Randall M. Kessler

I know, I'd never heard of him either. But a couple days ago, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in a bid to speed up their plunge from respectability, gave Mr. Kessler a slot as guest columnist. This is the headline for the treatise up with which he came:

Other states’ gay divorce can affect us

OOOOHHHH, I'm scared already!
How would we be affected?

What happens if a gay couple marries, adopts a child and then divorces, all in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage, but then they move to Georgia? If the custodial parent seeks to enforce a child support award against the other parent, what does the court do?

If it enforces it, then hasn’t the court, and thus the state, recognized same-sex marriage, by enforcing the terms of the same-sex divorce? If it does not enforce the order, aren’t we then harming the most innocent victims, the children who need the support?

You're right, family law attorney Randall M. Kessler, it makes way more sense to deny a large segment of the population their basic equal rights than for, say, Georgia to join Vermont, Massachusetts, and IOWA in the 21st Century. Let's continue a program of discrimination, lest things get too confusing! (oh, and nice touch with the "think of the children" theme!)





















What else you got?

If one party was awarded a house that happens to be in Georgia would that divorce order be enforced in Georgia? If so, wouldn’t Georgia then be recognizing, at least by implication, same-sex marriage?

If not, aren’t we sending a message to Vermont or whichever state granted the divorce that we would not enforce their orders? And could this mean that Vermont might retaliate and not enforce orders of our state?

Oh, my God! Vermont might retaliate! Are you fucking serious? Is this something you really imagine happening? A moron judge from Georgia decides not to uphold Constitutional law for fear that it might, like, give aid and comfort to the gay people, so Vermont declares shenanigans?

Doe it concern you at all that the only images I can find to illustrate your ideas come from animated cartoons?

Are you sure you should be practicing law?

Miss California, Again

Good God, am I sick of this woman!

I saw her making her little speech about her grandfather at the Battle of the Bulge, and how he fought for her right to say stupid stuff at a bimbo contest, and she gets all choked up, and I thought I was gonna puke!

Then she says, and I'm going to paraphrase here, because i don't want to have to watch it again to get the exact quotation, but she says something like, I exercised my freedom of speech and I was punished for it!" And I'm thinking, how were you punished? You weren't stripped of your crown, even when it came to light that you had violated pageant rules, nothing bad happened to you, what do you mean punished?
Then I realized, Oh, she thinks that her anti-gay-marriage speech is what cost her the Miss USA title. She thinks that the title is rightly hers, but it was taken away due to her political beliefs. She thinks that the contest is not just based on who's the prettiest and who boinked the most judges. She really believes that she is the victim of a witch hunt by the miss USA audience, whom she says is "95% gay, or whatever."

Let's get everything we have to discuss about Miss CA out of the way here, so we never have to mention her again. First of all, how many of these pictures are going to keep popping up?


She's blaming the new ones on the wind, which apparently blew her shirt off, and blaming the photographer for taking the pictures. . . for which she was. . . posing, or something. . .






Look at the photo on the right. How is she going to say that the photographer shot that "in between poses" (which she is claiming) That's not a pose? For God's sake, at least be honest! Maybe the one on the left, where she looks to be fixing her hair, maybe you could claim that that one was taken without your knowledge, but the one on the right? Oh, Puh-leez! That's a pose if ever I've seen one.

Prejean said the latest round of photos showing her bare chest were outtakes from a photo shoot taken two years ago for a California surfing magazine.

“I actually was standing on a cliff and it very, very windy, and it was the photographer and I, and he had to have gotten some sort of shot of me where I was exposed,” she said. “However they should not have been published.”

Yeah, how could the photographer have gotten a shot of you where you were exposed, standing there all shirtless and all. Boy, that's a mystery! Oh, and those photos were for a magazine, so, yeah, they should never have been published!

The she said this:

"Honestly, I felt as though Satan was -- and I don't want to say that this person represented Satan, but -- I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, 'Carrie, do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me.

Riiiiight, God Almighty needs bikini girl to stand up for Him. The Lord of Heaven and Earth needs help from an aspiring lingerie model. Ok, then! No delusions of grandeur there!

One last thing.

Why is this:

Considered shocking and distasteful,






But This is perfectly acceptable?

Anti-intellectualism

I believe we've touched on this theme before (here) so bear with me if this feels repetitive.

I know by now, it shouldn't be shocking, or even surprising to read something like this column by some pea-brain named Micheal Barone:

On Guns and Climate, the Elites Are Out of Touch

by Michael Barone



but I'm still stunned by the level of willful ignorance and the lack of simple logic that goes into a statement like this:

Similarly, last month, pollster Scott Rasmussen found that only 34 percent believes that global warming is caused by human activity, while 48 percent said it is caused by long-term planetary trends. That's almost exactly the opposite of what he found 12 months before -- 47 to 34 percent the other way around. However, 48 percent of the group Rasmussen calls the "Political Class" -- in other words, the elite -- continues to believe global warming is man-made.

