Yag "marriage" and immigration
This morning, leafing through some immigration cases, it struck me that letting yags marry would bring some complications to immigration law. The law defines family relationships carefully for the purposes of determining, for instance, if a citizen or permanent resident alien can bring a wife or parent or child in to this country without triggering numerical limits. Of course marriage is defined in the law as it has been since the beginning of society. The immigration authorities have had a lot of trouble with sham marriages, as depicted in the movie Green Card with Gerard Depardieu. If the US were to legitimize yag marriage, a US yag could go overseas and drag in anybody it wants to. What constitutes "consummation" of a yag marriage, anyway? Coverture? Are we going to have to come up with thresholds of love in quantifiable units?

Marriage is interwoven throughout our society's web of rules. Duh. Those yagophiles who say that letting them marry wouldn't really change anything are either stupid or disingenuous. And the immigration laws also point out a problem with polygamy. One US citizen could bring in half the population of Guatemala if polygamists were granted the same right as yags, that is, to define marriage to suit themselves.

Another separate point: What if a biologically female "married" yag gets pregnant (Hey, it could happen)? Is the yag it's married to considered the father of the child? Is it liable for child support? If not, why not? That's what happens when a man's wife gets pregnant by another man. Equal means equal, doesn't it? Or is that only until it's not convenient?

Annex Canada

Canada is having trouble financing its armed forces, which have sunk to a low ebb. Maybe this is a good thing. A few companies of Marines on rotation back from Iraq or Afghanistan could come back through Ottawa and take over Canada with little or no opposition. The French-Canadians would of course surrender immediately and most of Western Canada would breathe a huge sigh of relief. We'd be connected by land to Alaska and would gain enormous reserves of oil, gas, nickel, uranium and fish. And we'd never have to worry about ice supplies. Disney could build "Polar Bear Land" and give the Indians and Eskimos jobs. The only big problem would be the health care bureaucrats and other freeloaders who would have to be retrained to be productive. Best of all, we'd have a lifetime supply of native comedians. Who's going to stop us? France?!

Kerry AWOL in the War on Terror
Kerry has been attacking President Bush for being "AWOL" thirty years ago by serving in the National Guard. Yet Kerry himself has been AWOL for years in the war on terror. "Serving" in the Senate carries with it an obligation to fight for your country. What has Kerry done in the last twenty years to make the world safe from terrorism? He voted against the First Gulf War. When this position drew hostile fire, Kerry turned tail and ran, voting last year for the Second Gulf War. Then, when he saw that wasn't the best political position to garner the Democratic nomination, he surrendered to the French and voted against follow-up funding for the troops in Iraq. In his twenty years in the Senate, he was AWOL repeatedly when his vote was needed to support intelligence funding and many weapon systems which could have convinced the terrorists that we were serious about defeating them. But then, of course, we would also have to have had a President who would fight for the country and not just for his right to seduce interns without penalty.

Tactics on yag marriage

A lot of debate is going on about how to deal with the political side of yag "marriage". Should there be a constitutional amendment to define marriage as "the union between one man and one woman"? Will activist judges find a right in the Constitution for yags to get married to people of their own sex? Even though straights will not have this right? Or would they? Hmm. Anyway. The politicians would be best advised to try to get the proponents of yag marriage to fight for a constitutional amendment establishing such a right, as I advocated before. So maybe the first step is not the "Defense of Marriage Act" but a finding that such a major change in the constitutional powers must come through an amendment process. So then all the arguments can be channeled into a decades-long amendment fight, like the ERA struggle in the '70s that was overtaken by evolutionary change. Then Bush can say he was leaving the decision to the people and not have to come out for or against the concept. That always makes politicians happy. All the activists, advocates and "progressives" will have a huge battle to engage in that will safely divert their energies. So they'll be happy. And they'll lose. Which will make me happy.

Fish or foul or yag?

The hubbub about gay marriage licenses being handed out like - well, like condoms at a high school - in San Francisco, couldn't help but remind me of the Monty Python skit about the fellow who comes in to a county office to renew his fish license. Remember? John Cleese says, "No, you can't have a fish license. We only license dogs." So Eric Idle, I think, shows him a paper which appears to say "Fish license". Cleese objects that he has crossed out the word "Dog" and put in the word "Fish". Similarly, in SF, apparently homosexuals have been altering standard marriage licenses. They've crossed out the words "Bride" and "Groom" and replaced them with "Applicant 1" and "Applicant 2" !! Or "Spouse for Life" or something as absurd. Parody is dead. Nothing remains to mock that hasn't been mocked by its own self. And of course, this is not supposed to affect in any way the nature of heterosexual marriage. Somehow "Here comes the Applicant 2" doesn't have quite the cachet of "Here comes the Bride".

