A solution to marriage? Just maybe.

I was reading the other day at how so many people are divided over the concept of same sex marriage. While I'm not going to go out and get a boyfriend, I have known and have been friends with a few people over the years who were drawn to partners of the same sex.

Marriage predates reliable recorded history and has been part of the church since the beginning of recorded history. This is one of the points that some have when opposing same sex marriage. They think marriage is and should only be reserved for the union between a man and a woman. Which I am fine with but many same sex couples are opposed to being merely recognized as 'civil unions'.

The daughter of the republican presidential nominee from the campaign in 2008, Meghan McCain, has been very outspoken about and trying to rally support for same sex marriage within the Republican party. However, in my opinion there are many more pressing issues than that to be more concerned about. So I submit my idea to the web via my blog for the consideration of anyone who wishes to read it.

The founding fathers very clearly wanted a nation that would take in and embrace people of all religions. But they also used religious underpinnings when founding this nation that we call the United States of America. However, since that time we have had a great movement to separate Church and State. The merits and results of which can be hotly debated on both sides as to the affect it has had on this country.

Since the nation was founded, marriages have been recognized by the church and the state. When you decide to marry your loved one, you have to go to the court house and apply for a marriage certificate, yada yada yada. But since marriage is very much a religious union between two people and we want to separate Church and State, they why don't we rename the entire institution where it applies to the State as being a Civil Union.

Let this sink in. When you go to the court house, you apply for a Civil Union Certificate. Now if you want to have your 'Civil Union' recognized by the Church, you would then plan to have a Marriage ceremony, which is where the Church recognizes and blesses your 'Civil Union' in the eyes of your Church to be a Marriage.

Another pause to let this sink in as well.

This continues with the whole thing of separation of church and state as well as opening up for the potential embrace of Same-Sex Civil Unions, because everyone is joined in Civil Union according to the State and only the Church can recognize a Union as being a Marriage.

Not only does this help with the whole same-sex marriage/civil union thing but it also protects the sancity of marriage for the church. But it does more than that. The terms divorce and annulment are many times used interchangably by the different states in the union. Some recognize the dissolution of a marriage as a divorce while others recognize it as an annulment.

However, an annulment is another church term. An annulment means that a marriage is consider null and void and it works retroactively. Meaning that the marriage never existed which, in the case of Catholics for example, allows them to be remarried. Since marriage in their eyes and in the eyes of most churches is a lifelong contract between two willing parties that is ratified by Devine sanction. Which means that a valid ceremony/contract must be performed and that both parties must enter into it willingly. If any of these conditions lack, then the marriage is not contracted, Divine sanction is not obtained, and there is, in the eyes of the church, no marriage.

Thus a divorce would be what you had to do in order to dissolve your union in the eyes of the state. Then in the case of a church santioned marriage, you would need to seek to have it annulled in the eyes of the church in order for it to no longer be a valid marriage.

So in summary, Civil Union would be what the State and Federal levels of the government would recognize along with the dissolution of such being a Divorce. The church would recognize Marriages however the church sees fit (be in allowing same-sex marriages or not) as well as a Marriage being considered null and void being called an Annulment.

This will make thing easier and it will also appease both sides of the argument about same-sex marriage/civil unions.

QED.

Rally for the Republic Speeches

Here are the speeches from Jessie Ventura and Ron Paul at the Rally for the Republic. I wanted to have them all in one place so here it goes.

First up, Jessie Ventura:

Jessie Ventura Part 1


Jessie Ventura Part 2


Jessie Ventura Part 2

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Barry Goldwater Jr. Introducing Ron Paul

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Now, Dr. Ron Paul:

Ron Paul Part 1


Ron Paul Part 2


Ron Paul Part 3


Ron Paul Part 4


Ron Paul Part 5



Ron Paul Part 6


Ron Paul Part 7


Ron Paul Part 8


Ron Paul Part 9

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Ron Paul on Glenn Beck September 3, 2008

Constitution Schmonstitution

Thank you congress. Thank you very much for helping to further shred the Constitution of the United States.

