It turns out that it WAS only a matter of time

"Polyamorists" want marriage, too.

Polyamorists? You mean bigamists.

Just when you thought the push under the constitutional amendment couldn't get any stronger...If Bush gets elected, expect to see the amendment go out to the States by the middle of next year; if he loses, expect to see it go to the States by the end of the year. This strengthens the hand of the right immensely; they said it was a slippery slope to the end of marriage as we know it, and now it's been demonstrably so. All they need is an amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and they will get the support not only of homophobes, but a hugely expanded constituency - myself included - appalled with news like this.The more I think about it, the more wrong it seems. I find this to be a much greater threat to the sanctity of marriage than gay marriage. My personal definition of marriage is best expressed as a monogamous, spiritual and legal union of two people in love; that definition does not preclude gay marriage, but it most certainly precludes multiple-partner marriages.

Two people in love choosing voluntarily to commit their hearts, bodies and lives to one another exlusively, in front of society and in front of whatever higher powers they recognise do not threaten the sanctity of marriage, in my opinion. Marriage is not an exclusively Christian institution, and America is not an exclusively Christian country. While I would not choose homosexuality for myself, I understand that others do, and my own marriage convinces me that I could not withhold from two people in love the joy that I have found in that union. I can understand the desire to be monogamous, the desire to give everything to one partner, even if I choose that partner to be from the traditional gender. But multiple-partner marriages, by definition, are not monogamous - and I personally can't even begin to comprehend the value system of people who would choose to take multiple partners.

Many liberals and some conservatives alike say that a person's private life is just that; that it doesn't matter a damn that Clinton cheated on his wife. It does matter. If a person will lie, defraud and abuse the trust of a person they have committed their life to, the suggestion that they are in any other way trustworthy is perverse. I would not hire a man who I know to cheat on his wife; I would not vote for such a man either. Yet these statements rest on the assumption that marriage is a monogamous union between two people in love. That kind of love, in my world, doesn't share.

I hear the live and let live talk, but this orgy marriage idea runs deeply, deeply contrary to ingrained assumptions about the nature of love and marriage. When we learned about Mormons back at school, even back then, I remember thinking very distinctly that Mormons don't love their wives, that they have no concept of what marriage is. I guess you can think of it as a window into how the people who oppose gay marriage feel.

Science and religion

I often think, as an agnostic drifting towards deism, when I hear people questioning the existence of God, that I'd like to ask them two questions:

1. Do you understand quantum physics?
2. Do you think that quantum physics requires you to understand it for it to be true?

I don't understand how quantum physics works. Although I can intellectually understand many aspects of the theory from reading about it and doing the maths, I none-the-less can't conceptualize a ten-dimensional universe; I can't visualize how space curves or how time distorts, and I can't concieve of how everything that exists is determined by the direction of spin, and positive or negative electrical charge, of a sub-sub-sub-atomic particle [sic.], the only difference between which is types of vibration of a sub-sub-sub-sub-atomic piece of string. (Refer to Michio Kaku's book Hyperspace or Hawking's popular Brief History of Time for non-scientist-comprehensible details). None-the-less, just because I don't fully understand the theory (in my defence, Heisenberg is quoted as saying that "anybody who claims to understand quantum theory, by definition, does not understand quantum theory"), I don't assume that the theory is wrong. I don't require a theory to be simple to know it's true.

Try to imagine how an ant would try to conceptualize the galaxy - in short, it wouldn't. It couldn't. Human arrogance assumes that human understanding will be sufficient to match the extension of human vision that technology has brought. Also, remember how the mice in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were only the protrusions into three-dimensional space of much bigger ten-dimensional beings. My point is just that there is far more to this universe than we can ever see or will ever understand - and that's even assuming that God is throwing straight dice. Reality is only an illusion - albeit a very persistant one.

N. Korea Trains Collide, Igniting Blast

The AP reports:

Two fuel trains collided at a North Korean railroad station near the Chinese border Thursday, igniting a deafening explosion that rained debris for more than 10 miles around, South Korean media said. As many as 3,000 people might have been killed or injured, according to the reports.

Continuity of Representation act - what's wrong with the bill now, and how to fix it

The House is discussing amendments on this bill right now, for those who have CSPAN.

This bill considers the effect of a terrorist strike that wipes out 100+ members of the US House of Representatives, of precisely the sort envisioned by Tom Clancy in his book Debt of Honour, and of precisely the sort envisioned by Osama bin Laden in his terrorist strike September 11th 2001. It considers what should happen to re-constitute the House; while vacancies in the Senate may be filled by the governors of the States which those Senators represent, there is as yet no parallel mechanism in the House.

The bill states that when the Speaker determines that there are 100+ vacancies in the House, each State will hold a special election within 45 days.

There are two major problems with this bill:
1. What happens if the whole House is meeting, and the entire House - including the Speaker - are wiped out?
2. What happens if not just 100 members are lost, but enough that the House is no longer able to make a quorum?

The second problem is the most concerning. In that scenario, the Congress would be shut down for at least 45 days. Any response to an action that wiped out the Congress would likely need to be beginning within 45 days, which would put immense pressure on any President to take action. With no congress, those actions could only ever be extra-Constitutional. That's a dangerous idea.

A far better proposal would be that in an emergency where more than 100 vacancies arose in the House as a result of a single event, as certified by the Chief Justices of one-third of the States, the mechanism for a 60-day election be put into place, with the vacancies in the House and Senate being filled by the governors of those States with persons who will not be elligible in the election, for an interim period until the election is held. In this manner, the US Congress could be re-constituted within 8 hours, and the mechanism for certifying such a vacancy is formally put in the hands of people who are never likely to be in close physical proximity to the event they are supposed to certify.

