STP

Are people that dense? I'm skeptical that that's all it'll take to have folks flocking back to the Hummers. With credit becoming more selective and tightening then it might become hard to find those 0% teaser rates or otherwise low rates. Here's hoping to a new era of thought and resourcefulness.

What's Obama going to do when Bush takes out Iran's reactor?

I heard McCain's quite the songbird.

Don't fall for it. IT'S JUST A FACADE.

Flanders, get a grip.

Judges can be wrong and ignorant of history, just like anyone else. A quick read of some of other quotes from our learned judges reveals that in spades. No one knows how long homosexual unions have been recognized and accepted. The Cheyenne accepted them. The Greeks accepted them (with Alexander the Great being their prime example). England has been 100% gay for centuries. Historically, the U.S. attitude towards such may well be 'abnormal', not the other way around. The judges here are simply ignorant of history, no more. Ha, that's funny. I guess that's why they called it Merry Ole England. Personally, I don't give a rat's ass if you want to pack someone's fudge in the privacy of your own home. Yeah, and for you inquiring minds, the reference for the judical quotes is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia. The point is that everyone does not see the issues (race and sexual orientation) as it applies to marriage as equivalent. Some people do. Fine. States will take different views on this and consequently, some states will not recognize same-sex marriage sanctioned by other states. That's all I'm pointing out. I don't believe it's a foregone conclusion that gay marriage will be federally sanctioned, no matter how you interpret the Equal Protection Clause. In the meantime, go ahead and fly your freak flag.

Regarding marriage: quote: The Majority Opinion of the New York Court of Appeals in Hernandez v. Robles rejected any reliance upon the Loving case as controlling upon the issue of same-sex marriage, holding that: “ [T]he historical background of Loving is different from the history underlying this case. Racism has been recognized for centuries — at first by a few people, and later by many more — as a revolting moral evil. This country fought a civil war to eliminate racism's worst manifestation, slavery, and passed three constitutional amendments to eliminate that curse and its vestiges. Loving was part of the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, the triumph of a cause for which many heroes and many ordinary people had struggled since our nation began. It is true that there has been serious injustice in the treatment of homosexuals also, a wrong that has been widely recognized only in the relatively recent past, and one our Legislature tried to address when it enacted the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act four years ago (L 2002, ch 2). But the traditional definition of marriage is not merely a by-product of historical injustice. Its history is of a different kind. The idea that same-sex marriage is even possible is a relatively new one. Until a few decades ago, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed, that there could be marriages only between participants of different sex. A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted. We do not so conclude. quote: Similarly the concurring opinion in the same case stated that: “ Plaintiffs' reliance on Loving v. Virginia (388 US 1 [1967]) for the proposition that the US Supreme Court has established a fundamental "right to marry the spouse of one's choice" outside the male/female construct is misplaced. In Loving, an interracial couple argued that Virginia's antimiscegenation statute, which precluded "any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian" (id. at 5 n 4), violated the federal Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. The statute made intermarriage in violation of its terms a felony carrying a potential jail sentence of one to five years. The Lovings—a white man and a black woman—had married in violation of the law and been convicted, prompting them to challenge the validity of the Virginia law. The Supreme Court struck the statute on both equal protection and due process grounds, but the focus of the analysis was on the Equal Protection Clause. Noting that "[t]he clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States," the Court applied strict scrutiny review to the racial classification, finding "no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification" (id. at 10, 11). It made clear "that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the [*12]Equal Protection Clause" (id. at 12). There is no question that the Court viewed this antimiscegenation statute as an affront to the very purpose for the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment—to combat invidious racial discrimination. In its brief due process analysis, the Supreme Court reiterated that marriage is a right "fundamental to our very existence and survival" (id., citing Skinner, 316 US at 541)—a clear reference to the link between marriage and procreation. It reasoned: "To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes . . . is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law" (id.). Although the Court characterized the right to marry as a "choice," it did not articulate the broad "right to marry the spouse of one's choice" suggested by plaintiffs here. Rather, the Court observed that "[t]he Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations" (id. [emphasis added]).[FN2] Needless to say, a statutory scheme that burdens a fundamental right by making conduct criminal based on the race of the individual who engages in it is inimical to the values embodied in the state and federal Due Process clauses. Far from recognizing a right to marry extending beyond the one woman and one man union,[FN3] it is evident from the Loving decision that the Supreme Court viewed marriage as fundamental precisely because of its relationship to human procreation.