If you do not know what I'm talking about then you should be ashamed of yourself. But, recently is came to light that Bush's administration had been authorizing illegal wiretaps behind the back of the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) courts. These courts were put in place after Nixon and the Watergate scandal where they were illegally wiretapping the Democratic National Committee. So Bush has been going around these courts so they did not have to get court orders, in a secret court, to wiretap Americans.

The telecommunications companies went along with these blatantly illegal requests. However, the legislation passed today, July 9th, 2008 and is expected to be signed into law quickly, will provide retroactive immunity to these telecommunication companies. Effectively ending what lawsuits are pending against them and sealing any information away from public scrutiny.

The vote passed the Senate by a vote of 69-28 with Democratic majority leader Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton, among others, voting against the measure. Much to many of Obama's followers dismay, he voted in favor of the legislation after vowing on more than one occasion that he would filibuster the measure if needed. This debated sparked the formation of the group "Get FISA Right" on his social network. This is the largest user-created group in his social network by a large margin and they plan to continue exerting lots of pressure on him in the coming months.

Apparently Obama's thoughts of change does not seem to be much different than Bush's direction. I think Obama, Bush and McCain all could benefit from reading Ron Paul's 'The Revolution: A Manifesto'. Heck, if they would read it I will lend them my copy.

Is Deregulation of the Cable Industry good for the consumer?

The Cable industry has argued that government regulation will hold them back from giving the customer better services. Deregulation has been very good for the cable companies. It has let to much, MUCH higher prices. Up until 1984, local governments kept cable prices in check. But their deregulation has led to price hike after price hike (excluding 1993-1996 when the rates were briefly regulated).

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 opened the doors to deregulation and yet more price hikes. Since the Act was passed, cable rates have increased by 59% which is nearly three times the rate of inflation. So we have the problem of high prices, low competition and horrid customer service. While smaller operators actually improved their scores, larger companies continued to lose ground according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. In the words of Dr. Claes Fornell who heads the study, Comcast set "an all-time low for the largest cable provider in the country." She also said, "there seems to be an element of monopoly-like pricing in the cable industry."

After Congress' deregulation of the cable industry worked so well, is it not fair of them to call for the government to stay completely away from network management and any net neutrality issues? But to cable's credit, it at least provided a real alternative to DSL and also put pressure on telco companies with VoIP service.

Cable has built a broadband infrastructure that, while not cheap or particularly fast when compared to other leading countries, reaches many Americans and in most cases are capable of faster speeds than DSL (DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades which are beginning should see more significant speed gains over DSL in the next few years). All of this without government regulation.

But looking at some recent FCC oversight hearings on network management which focused on practices at Comcast. Its easy to see how important it is to have some sort of public-interest regulator looking over the shoulders of these companies. The internet has become a key resource quick to rival water, heat and electricity as a utility. So such issues are a bit more than some puny private sector dispute.

While new laws and increased regulation may not prove a necessity to keep the internet healthy in the US, it would still be a shame if Congress and regulators like the FCC were so company minded that oversight was a mere formality and enforcement was toothless. This is not a desire by some to involve government in every private sector dispute, but more of a recognition that internet access in a low-competition marketplace is a bit too important than to have total self-regulation.

Like I read, if you think of it as wolves and chicken coops. When the chickens in the chicken coop are the most innovative chickens in the world, where it is a place of near magical scope and a wide variety of egg shapes and colors are laid by the chickens. Any good farmer would at least pay someone to watch the coop with a shotgun to keep the wolves at bay.

Olbermann on Articles of Impeachment

While I have not been too fond of Keith Olbermann since he left ESPN and joined MSNBC, I did like this segment of his show on MSNBC covering Dennis Kucinich's presentation of Articles of Impeachment on president Bush. That and Kucinich has a smokin' hot wife.

Link for those who are 'embedded video challenged'.

A tale of two parties

Well, McCain secured the number of delegates needed to become the Republican party's presidential nominee last night. With that, Huckabee conceded and ended his bid for the nomination. Though I still have my Ron Paul stickers in my vehicle window and the yard sign is still up.

I was tuning into AM 710 today hoping to catch 'The Ultimate Sports Show' only to find out that it was yanked because of low numbers. It has been replaced by 'The Schnitt Show', which gave me a bit of a laugh due to the name. But he started saying how McCain wasn't his first, second, or third (maybe even fourth) choice on the Republican side but he stated that McCain was for lower spending, less taxes and so forth unlike Bush. Well, if you are for lowering taxes you had better lower spending. I cannot spend more than I make in a years time for more than a very short time. Else the bank will come knock on my door.