I'm seriously flabbergasted that someone would actually posit that public opinion polling is in some way relevant to science.

I imagine that if Mr. Barone's car breaks down, he stops 100 people at random and asks them what they think is wrong with it. Then if his mechanic's diagnosis is different, well, the mechanic must be wrong!


In Mr. Barone's world, this counts as scientific research!



















What else ya got, Barone?

As for global warming, many Americans may have noticed that temperatures actually haven't been rising over the past decade, as global warming alarmists predicted. The elites are able to hire armed security guards and jet off on private jets, so they are less likely to notice these things.

Seriously, I can't believe I actually have to tell you this, but casual observation is NOT on a par with scientific research.

Here's another point. Let's say global warming has topped off. Let's say that it's not going to get any warmer. Even if that were true, it's already too hot! The polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, if the temperature doesn't go any higher, that just means that these phenomena will not speed up. It doesn't mean that the will stop or reverse themselves.

If you place an ice cube out on the kitchen counter, it will start to melt. Assuming your kitchen is kept at a normal temperature, it will melt pretty slowly. If the temperature is raised, the melting will speed up, but even if the temperature never increases, the ice will continue to melt. No matter how many people you survey who might believe otherwise, the facts don't change.

There's something very wrong with our society if people believe that scientific facts are subject to opinion polling. Sure, everyone has an opinion, and on some subjects, like say, the best flavor of ice cream, or the best hitter in baseball, one opinion's as good as the next. No, scratch that! When it comes to the best hitter in baseball, yes, that's a matter of opinion, and there can never be any one definitively right answer, but the opinion of, say, Willie Mays, or Hank Aaron, or Joe Torre should carry a lot more weight than that of the average baseball fan, and a hell of a lot more than the opinion of someone who doesn't follow baseball. Would anyone disagree with that? Would anyone argue "I know as much about hitting as Willie Mays!" No! No one with any sense would make that claim.









So why should the average person's opinion carry that kind of weight when it comes to science? I'll bet the average Joe on the street knows a hell of a lot more about baseball than he does about climatology, but he would never claim to know as much as Mays, or Aaron, or Torre, etc. But on the much more arcane subject of global climate trends, oh sure! My high-school science class that I slept through and copied off of the smart girl to pass gives me the same level of expertise as a PhD who has spent his adult life studying the subject. Where does this level of bone-headed arrogance come from? It's stunning! But I guess by now I shouldn't be surprised.

The Procession of "Healing"

I must be a glutton for punishment. I keep opening e-mails from the "One News Now" organization. The latest features a story about a group who puts on something called "The Procession of Healing." I'll let them explain what this is all about:

"People who have abortions or were involved in an abortion [are] very traumatized by it and [feel it's] something they can't be forgiven for," says Jones. "So we decided to do...what we call the 'Procession of Healing,' which is a funeral procession through our downtown area. Last year we had about 300 cars going through the downtown area with black flags."

Wow! So women who have had abortions are traumatized. I have no idea whether that is true, but it's probably safe to assume that some women do have feelings of regret, or of loss, or whatever. I assume this would be a tumultuous time for someone who has had to make this extremely difficult decision. But hey, in case there are any women in town who have terminated a pregnancy but don't feel sufficiently emotionally scarred, let's parade up and down the fucking street in hearses with black flags you know, to be sure that they know that here in Knoxville, TN a lot of us are looking at them as murderers. that should help!

Event founder Aaron Jones, worship arts pastor at Trinity Chapel in Knoxville, Tennessee, explains the event further. According to Jones, in excess of 3,000 abortions take place every year in his area, and the funeral procession gives people a chance to mourn the loss of those lives. He adds that the procession also offers a time of healing for women who have had abortions.

"So we just use it as an opportunity to mourn but also to an opportunity for women...to begin closure and to begin a healing process -- and maybe for some it is closure for them," Jones suggests. "And so that's what this is all about."

You know, Aaron, maybe a lot of these women didn't really need a healing process until your morbid little procession. Do you honestly think you're helping? Can't you at least be honest? I would think a statement along the lines of "we're gonna show those baby-killin' bitches. They'll think twice before exercising choice in family planning after the shaming we're gonna throw at them!" would be a little closer to capturing the spirit of the event.

At least this kind of crap is confined to Tennessee.

The Procession of Healing will be taking place in five other cities: Minneapolis, Minnesota; Miami, Florida; Johnson City, Tennessee; Franklin, North Carolina; and Madisonville, Tennessee.

Oh, God Damn it!

A Government-free Vacation!

In Somalia!