I usually don't like talking about work, but sometimes it just gets to me... so here goes... the names have been changed to protect the idiots...
~
So I'm sitting at my desk talking to a customer, the phone rings, as we have other people working here and answering machines on each line I let it ring, it rings once or twice, I'm not paying that much attention.
So after the customer leaves, Smarty (not his real name) comes in and asks who was on the phone. I reply "I don't know, I didn't answer it"
Smarty then says "Was it Snod" (not his real name). I reply " I don't know, I didn't answer it"
Smarty then says, "Well who was it" I reply "I don't know, I didn't answer the phone. Ask the person who did"
Smarty then says, "Well you had to answer it because I didn't". I reply "Well, I didn't answer the phone, so I don't know who was on it. Ask somebody else!"
(actually I think it was a cell phone that got dropped)
~
Snod (not his real name) comes into my office and asks " Why is that person parking there" (a parking spot in front of the office) " I reply " Probably because it is a parking spot"
~
These are the kinds of things that happen to me, so I end up saying to myself, "I need to get a different job".
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Sun will come up tomorrow
though the yes vote on Prop 8 is depressing... we are still are on way back to the Grand thing That America can be...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Tradition
It's always been that way...
That is one of the arguments that is used against same-sex marriage.
So lets talk a little about tradition
Some traditions are good they provide a sense of community, but some traditions are bad, they promote hatred, and slavery. and a rigidness of society.
Some traditions, that have changed in the last 150 years, the right of America's women to vote (1920), England (1928), Australian women of color (1968), Switzerland, (1959) the right of married women to own property in their own name (France 1965)
In the United States of America the Equal Rights Amendment has never been ratified. We also are the only developed Country to not have ratified the United Nations International Bill of Rights.
Slavery
Importation of slaves was outlawed in the United States in 1808, though slavery itself was not outlawed until 1861, China (1910) England (1807), The United Nations (1948)
It is estimated, that 27 million people still live as slaves today.
In Mauritania alone, it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are enslaved, many of them used as bonded labor. Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.
In Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon. A Nigerian study has found that more than 800,000 people are enslaved, almost 8% of the population.
Pygmies, the people of Central Africa's rain forest, live in servitude to the Bantus.
Some tribal sheiks in Iraq still keep blacks, called Abd, which means servant or slave in Arabic, as slaves.
Child slavery has commonly been used in the production of cash crops and mining.
According to the U.S. Department of State, more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in 'the worst forms of child labor' in 2002.
In November 2006, the International Labor Organization announced it will be seeking "to prosecute members of the ruling Myanmar junta for crimes against humanity" over the continuous forced labor of its citizens by the military at the International Court of Justice.
According to the International Labor Organization, an estimated 800,000 people are subject to forced labor in Myanmar.
The Ecowas Court of Justice is hearing the case of Hadijatou Mani in late 2008, where Ms. Mani hopes to compel the government of Niger to end slavery in its jurisdiction. Cases brought by her in local courts have failed so far.
So if you use tradition as for why we should not use allow gay marriage, you are ignoring the FACT that since the begining of time, traditions change as we grow and learn.
That is one of the arguments that is used against same-sex marriage.
So lets talk a little about tradition
Some traditions are good they provide a sense of community, but some traditions are bad, they promote hatred, and slavery. and a rigidness of society.
Some traditions, that have changed in the last 150 years, the right of America's women to vote (1920), England (1928), Australian women of color (1968), Switzerland, (1959) the right of married women to own property in their own name (France 1965)
In the United States of America the Equal Rights Amendment has never been ratified. We also are the only developed Country to not have ratified the United Nations International Bill of Rights.
Slavery
Importation of slaves was outlawed in the United States in 1808, though slavery itself was not outlawed until 1861, China (1910) England (1807), The United Nations (1948)
It is estimated, that 27 million people still live as slaves today.
In Mauritania alone, it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are enslaved, many of them used as bonded labor. Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.
In Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon. A Nigerian study has found that more than 800,000 people are enslaved, almost 8% of the population.
Pygmies, the people of Central Africa's rain forest, live in servitude to the Bantus.
Some tribal sheiks in Iraq still keep blacks, called Abd, which means servant or slave in Arabic, as slaves.
Child slavery has commonly been used in the production of cash crops and mining.
According to the U.S. Department of State, more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in 'the worst forms of child labor' in 2002.
In November 2006, the International Labor Organization announced it will be seeking "to prosecute members of the ruling Myanmar junta for crimes against humanity" over the continuous forced labor of its citizens by the military at the International Court of Justice.
According to the International Labor Organization, an estimated 800,000 people are subject to forced labor in Myanmar.
The Ecowas Court of Justice is hearing the case of Hadijatou Mani in late 2008, where Ms. Mani hopes to compel the government of Niger to end slavery in its jurisdiction. Cases brought by her in local courts have failed so far.
So if you use tradition as for why we should not use allow gay marriage, you are ignoring the FACT that since the begining of time, traditions change as we grow and learn.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
No on Hate
Well, it seems like Proposition 8, the “Hate” proposition is passing…
Though it is a defeat for individual rights, I hope that in the long run, it will be someting that end up before the Supreme Court.
And though we all hope that “People” (as in the majority) might be progressive and vote for individual rights, the reality of where we are is that they won’t, it will have to be up to the courts to provide justice.
And should this issue go before the Supreme Court, and presented as the rights of a minority, being trampled on by the fears/hate of the majority, this law and laws like it in all the states will be struck down, and that will be for the benefit of all the people of the United States rather than the people of one state, and so I believe that a greater good will come out of this.
- update -
The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes.
The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities.
According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.
The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn’t happen with Proposition 8, and that’s why it’s invalid.