On the other side, the democrats are in the midst of a huge battle between Clinton and Obama, which is really polarizing that party. She has ended his 12 state winning spree and tighted up the gap in the delegate count. What can be said though, is Obama cannot seal the deal. He has had chance after chance and just can't put her away. Even after outspending her 2-to-1.

But here was a video Schnitt linked to from his page that has a song that his show made about Obama.


External Link Here

Since I know some of you read my posts through some sort of RSS Reader and some of those readers do not display embedded videos, I will start adding hyperlinks to the videos along with the embedded videos.

Paul questions Bernanke, the dollar, and fuel savings tips

Yesterday the dollar hit an all time low compared to the euro (about 1 euro to $1.50). The price of oil per barrel also hit an all time high getting to over $101. We all want lower fuel prices but are we really willing to change our ways to make this happen? Are other people willing to give up their fuel sucking SUV's for something else?

I'll give some tips on how to extend your fuel mileage right now, without having to do anything under the hood of your vehicle, without putting anything into your fuel tank, and even without anything drastic on your part.

1) This is obvious, minimize your driving. If you can walk somewhere, do it. If you want to go pick up a burger on the corner, maybe stay in and cook something at home or walk.

2) Car pool. Sometimes I count how many individuals I see driving a SUV alone. It doesn't take long for me to top 100 and quit.

3) Accelerate gently from a traffic light or stop sign. I have personally extended the mileage I get out of a tank of fuel by 50-70 miles just by doing this.

4) Be wary of your brakes. If a traffic light has changed up ahead, coast to a stop. Don't stay on the accelerator up to the light.

5) If you go to a fast food restaurant, go inside to order. You can save a good bit of fuel by going inside and restarting your engine.

6) Consider public transportation. Unfortunately, Mobile does not have the best public transportation, but other cities do and can be used to decongest the roads and save fuel.

7) Recycle. In 2006, Americans spent nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water, then tossed 22 billion empty plastic bottles into the trash. In bottle production alone, more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the US uses 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year.

Every ton of aluminum that is recycled saves about 37 barrels of oil. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a 100 watt light bulb for 20 hours. Recycling one ton of glass saves 9 gallons of fuel (oil). Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, 7,000 gallons of water and 4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity - enough energy to power the average American home for 5 months. Recycling 1 ton of newspaper saves 15 mature trees. Every day, Americans buy 62 million newspapers and throw out 44 million. That's the equivalent of dumping 500,000 trees into a landfill every week. One ton of high-grade recyclable paper can substitute for approximately 3 tons of wood in making new paper products. Every year more than 900 million trees are cut down to provide raw materials for American paper and pulp mills. Recycling 1 ton of plastic can save 1-2 thousand gallons of gas. 1 ton of recycled steel saves the energy equivalent of 3.6 barrels of oil, and 1.49 tons of iron ore over the production of new steel.

New research shows that drinking a bottle of water has the same impact on the environment as driving a car for a kilometer. The production of a bottle of water generates up to 600 times more CO2 than a liter of tap water.

Water aside, the plastic used in both single-use and reusable bottles can pose more of a contamination threat than the water. A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles. However, as #1 bottles are reused, which they commonly are, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a known carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disrupter. According to the January 2006 Journal of Environmental Monitoring, some PET bottled-water containers were found to leach antimony, an elemental metal that is an eye, skin, and lung irritant at high doses. Also, because the plastic is porous you'll likely get a swill of harmful bacteria with each gulp if you reuse #1 plastic bottles.

I know this is all idealistic, but maybe one day it will begin to become mainstream thought.


Anyway, here is the video of Paul questioning Bernanke on CNBC 2008-02-27:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yybFGh1sUcQ


Some links where research was pulled:
http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/121/bottle
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/17/eawater117.xml

Sessions at it again?!?

The government should never give immunity to any company on US soil to get them out of being liable for something they may have done that was illegal. Thus I am against the retroactive immunity Bush is trying to get through congress. But ole Jeff Sessions (Senator AL) is trying to do something else now. You might have read my previous post about him, but for those who did not here is what Sessions said back in December.

