Koi fish in my tiny little pond

Virginia seems to be one of those boneheaded states that still insists on trying to be the moral compass for everyone that resides within, regardless of whether or not those denizens want them to be. Personally, they can keep the fucking word "marriage"...it has religious connotations I can do without, thankyouverymuch. HOWEVER, I definitely feel that my partner and I deserve the chance to have the same rights as every heterosexual married couple in the United States. By limiting our rights, the Church has crossed that separation boundary that our forefathers purposely erected, seeing as how it's the reason why they rebelled against England anyway: religious freedom, among other things.

My personal opinion, however, is neither here nor there. Let's take a bitty peek at the item that my fellow idiot Virginians want to jam into our state constitution, shall we? The amendment as will show up on our ballots next week is as follows:

Virginia State Constitution: Marriage Amendment

FULL TEXT OF AMENDMENT

[Proposed new language is underlined. Existing language that is deleted is shown as stricken (stricken).]
Amend Article I of the Constitution of Virginia by adding a section numbered 15-A as follows:
ARTICLE I
BILL OF RIGHTS

Section 15-A. Marriage.
That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions. This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.

Attorney General's Office
5/9/06
Explanation -- 473 words
Approved by House Committee on Privileges and Elections 5/10/06
Approved by Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections 5/12/06

Regardless of what Focus on the Family and Falwell's Army would have you believe, this WILL affect people other than gays. There is no equivocation in the language of this amendment, no caveats given. The "relationships of unmarried individuals" does not mean simply same-sex couples. There are common-law marriages and heterosexual long-term relationships that are affected too, should the occasion or legal issue arise. Make no mistake, creating legal precedence in the process of enforcing this amendment will be at the top of the State Attorney General's list. The second hets start feeling the burn, it will be too late. Keep your eyes open, people. Don't let your politicians use this one issue as an excuse to ignore other, more pressing matters of the people.

End Rant.

I started the NaNoWriMo and I can truly say that, while well meaning, this is going to be hard as hell. My sleep cycle is a tad off so my motivation level has been rather iffy. Maybe after posting this, I'll try to keep myself from watching Harry Potter and write instead. Who knows?

So now our illustrious dictator *ahem* I mean President (and I use that term oh so loosely) now wishes to circumvent the checks and balances put in place by our forefathers and declare himself All Powerful Ruler that Don' Need No Stinkin' Rules. It seems that he feels he is above the constitutional powers that limits what he can and cannot due in the Executive Branch. At a time when the Republicans are reeling from so many scandals (and so close to the elections, I might add), Dubya keeps digging their grave a bit deeper. That's fine by me, I just hope the American public finally gets a clue. I give you, Our Village Idiot:

WASHINGTON - President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.

In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.

But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it's appropriate for the administration to know what reports go to Congress and to review them beforehand.

"There can be a discussion on whether to accept a change or a nuance," she said. "It could be any number of things."

The American Bar Association and members of Congress have said Bush uses signing statements excessively as a way to expand his power.

The Senate held hearings on the issue in June. At the time, 110 statements challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers combined from the White House and the Senate committee. They include documents revising or disregarding parts of legislation to ban torture of detainees and to renew the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert lawmakers' ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive branch of government.

"The Homeland Security Department has been setting up watch lists to determine who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets employed," said Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

He said the Homeland Security Department has the most significant impact on citizens' privacy of any agency in the federal government.

Homeland Security agencies check airline passengers' names against terrorist watch lists and detain them if there's a match. They make sure transportation workers' backgrounds are investigated. They are working on several kinds of biometric ID cards that millions of people would have to carry.

The department's privacy office has put the brakes on some initiatives, such as using insecure radio-frequency identification technology, or RFID, in travel documents. It also developed privacy policies after an uproar over the disclosure that airlines turned over their passengers' personal information to the government.

The last privacy report was submitted in February 2005.

Bush's signing statement Wednesday challenges several other provisions in the Homeland Security spending bill.

Bush, for example, said he'd disregard a requirement that the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five years experience and "demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security."

His rationale was that it "rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

There's a good reason why Dubya doesn't like intelligent people. They'd have told him to keep a firm leash on his tongue until AFTER the elections. Oh this one is going to be a doozy. The smear campaigns have been going on for weeks. I'm so disgusted nowadays I TIVO the shows I want to watch. Don't even bother with the television....just skip riiiight on through those commercials. I'd lay a big old wet one on the inventor of TIVO right now. He/she is saving me from endless hours of rhetoric, faulty logic and eye-rolling yammering of Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the FOX news grandstanders.

*waves her flag half-heartedly and sings Lee Greenwood's "And I'm Proud to Be An American" ever so slightly off-key*

Looks like Koizumi did what he set out to do: keep his party in power in Japan.
With Abe Shinzo's, his carefully chosen predecessor's, election as the new PM, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party seems to be on a roll. It's rather telling, though, that Japan's Cabinet resigned en masse before the election. Seems like Abe-san doesn't have much government experience other than being an aide to his politician father, Abe Shintaro, elected to Parliament in 1993, and being appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Koizumi. His grandfather was former PM Kishi Nobosuke, who formulated the US-Japan Security Treaty.

China most certainly isn't happy about this new turn of events and have tersely made some not so veiled comments about the new PM repairing relations with them and South Korea.

Apparently, the US is no longer concerned about Japanese militarism and wants more involvement from its SDF in the rebuilding efforts in Iraq. Although, Colin Powell seems to be one of the few expressing concern about the possible change in Japan's policy of pacifism. Michael Zielenziger, a former Tokyo correspondent for the LA Times wrote an interesting op-ed piece. Seems like things are DEFINITELY heating up in the Pacific, especially with the latest Thai coup. That particular event, IMO, still elicits a feeling of concern in me, mostly because I don't know very much about Thai politics; it's hard to say if it was good or bad thing. Perhaps I should ask my Thai friends what they think (if they're even allowed to say anything about it at all).