Many civil rights leaders won't jump on the bandwagon for gay marriage because they don't equate their struggle with what they see as a lifestyle issue. I'm not saying I believe the whole thing is about lifestyle issue. I just don't believe you can equate the two.

The question isn't whether the change is the right one or not. The question is how to institute change.

Huh? The people of CA passed an initiative against allowing gay marriage. The CA supreme court threw it out. Judicial activism, IMHO. I would like to see the issue stand on its own merit. Put this way, it does seem like a cultural struggle, the people vs. the select few. This presumes that the justices always know what is best for society. The governor of New York and other governors have passed Executive Orders allowing domestic partnership benefits. The whole point of Executive Orders is to circumvent the democratic process by legislating by fiat. Where's the 'will of the people'? If the people aren't ready for it, then I don't believe in forcing communities to accept these standards, regardless of what someone outside of that community thinks. Seems like it goes both ways when government (executive or otherwise) forces the people to conform to its idea of how society should be.

Cultural Aspects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Thinking on Meaning and Risk Excerpt: The classic example of this, and a running theme in [non-commissioned officers'] trauma stories, occurs when a lower-ranking soldier is hurt while following orders to which the NCO personally objects. For example, one veteran told me about the day when one of “his” soldiers was wounded while following the unnecessarily risky orders of his superior, orders that he protested at the time but ultimately felt compelled to obey. His story, and others like it, reveal that the trauma of these events lies not only in the wounding of a fellow soldier, but in the inability to protect a subordinate for whom one feels deeply responsible, and the sense that the damage might have been prevented. Thus the meaning of events creates much of their resonance, and their cultural embeddedness – e.g. in the communal socialization and strict power structures of the military – is partially responsible for the emotional overload that defines trauma.

BITiY8M_oDo

See this story on McCain. Seeds of McCain's war views found in '74 thesis Excerpts from source: Mr. McCain blamed American politics. "The biggest factor in a man’s ability to perform credibly as a prisoner of war is a strong belief in the correctness of his nation’s foreign policy," Mr. McCain wrote in a 1974 essay submitted to the National War College and never released to the public. Prisoners who questioned "the legality of the war" were "extremely easy marks for Communist propaganda," he wrote. --snip-- To insulate against such doubts, he recommended that the military should teach its recruits not only how to fight but also the reasons for American foreign policies like the containment of Southeast Asian communism — even though, Mr. McCain acknowledged, "a program of this nature could be construed as ‘brainwashing’ or ‘thought control’ and could come in for a great deal of criticism."

Here's what one of the architects of our system said: "The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume." --Thomas Jefferson to A. H. Rowan, 1798. ME 10:61 He even went further: "Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested may be charged instantly with a well defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government for damages. Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:97 -- Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government His words aren't infallible but he had a sound basis for his beliefs especially when you take into account our evolving understanding of the incarceration situation. America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men

FWIW, McCain did say that he would choose a justice who makes decisions based on a strict interpretation of the Constitution. What outcome? Can't predict the future. Reagan choose Sandra Day O'Connor and she turned out to be not as lockstep as he thought she'd be.

Seriously though, this guy's over at climber's page talking about Renton granite.

Hey, how the hell did you get into my head? Muller and Robinson on Malkin

Me too

I dunno. Could be some dirty fighting. No holds barred.

tHE INHumaNity!!! My EYES!!!

Cage fight! Michelle vs Michelle

Friday the 13th

French coffee sucks. Here, try this American brew.

(A) "Scalia, citing a report by Senate Republicans, said at least 30 prisoners have returned to the battlefield following their release from Guantanamo."-- source Splitting hairs?

yep, those executive orders are popular with presidents, governors, and mayors.