Say, why is it these counter-culture "yags" = reverse gay, because they're not = are so into getting official sanction for their relationships? I thought they were going to overthrow old forms, not squeeze themselves into them like a bearded middleaged "Applicant 2" squeezing his paunch into a wedding gown? I guess the only consolation is that a family whose children all became yags would cease to exist.

Update: WorldNetDaily has more.

The Love Conundrum
This whole gay marriage thing is really getting me bothered. It should be put up to a constitutional amendment process, for the simple reason that no one in his right mind could contend that the Federal Constitution, or that of any state, authorized the state to make laws about marriage as a "right" - or a privilege - pertaining to any arrangement other than that between one man and one woman. Does anyone seriously maintain any other position? Oh, that's right. Some of us nutty objectivists do say the state shouldn't have any power over marriage or - especially - love, since IT'S NOT MENTIONED IN ANY CONSTITUTION!!! This power has been extracted from constitutions by courts, who have also inferred other nutty powers. Taxation of income and female suffrage and ending slavery required amendments because the court system found that they were contrary to the constitution as written. Does anyone sincerely think the idea of gay "marriage" would survive the constitutional amendment process?

How would such an amendment read? How could it logically exclude polygamy, incest, even pedophilia? If the ground of a relationship legalized by state action is that the participants love each other, shouldn't that factor be subject to proof? How can people prove they love each other? Nowadays, a man and a woman do not have to prove they love each other in order to get married. They DO have to prove, if challenged, that they are man and woman, not man and frog or woman and Beast. But that's the only requirement. So how about it? What's the legally sufficient proof of love? PET scan results?

Why no second attack?
Charles Krauthammer puts together some reasons why Al Qaeda has not attacked the US again after 9/11. He leaves out one. Maybe Al Qaeda expected the US to fall apart and appease them, as Clinton did after the first WTC attack, Khobar Towers and the USS Cole. When their attack led only to the toppling of the Taliban and Saddam, they may have said to themselves, "Hmm, guess we won't do that again! Not with that W guy in there!" Bin Laden probably has a better idea than most Americans of what can happen to him if he makes the US under George W. Bush any angrier than it already is. Better to go attack Australians in Bali and even Saudis than risk full extirpation. He'll bide his time until Kerry gets in and is thinking more of interns than protecting America.

Let us hippies speak!
I've been listening with some bemusement to John Kerry claiming that he is a "patriot" because he volunteered to go to VietNam and then protested against the war when he got back. Well, I don't feel the same way now, but back in the Sixties, I was thoroughly against the war. I wouldn't ever have harassed troops coming back from VietNam, especially if they were draftees, but I hated - yes, hated - anyone who went voluntarily. Now that Kerry is claiming political capital because he went and fought - and also because he protested - I can't believeanyone is taking him seriously. If you absolutely positively couldn't get out of the draft and felt you must volunteer to get a commission or for whatever reason - like running for President in thirty years - the only morally correct thing you could do, short of going to Canada, would be to get a place in the National Guard and show up as little as possible. So Bush was the real moral patriot.
And why is any of this relevant now, when all the services are one hundred percent volunteer? And when so many of us feel strongly that America should not be ruled by Osama bin Laden, isn't the situation a little bit different?

Marriage every which way
Now that a Massachusetts "court" has "ruled" that the legislature must allow gay marriage - and what exactly gives them the legitimate power to dictate to the legislature in this way? - it has become clear that marriage rights are now open to all. If you are a man, why must you be "gay" in order to marry another man, to get benefits or dower rights or hospital visitation or whatever? Aren't the courts going to need a definition of "gay" to determine whether two men are allowed to marry by the new laws? What is that definition, anyway? Are you gay if you say you're gay? That didn't work for the Philadelphia firefighters who claimed to be minorities on the basis of a great-grandmother they asserted was part Negro. They were subject to a judicial examination of their bloodlines worthy of Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa. So we'll doubtless need a national certification agency to investigate, examine and analyze those who claim to have a certain habit of mind that matches the legal definition of "homosexual". Oh, Joy. More work for lawyers, psychiatrists and philosophers. Will a "couple" have to prove a certain level of "love" to get a license? How exactly would that concept be quantified? I really love cole slaw. I expect it to be my constant companion until my Creator claims me. Oh, I may stray in the direction of potato salad now and again, once I get off this Atkins kick, but if a psychologist put me in a darkened room and flashed pictures of food on a screen and measured my pupillary dilation, I'm sure good old slaw would always produce a reaction reaching the legal minimum.