“If the voters approved an initiative that took the right to free speech away from women, but not from men, everyone would agree that such a measure conflicts with the basic ideals of equality enshrined in our constitution. Proposition 8 suffers from the same flaw – it removes a protected constitutional right – here, the right to marry – not from all Californians, but just from one group of us,” said Jenny Pizer, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal. “That’s too big a change in the principles of our constitution to be made just by a bare majority of voters.”
“A major purpose of the constitution is to protect minorities from majorities. Because changing that principle is a fundamental change to the organizing principles of the constitution itself, only the legislature can initiate such revisions to the constitution,” added Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.
The lawsuit was filed today in the California Supreme Court on behalf of Equality California and 6 same-sex couples who did not marry before Tuesday’s election but would like to be able to marry now.
The groups filed a writ petition in the California Supreme Court before the elections presenting similar arguments because they believed the initiative should not have appeared on the ballot, but the court dismissed that petition without addressing its merits. That earlier order is not precedent here.
“Historically, courts are reluctant to get involved in disputes if they can avoid doing so,” said Shannon Minter, Legal Director of NCLR. “It is not uncommon for the court to wait to see what happens at the polls before considering these legal arguments. However, now that Prop 8 may pass, the courts will have to weigh in and we believe they will agree that Prop 8 should never have been on the ballot in the first place.”
This would not be the first time the court has struck down an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court stuck down an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the “Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States.” That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California’s courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state’s constitution.
Though it is a defeat for individual rights, I hope that in the long run, it will be someting that end up before the Supreme Court.
And though we all hope that “People” (as in the majority) might be progressive and vote for individual rights, the reality of where we are is that they won’t, it will have to be up to the courts to provide justice.
And should this issue go before the Supreme Court, and presented as the rights of a minority, being trampled on by the fears/hate of the majority, this law and laws like it in all the states will be struck down, and that will be for the benefit of all the people of the United States rather than the people of one state, and so I believe that a greater good will come out of this.
- update -
The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes.
The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities.
According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.
The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn’t happen with Proposition 8, and that’s why it’s invalid.
“If the voters approved an initiative that took the right to free speech away from women, but not from men, everyone would agree that such a measure conflicts with the basic ideals of equality enshrined in our constitution. Proposition 8 suffers from the same flaw – it removes a protected constitutional right – here, the right to marry – not from all Californians, but just from one group of us,” said Jenny Pizer, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal. “That’s too big a change in the principles of our constitution to be made just by a bare majority of voters.”
“A major purpose of the constitution is to protect minorities from majorities. Because changing that principle is a fundamental change to the organizing principles of the constitution itself, only the legislature can initiate such revisions to the constitution,” added Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.
The lawsuit was filed today in the California Supreme Court on behalf of Equality California and 6 same-sex couples who did not marry before Tuesday’s election but would like to be able to marry now.
The groups filed a writ petition in the California Supreme Court before the elections presenting similar arguments because they believed the initiative should not have appeared on the ballot, but the court dismissed that petition without addressing its merits. That earlier order is not precedent here.
“Historically, courts are reluctant to get involved in disputes if they can avoid doing so,” said Shannon Minter, Legal Director of NCLR. “It is not uncommon for the court to wait to see what happens at the polls before considering these legal arguments. However, now that Prop 8 may pass, the courts will have to weigh in and we believe they will agree that Prop 8 should never have been on the ballot in the first place.”
This would not be the first time the court has struck down an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court stuck down an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the “Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States.” That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California’s courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state’s constitution.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
a new day dawns
and the reign of George the IV is over...
We hope for a return to Democracy, and all the things that America used to stand for.
I hope that Obama wins, that we can return to a discussion, a dialogue of what America needs. That we learn to reach out and find our common ground.
I hope the tradition of America respecting the rights of the individual allows Proposition 8 - the "Hate" Proposition to go down in defeat.
But if we lose that one, we will win in the end, for when Obama wins, and he gets to appoint a Supreme court Justice or two, it is my belief that they will not allow the majority to take away the rights of the few.
With all the outrage going on let us look at the definition of Marriage from Wikipedia
If you read all that, you might note that some people wish to add or make dominate, their own religious views, and strike out anything that does not conform to their own views.
I guess at the end of it all, despite what anyone might say, that though the bulk of marriage is between a man and a woman (and that would be so, because most people are straight) that Marriage is fluid, and reflects the values of the society which wherein they are based.
And that most of the time marriage had been used to confer ownership of the female by the male.
People tend to forget that in the Western World, we no longer think of women as property, and that is a redefinition of marriage.
Now that the Supreme Court of California has said that;
" These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage.
As past cases establish, the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society.
Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. "
We hope for a return to Democracy, and all the things that America used to stand for.
I hope that Obama wins, that we can return to a discussion, a dialogue of what America needs. That we learn to reach out and find our common ground.
I hope the tradition of America respecting the rights of the individual allows Proposition 8 - the "Hate" Proposition to go down in defeat.
But if we lose that one, we will win in the end, for when Obama wins, and he gets to appoint a Supreme court Justice or two, it is my belief that they will not allow the majority to take away the rights of the few.
With all the outrage going on let us look at the definition of Marriage from Wikipedia
If you read all that, you might note that some people wish to add or make dominate, their own religious views, and strike out anything that does not conform to their own views.
I guess at the end of it all, despite what anyone might say, that though the bulk of marriage is between a man and a woman (and that would be so, because most people are straight) that Marriage is fluid, and reflects the values of the society which wherein they are based.
And that most of the time marriage had been used to confer ownership of the female by the male.
People tend to forget that in the Western World, we no longer think of women as property, and that is a redefinition of marriage.
Now that the Supreme Court of California has said that;
" These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage.
As past cases establish, the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society.
Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. "
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