Lastly, pause briefly to consider a successfull strike on the Capitol during the State of the Union address. Under this proposal, not only would the government be in the hands of a minor cabinet member (the President, Vice President and Speaker all being dead), but that unlected President would have no Congress for 45 days. Can you imagine what Donald Rumsfeld could do with 45 days as the President of the USA, with a broad need to extra-Constitutional activity?

The Pledge

I read a comment from someone who thought it "really weird for masses of people to pledge their allegiance to a piece of fabric".

...And to the Republic to which it stands.

One pledges allegiance to one's country....It's a civic duty. The Pledge is not simply an affirmation of loyalty to the government of the day, but rather a solemn pledge to honour and defend the idea of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. To honour and defend that nation that allows you to have all the rights and priveleges that most people (let alone schoolchildren) now feel are innate, and yet are denied to the vast majority of the human race.

We hear so much of rights in America. The pledge is affirming the execution of one of the duties that goes hand in hand with those rights.

Blind faith in one's government is unwise - and if the Founding Fathers had blind faith in their government, we probably wouldn't have those rights. But it's important to never lose sight that it is under that flag, and in the name of the Republic for which it stands, our rights and priveleges were paid for in the blood and sweat of our forefathers.

NAFTA tribunals "override US and State Supreme Courts"

Story.

...Tribunals like the one that ruled on the Massachusetts case were created by the North American Free Trade Agreement, and they have heard two challenges to American court judgments. In the other, the tribunal declared a Mississippi court's judgment at odds with international law, leaving the United States government potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Any Canadian or Mexican business that contends it has been treated unjustly by the American judicial system can file a similar claim. American businesses with similar complaints about Canadian or Mexican court judgments can do the same. Under the Nafta agreement the government whose court system is challenged is responsible for awards by the tribunals.

"This is the biggest threat to United States judicial independence that no one has heard of and even fewer people understand," said John D. Echeverria, a law professor at Georgetown University.

Nader bashing: for fun and profit

I wanted to rail against Nader's candidacy again. See also entry 2/23/2004.

Either Nader is an idiot, and doesn't understand those consequences - viz., that his presence on the ballot can only harm the chances of ousting Bush - or else he knows exactly what he's doing, in which case he's a Bush supporter. There is a third possibility: he's embracing the left, with explosives strapped to his chest, and saying "do what I say or I'll doom us both". When the democrats refused to flinch in 2000, he doomed us to four years of Bush. Now he threatens to do it again in 2004. At best, he is an idiot, at worst he is an agent provocteur, and most likely, he is a deeply selfish, vain and irresponsible man, who would rather see another four years of Bush than see himself drop off the political radar.

His candidacy will achieve nothing for the causes he claims to support. If Ralph Nader wants to do something, he can cut a deal with Kerry, on Kerry's terms, and work as hard as he can to ensure that it is Kerry and not Bush who stands on the capitol steps next January. Governor Dean, a man with a lot more to respect about him than Nader could dream of, has swallowed his ego, and has committed himself to job one: getting rid of Bush. It's about time Nader and his supporters dropped their conceits and did the same thing.

From our friend Steve:

And remember, guys: bashing Nader this year will backfire just like it did in 2000. Kerry and his supporters need to provide POSITIVE reasons for progressives to get behind Kerry.

Research student looking for views on war as a tool of international diplomacy

This was posted on a forum I go to, some people may feel like contributing.

In response to the final question - an open "write in your own views on the use of war in international diplomacy" - I had to answer:

The Declaration of Independence declares certain truths to be self-evident: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Yet, four-fifths of the world do not enjoy these "self-evident" rights. In my view, we should seek to extend, to those who lack those rights, those same rights, choices and liberties as we are so fortunate as to enjoy. At times, that will involve armed intervention, and that is a regrettable - but neccessary - consequence of a firm belief in the supremacy of liberty.

Why Sun threw in the towel in Mankind vs. Microsoft

Story.

Principles are fine things to have, but only if you can afford them. With its stock declared a 'junk bond' and finishing a terrible quarter, Silicon Valley's leading Microsoft antagonist Sun Microsystems has now decided it can't.

The news will have surprised the company's lawyers, who only this week were girding themselves for the next round of litigation. It appears that for almost $2 billion, Microsoft has bought its way out of a lot of trouble. In truth however, both parties realized that the EU decision, which is still pending appeal, was a watershed. Microsoft doesn't have any more nasty surprises to face from the US, EU or States, and Sun realized that it couldn't push any more severe penalties out of the process. What could Sun achieve by proceeding with its 2002 lawsuit? The lawsuit asked for $1 billion in damages; today's settlement yields Sun $700 million for antitrust issues - less than what it wanted - and a further $1,250 million covering patent royalties - which is more than what it wanted...

"Suicide by free trade"

From Pat Buchanan:

Both candidates and both parties seem clueless about what is going on and what to do about it. For Bush Republicans and Kerry Democrats both backed NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and MFN for China. There is this difference, however. Republicans are principled free traders, while the Democratic Party, as a wag put it a while ago, is simply a gathering of warring tribes that have come together in the anticipation of common plunder.

...If the GOP persists in this free-trade fanaticism, it is courting suicide. For the policy is not working in the eyes of the people. And if Republicans insist the returns from global free trade—a disintegrating dollar and a merchandise trade deficit of $550 billion a year and rising—are good for America, folks are going to conclude that Republicans are too out of it to govern.