Evil Bread
Going back on Atkins and getting the good old energy boost and clear thinking, I ruminate on the evil of bread. Man used to eat mostly meat, before agriculture. After agriculture came along, the tribe of Man grew in numbers, but only the nobles had a good supply of meat. The peasants ate carbohydrates, dooming them to stupidity and inertia. Now that capitalism has made it possible to supply everyone with cheap meat, a new utopia awaits. Everyone can have the mind of a Charlemagne, a Caesar. Carnivores have always ruled. Now we can all rule ourselves. The only necessity is the exposure once and for all of the evil of starches and sugars. The FDA should stop harassing smokers and start rooting out the real evil - carbohydrates. Only by utterly eliminating the temptations of fresh-baked bread, steaming pasta and twinkling jellie candies will we achieve our real potential as men.

Clark is as Dean was
As the eternally fascinating NH primary draws closer, Dean looks weaker and weaker. In the latest poll on Real Clear Politics, he's in third place, with Clark and Edwards jostling each other to take over second. Clark is what Dean was: the "unknown quantity" that all the Bush-haters - meaning, nowadays, every Democrat except Joe Lieberman - hope will prove to be the silver bullet to stop Bush. Many Dems don't see John Kerry as having staying power, especially in the South. As the outlines of Clark become clearer, though, it's apparent there's something monstrous hidden behind his four stars and deer-in-the-headlights stare. If with Clinton there was nothing there except naked lust for power, with Clark there's nothing there at all. His handlers have apparently told him to deny saying everything he ever said that contradicts the position he wants to take in any particular situation. And then counterattack, like a good general. If Clinton was the first black president, Clark would be, in the infinitesimally possible event that he makes it, the first president with no grasp on reality at all.

If Dean comes in third or worse in NH, he's done. The combination of a rejuvenated Kerry and homeboy Edwards in South Carolina will doom him there. General Clark has to pull rank on Lieutenant Kerry at every opportunity and I don't think that will work. Regular soldiers don't like Generals. Grunts outnumber brass. And his general buddies wouldn't vote for him to save their souls. So who's left? The Clintons? Maybe (pleasepleaseplease!) their support of Napoleon XIV will be the beginning of their political decline. Think about what Kerry and Ted Kennedy will do with the Democrat Party apparatus if Kerry becomes the nominee. Doesn't look too good for McAuliffe and the Beelzebubbas. But it's all good for Bush, so far.

Wes Clark and New Hampshire taxes
I heard - no link, sorry - that Wes Clark has been saying to New Hampshire voters that their problems - which he of course promises to solve - can be traced to the fact that New Hampshire has no sales or income taxes. Has no one told him that New Hampshire politics are based on not having a sales or income taxes? I lived in NH for decades and saw many Dem candidates shrivel up and die when they appeared to be advocating more taxes. Even Jeanne Shaheen, the former Dem governor, carefully avoided trying to push sales and income taxes. For one thing, if a sales tax were imposed, the border communities would immediately lose millions of dollars of sales to Taxachusetts consumers. This includes massive liquor store sales on Route 93 from state liquor stores that would lose both profits and liquor taxes for the state. An income tax would mean fewer Mass. workers living in southern NH and paying the increasing property taxes. And of course the infamous 8% (or is it more now?) rooms and meals tax would still be in place, soaking tourists. For Newhampshiremen, taxes are something tourists pay so they can keep their money where it belongs. Clark's tin ear strikes again.

Unopposed
Well, it's happened. Here it is October 1, 2004, and the Democrats have decided not to put up a candidate to oppose President Bush in the November election. Oh, there are a few nutcase fringies out there, like the totally discredited Wesley Clark, who, after admitting that he had participated directly in creating the war plans for invading Iraq, only to disavow all knowledge of them. He is polling at less than one percent in what's left of the polls. It's been a bad summer for the pollsters. Every credible Democratic candidate self-destructed in one way or another before the Democratic Convention in Boston. On the coldest day in August in thirty-seven years, the convention broke up in fistfights over whether global warming or a new ice age was the bigger threat to the world's oppressed.

Still waiting
Drudgereport has broken a story about Wesley Clark that may just torpedo his candidacy below the waterline. It simply points out that Clark was an enthusiastic advocate of the invasion of Iraq in testimony before a Congressional committee not long before the war, and just before most of the Democrats voted for it. I keep checking, though, and none of the big media outlets have picked up on the glaring inconsistencies of Clark's statements about the war since, especially his repeated declarations that he was "always" against the war. This is psycho territory. Maybe the big boys want to make sure the transcripts are accurate before they run with the story. Or maybe - just maybe - they are reflexively covering for a Democratic candidate they think may have a better chance than Dean of beating Bush. Which is damning with faint praise, anyway!

Just tryin' to get through the territory
In Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, Robert Urich plays a cowboy who's strung up by a sheriff played by Robert Duvall. He had been riding with a couple of psychotic killers. He pleaded that he wasn't part of the gang, he never did anything bad, he was "just tryin' to get through the territory". He had to ride with the bad guys for protection from Indians, starvation, other bad guys and, I guess, just to find his way.