"The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the constitution than protect our nation's security."

Sessions is now trying to give immunity to other corporations from possible penalties from copyright infringement. Follow this link to read the full article. Here is a little excerpt from the article for your convenience.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has sponsored an unusual provision at the urging of the nation’s banks granting them immunity against an active patent lawsuit, potentially saving them billions of dollars.

Adopted with little fanfare , the amendment would prevent a small Texas company called DataTreasury from collecting damages from banks for infringing on its patented method for digitally scanning, sending and archiving checks. The patents were upheld last summer by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after they were challenged.

I'm sorry Mr. Sessions but I do believe that you are no longer representing the people from your district but instead siding with certain people within your party.

Attorney General to Congress...

The AG Micheal Mukasey was in front of the House Judiciary Committee and this is basically what he had to say:

The Justice Department will not be investigating if waterboarding is against the law.
The Justice Department will not be investigating if Bush's warrantless wiretapping was illegal.
The Justice Department will not be enforcing any contempt citations that Congress might bring against the administration officials who do not honor subpoenas for testimony.

Great! Enter the era of recourse-free government. I can just imagine the episode of South Park where the music industry person continues to say "We are above the law!" then squirts some hair gel into his hand to fix a sprig of hair on his head.

I read it here.

Iranian speedboats, primaries, and FISA....oh my!

Yeah, 'Oh my' is my reaction because if anyone has watched the video you have to have some doubt about it. The supposed Iranian voices do not have a very good accent. On top of that, it sounds like an amateur phone prank. It was on the level of calling up your neighbor across the street, while peeking through your blinds, and asking them if their refrigerator is running and then advising them that they had better go catch it. I strike it up to FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) by the pentagon trying to let us bomb Iran.

But after the pentagon and the press has reported on the initial video about 'the speedboaters threatening our warships' they are quietly saying that....maybe, just maybe the voices on the recording may not have been from the Iranian speedboats. This comes from ABC News which is linked here.

I recently saw a very good video about Frank Luntz and his polls for Fox (faux) News. He twists the questions in such a way that he can get whatever answer he wants then pick and choose what he wants to use to support whatever he wants.

On the topic of Faux News, their snubbing of Ron Paul in New Hampshire hasn't looked very good for them. The 'not enough room' argument was obviously not the case. Gretta Van Susteren actually supported the idea of having Paul at the debate (if she truely felt this way or if it was a way for them to use the 'not enough room' argument I don't know).

In the New Hampshire primaries there have been some grumblings about odd vote counts and missing votes. Mr. Kucinich has sent a letter to the New Hampshire Secretary of State asking for a recount in what he says, "unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots." There have been testimony from a person who worked on some of the software used on these electronic voting machines about how he was asked to make a back door way to make someone win. I am not alleging fraud but there must be checks and balances to ensure a completely fair process. I applaud Mr. Kucinich and hope that NH will conduct a recount.

Now my last bit of news I want to write about has to do with FISA and the phone companies. I have voiced my opinion about warrantless wiretaps and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Survellance Act) courts. Then I ran across this article. It appears that telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps that have been used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because they have repeatedly failed to pay their phone bills on time. I have not heard this mentioned on television or in the main stream media but I saw this on Yahoo news after checking my email. Its funny if you ask me.

Here is a question that was not part of the re-airing of the South Carolina debates for some odd reason:


Also another link to a site with a video.

FBI Database

Well, well well. The FBI wants to build the worlds largest biometrics database in the world, named Next Generation Identification, at the cost of a cool $1 billion. This is supposed to give them more ways to identify people at home and abroad in one place. They have already started compiling data for this and expects to award a ten year contract so they can expand the amount and types of biometric info it receives.

But here is the other kicker to this story.

"At an employer's request, the FBI will also retain the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks, the paper said."

Again, I am completely apposed to this. The only instance that I am in any way in favor of something like this would be for convicted felons and even then I still have reservations. Knowing that my information could be in that database one day makes me feel that I am guilty until proven innocent.

Update: It has now made the front page of Digg linking to the Washington Post article.