Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Can someone explain this to me ...

California voters approve gay-marriage ban - Yahoo! News
I mean, honestly, I don't get it.  Help me out.

So, from the perspective of the church, marriage is a holy and sacred thing ordained by God with very stringent rules and limitations on circumstance and behavior to be applied.  I get that, and don't argue the point even though I think I could.  The church's right to their crazy views is, thanks be to God, protected by our CONSTITUTION. ;-)>

From the state's perspective, however, a marriage is nothing more than two separate legal entities that represent individual citizens joining into a single legal entity for sharing of assets and liabilities of both fiduciary and other nature.

Given an appropriate separation of church and state, and that the state has not considered homosexuality illegal for quite some time. how can the state NOT acknowledge the rights of two consenting adults join their assets and liabilities into a single legal entity?

It occurs to me that the church, or someone, is undermining our constitution by adding what is in fact an UNCONSTITUTIONAL constitutional amendment.  That is, of course, precisely why an amendment is needed.  Any law short of that would be stricken as unconstitutional.  We don't want to play by the rules, so let's change them.  In some cases that's the right thing to do, but I don't see it that way in this case.

Maybe we should all stop and reflect on that for a moment before the next big gay-marriage-ban vote.  Also, reflect on this: The SAME laws that protect your right to lead the life that you choose to lead (go to church, kill animals for pleasure, eat foods known to lead to heart disease, have sex with your spouse at any time and in any way that you choose, etc. etc. etc.) have to apply broadly to ALL people, even those whose behavior you don't understand or condone, provided no one is placed in immediate danger of loss or harm by such action.

I've said it before, I'll say it again.  If we are to be a pluralistic society (as opposed to a fundamentalist society), we MUST have the gold-standard of our law be the golden rule.  Do unto others as you would have them to unto you.  If I were gay and in a committed relationship, I'd want to be able to get on my significant other's insurance and share a bank account.  I don't see how that undermines the family more than the divorce-on-demand and me-first attitudes that permeate our culture top to bottom.

I really want to understand the other perspective.  Someone explain it.  Please.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Amen ...

Adam Kotsko Tuesday Hatred

Just wrote some words over at http://heteronomy.wordpress.com/, and thought I'd re-write them here, because copy and paste is easy, and I like filling up the cloud's disk space with not just drivel, but superfluous drivel.  Nice ;-)>

In re-reading this, I recognize that some of the stuff about Joe the Plumber is pretty mean spirited.  I'm leaving it as unedited, but will say that it reflects more my frustrations with the air time the guys given than anything strictly personal.
I hate that I was all excited about coming back and hating a bit, and that I've forgotten all that which I was intending to hate, owing to the fact that I'm now immersed in "work".

Oh, I remember ...
I hate Joe the Plumber.  Conversely, I love the thought of kicking Joe the Plumber in the teeth.  I hate how, if I want to hire a programmer, he's got to have an advanced degree in brain-surgery, but any apprentice douche-bag can become a political pundit.  (Reference Joe the Plumber)

I hate the astounding ability of the average person to radically oversimplify any given problem.  Hey, over simplifier: whether your pro- or anti-choice, it's not a three word problem.  Chanting "Abortion is murder" just shows me that you haven't really though this through.  What I love about Obama, and the thing that is making him inaccessible to so many, is his steadfast refusal to reduce a problem beyond it's simplest form.

I hate the realization that many people I know that would truly and dearly love to vote democrat will still vote republican because of the abortion issue, completely failing to recognize that a)another conservative judge or two won't overturn Roe, and b)only the liberal judges are set to retire, so a democratic president would maintain balance, which is important...

I hate that my daughters' swim coach wants her to swim 2 hours a night, 5 nights a week.  Does this seem to anyone else like a lot for an 11 year-old?  She's just starting to change in the ways that girls of that age often do, and I'm more than a bit concerned about the effect to her development by that level of activity.

"[..] The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

BibleGateway.com - Passage Lookup: 2 Corinthians 3:6

6He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Not a passage that I think I've ever heard cited or preached upon, in all my nearly 35 years.  I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

Thanks again, BibleGateway.com.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Pro-Life: Pro-Obama ...


http://masbury.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/pro-life-pro-obama/

Probably bad form to link to someone else's blog with no value add, so ...

I’m coming to see these battles not as left vs. right ideology, but pragmatism and problem-solving vs. dogma and oversimplification.

It’s literally a battle against fundamentalism wherever it’s found, isn’t it. Whether you’re hard-core pro-choice or hard-core pro-life, you’re really just creating noise and emotion that prevents rational and effective problem-solving…



Another tremendous, level-headed post by Monte Asbury.
Arguments for pro-life being pro-Obama:http://prolifeproobama.com/

Soft costs for a corporation

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
The big business Management Advancement (fad) of the 2010's will be to somehow estimate and control soft costs.

Example:  Through continuous mergers, we have not used the same systems for payroll, time recording, etc. for any two of the last 4 years.  IOW: lots of churn.  The inefficiency that this creates is enormous.

Additionally, though turnover produced to gain lower labor costs, our labor has become ultra-inefficient.  So, rather than having 10 units of work for 10 dollars, we're getting 5 unites of work for 8 dollars.  Saving some money to be sure, but at what real cost?

Some really, really smart people are no doubt working on this today, and we'll eventually get there...  I hope.

Obama LOVES free markets

YouTube - Obama Answers Question on New Coal Plants in Indianola, IA

The flack that's being thrown up from the republican party makes me unable to support them.  I cannot believe the lies and misrepresentations that I've seen from day one.  I can only pray that the American people see through it.

I'm hearing about how Obama's going to tax coal plants etc.  Nonsense.  I'm hearing how he's a socialist.  Nonsense.

The republicans are GREAT at creating a turn of phrase, ascribing to it a negative connotation, attaching it to democrats, and hammering on it over and over and over.  Please please please please please don't give in to their fear-mongering.

This guy loves free markets, he's pragmatic like nobody's business, he's innovative, and he's not afraid to give strait talk on what things are going to cost. 

We NEED Obama for the next 4 years.



DBT-50000 when using DBCA.bat on Windows (Oracle 19.11)

I’ve been having some trouble getting DBCA to run in order to create databases. Thought I’d share it with you, and thus document it for la...