Tennis and Democrats

So you're playing in the finals at Wimbledon. The first set goes well, but it takes a tiebreaker for you to win it 7-6. Phew. The next set you totally lose it. Your serves crash the net six ways from Sunday. Your opponent, a crafty veteran, perks up and crushes you 0-6. But you get your second wind. Perhaps the Queen smiles at you and you are inspired. At any rate, you win set 3 in another tiebreaker 7-6. Then the Queen leaves and you nosedive into another bagel job in the fourth set, 0-6. It's all tied two sets apiece, but your opponent is looking for an easy win. You glance appealingly around the crowd, hoping for any stimulus to get you going. And there she is in the sixth row waving at you, your long-lost girlfriend from Bulgaria. You thought you'd never see her again. Even though you're about done in, you must impress her. After all, she left you because she was convinced you'd never make it on the big-time tennis circuit. You pick things up and manage, just, to squeak out the winning point in a tiebreaker, 7-6. You've won! Wimbledon Champion!

Or so you think. The fans, the officials, the media agree. You get your prize money. Only your opponent doesn't think so. He stomps off the court, his face like thunder, refusing to shake hands or accept his runnerup prize. The next day he comes up to you and insists that he should have won the championship. He shows you the scoresheet. He says that because the sheet shows that he won 30 games when you won 21 and that he won many more points than you did, that he should receive the championship. You don't know what to say. He knows the rules. He's been playing by them for years. He knows that players take the rules into account in determining their strategy. For instance, a player behind by two breaks of service may let a set go and play harder in the next set, as you did. But the opponent is adamant. He calls you a thief, a liar, a dishonest player. And all the time you have played and won exactly according to the rules. And you know for certain that if your opponent were in your shoes, he would take the prize and not think about it for a second.

"Otherwise unwelcome consequences"

The Guardian, biting back its bile, has reported a speech by the "stupid frat boy" about Libya's sudden compliance with rational and civilized requirements for admitting to its development and possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which the Left has uniformly said no Arabs ever really had and the Bushies were just lying about so they could get oil for Halliburton and blood for Jewish holiday matzohs. Funny, isn't it, how the spectacle of the great blood-thirsty warrior dragged out of a rathole by GIs inspires second thoughts on all this America-bashing? Perhaps we can send Qaddafi to Chad to be tried. I'm sure they'll be quite understanding about his treatment of their people, which after all hasn't been that different from how Semitic Muslim Arabs have treated black animist Africans for, oh, the last fifteen hundred years or so. And for their sins, they get Michael Jackson!

Keeper
Michael Crichton has made a speech (found through Colby Cosh, my favorite Alberta-blogger) to the Commonwealth Society in which he says almost everything I've ever said about the environmental movement in a few paragraphs. The point:

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

The only part he leaves out is about the ozone hole - oh, and acid rain. But the idea of the "Eden Myth" I've been ranting about for decades is there in the most articulate form I can conceive of. He is, after all, a professional. And the speech confirms the context of Jurassic Park that was left out of the movie - the incomprehensible complexity of life, which Man can never control or destroy no matter what he does. Read it.

Hard day - night!
I've had a long day firing my AK-47 into the air around Tallahassee and handing out candy to the local ragamuffins and partaking liberally of non-Islamic libations to celebrate the political demise of one of history's worst tyrants. So I go to bed much more optimistic about the future course of events in the Middle East. And in the War on Terror. Think bin Laden is digging his hidey-hole a little deeper? Assuming he wasn't buried deep within a mountain months ago, which is likely.

Here's the Iranian take. The mullahs are cynical old beards, aren't they? I wonder what "Hoseyn" may have to say about them and their terroristic activities? I suppose eventually Saddam, instead of getting "the chair" will get a chair in intenational politics at some Old European university, if we make the mistake of letting him be tried by the World Court or some other such contradiction in terms. Maybe that will be his price for not telling all about Chira(q) and Schroeder and all the other appeasers. So let the Iraqis deal with him. Maybe they'll freeze him and put his body behind glass in a memorial to his victims.

Fin de parcours!
End of the road, Baby! Even LeMonde is forced to admit that the great ami of Chira(q) is done for. No more weapon sales, sales de cochons! No more twitting the US about how unrealistic and naive it is to think that Arabs can actually govern themselves in a democracy. Of course the Froggies, from whom I have liberated a car, do have to put in "soutenu d'abord par l'Occident avant d'etre diabolise" as a descriptor of Saddam. Sorry, I'm not going to go get accent marks for Frogs' sakes. And I mean. "Made into a devil"?? Maybe, just maybe some of his own actions, like KILLING MILLIONS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE may have effectively diabolized him, or made his evil clear. And another thing "Axe du Mal" doesn't quite convey the meaning of Axis of Evil. He's not just "bad". He's EVIL, darn it! Say, you don't think they're still mad about that "Axis of Weasels" thing, do you? Aww.. I'm so sympathetic.