be wondering how this will all work.
She'll be there for twenty-odd years...with no doubt. But I think she'll eventually agree that she was the outsider from day one and likely never found the inside track.
The Way Things Work
If you have an hour, because it'll take that long to read it....there's this interesting report by John McCain and Tom Coburn over stimulus 'misuse'.
I won't go into many details, because the report is fairly easy to read and fascinating as well.
My favorite of the whole bunch? There was the $71-odd thousand for the study of monkeys and cocaine. The government....as part of the stimulus package to save American jobs....gave this money to Wake Forrest to study doped up monkeys.
I tried to imagine this scene. Professor Bob runs back to the school chancellor, all peppy and happy. The US government, as part of stimulus, finally agreed to fund his monkey project. The chancellor is standing there and trying to understand what exactly this does for the prestigious nature of the university, and eventually gives up.
Then Professor Bob gives Timmy his intern $500 to go out on the street and get some real authentic cocaine. The boys then order a lab monkey from Monkeys-R-US and they proceed to get their test subject "Woody" (the lab monkey) all doped up.
The team, Professor Bob and Timmy then buy a nifty $1,500 camera as part of the $71k deal and record two hours of Woody being doped up.
Professor Bob then probably sits there....writes up forty pages of text over what he thinks Woody is thinking while doped up.
Then Professor Bob and Timmy fly out to Vegas to spend $30k of the money there while discussing the text at a fancy flamingo bar and sipping cheap drinks for several weeks until the money ran out.
The report would be finalized and then published under the fine headline of "Wake Forest Tests Doped Monkey". Several medical foundations would run up and ask how Professor Bob got the money....because they'd like to do some cocaine tests with monkeys as well. Professor Bob would then be forever known on the campus as the guy who helped save jobs on Wake Forest University. Who knows, they might even name a department after the guy.
And the monkey? Well....some guy will be talking stimulus money now about rehabilitation for monkeys from cocaine addiction. We just need another stimulus situation, to start that project.
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