One Reason Why California Needs a Part-Time Legislature

Erika Johnsen has this at the Townhall.com Tipsheet: "Guess Which State Leads the Way in the Number of New Laws Taking Effect in the New Year?"

Ideally, our laws would all boil down to:

1. Do not assault or murder.
2. Do not do not steal.
3. Do not damage what someone else owns against their will.
4. Do not be negligent in guardianship over dependents.
5. Do the time if you do the crime.

What am I forgetting?

California not only has an ever-growing and highly complex set of laws, but the state government backs a patchwork of special districts that, in addition to state laws and county and city ordinances, micromanage our business and personal lives... the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Air Quality Managment District, the California Coastal Commission... on and on it goes. The California Air Resources Board is especially problematic.

Our state legislature should be officially part-time.

Also, why do we have a bicameral state legislature? Congress is bicameral because Senators were originally supposed to represent state interests (thich was changed by the 17th Amendment, which I'd like to see repealed), and the Representatives are supposed to directly represent the people. The Union is comprised of fifty individual states. California is not a union of semi-autonomous states, as Counties are essentially contructs of the state government. We should not only make the legislature officially part-time, but we should make it unicameral and and reduce the overall number of state legislators.

Don't Badmouth the First Lady's Body

Regardless of the party affiliation of the President, I've never approved of making fun of the body or general appearance of the First Lady. Currently, Michelle Obama's figure has been criticized in high-profile media. Really? We can't find more constructive things to discuss?

By all means, analyze what the First Lady says or does, but stop with the snipes about her body. Please. She's actually an attractive woman, but even if she wasn't, why lower the public discourse? If the First Lady were to do something extreme with her appearance, then of course we should expect discussion about that. But that is not the case currently.

Yes, we have the freedom of speech. But just because we can say something doesn't mean we should.

This also goes to the wife of Vice-President and the children of the President and Vice-President. I remember when some were calling the hairstyle of Marilyn Quayle a throwback. Whether or not it was, I thought it looked great on her.

As far as I know, Michelle Obama has not applied to do modeling work. So please find more constructive things to do with your platforms than mouth off about her body.

Please?

Larry King's Murderer Sentenced

Brandon McInerney murdered Larry King, and there's no excuse for that. There's nothing Larry King could have done, short of posing and immediate threat to the life of McInerney or someone else, that could justify McInerney's actions. Don't tell me it wasn't premeditated or calculated – if it wasn't why had McInerney broken the laws and rules by bringing a gun to school? Still, McInerney was allowed to plead to a lesser charge than first-degree murder, along with other charges. Unlike some on the jury, I would have had no problem convicting him of first-degree murder.

Unfortunately, murders in schools are not rare. But this murder received more attention than so many others because King was identifying as homosexual and/or showing gender confusion by dressing inappropriately for his sex. That King had these problems does not make him any more or less important than any other murder victim. He was a human being with inherent worth and a right to life. Nobody should have so much as bullied him.

Under California law and with the ferocious backing of homosexuality and gender confusion advocates, King did have a "right" to express himself and dress inappropriately. He did not have a right to sexually harass anyone (and I'll say it again – even if he was sexually harassing McInerney, McInerney was not justified in so much as hitting him, let alone shooting him). I do have to wonder, though, if King had been behaving the same way towards girls at the school who didn't want the flirting from him, if he would have been disciplined by the school? Was he allowed to do things others wouldn't because of his claimed identity and the target of his attention being male rather than female? Furthemore, while he had the "right" to dress and act certain ways, I also have the right to leave my car running with the the door open in a rough part of the town. Is it my fault if someone steals that car? No, but if people really cared about me, they would advise against me being so unreserved in my actions.

School officials couldn't do much, I don’t think, given the laws, courtrooms, and activist groups that have pushed California through the looking glass. Perhaps if school officials could have done more, King would still be alive today. This isn't to say we should cater to the emotional triggers of murderers. But maybe we should go back to treating schools as places of imparting academic skills and knowledge to our students rather than forums for sexual expression, and recognizing that those students are volatile youth in need of more structure and guidance.

I can't imagine what King's parents have gone through and will continue to endure. I have known people who have lost a child, even an adult child, and the pain never goes away. To have their child taken away by a murderer makes it that much more painful. Brandon McInerney will have health care, nutritional meals, housing, and security at the expense of California taxpayers, visits from his family, and will probably emerge from pison in his late thirties, still havlng a long life ahead of him. He can live a full, well-rounded life after he's out of prison. King’s family didn't even get to see him graduate from high school.

We have to take life more seriously than this. We must press for the fullest semblance of justice when someone is murdered, whether that person was heterosexual or homosexual, dark-skinned or light-skinned, male or female.

From Catherine Saillant's report in the Los Angeles Times (the newspaper that encouraged a gender-confused staffer along his suicidal way)…

The father, though, reserved his harshest words for the Hueneme Elementary School District, which operates the junior high school where his 15-year-old son was shot twice in the back of the head on Feb. 12, 2008, by McInerney in front of stunned classmates.

Educators knew that his son had a history of acting provocatively for attention, yet they did nothing to stop King after he started going to E.O. Green Junior High School in women's high-heeled boots and makeup and began aggressively flirting with boys, the father said. The middle school student had been removed from his home for unspecified reasons and was in foster care.

Instead of protecting him from his "poor impulse control," King's father said, "they enabled and encouraged him to become more and more provocative," putting him in an unsafe position.

Though he holds McInerney responsible for shooting his son, King said the school's response since the shooting has been despicable.

District leaders have made no changes in policy or procedures, saying they are unnecessary because the school's staff followed the law in allowing Larry to augment his school uniform with women's accessories.

I'm not sure what the school could have done without running afoul of federal and California law and court precedents. The homosexuality advocates and gender confusion crowd foam at the mouth when anyone so much as suggests that minors, in school, should hold back from dressing like drag queen at a Cher concert or talking about how much they want to engage in homosexual sodomy.

The Greg Risling's Associated Press report...

Greg King blamed the school district for not heeding requests by his wife to help tone down their son's flamboyant behavior, despite having a plan that called for preventing the boy from drawing attention to himself.

"The school could have and should have prevented Larry from engaging in the provocative behavior he was involved in," he said.

I already addressed that.

Outside court, Dawn Boldrin, a teacher who gave King her daughter's homecoming dress, had kind words for both of the teens.

"I probably would just hug him," Boldrin said when asked what she would do if she could meet McInerney. "I know he's a good kid."

This woman does not appear to have enough decision-making sense to have any level of responsibility for other human beings. Giving King the dress was bad enough. Calling a murderer a "good kid" should infuriate any reasonable person. Good kids do not commit premeditated murder, especially against someone who was obviously having a tough adolescence.

There were people I felt like killing when I was that age (not for gender confusion or sexual orientation issues... I didn't care about that). But I recognized my hatred was a problem with me, not something on which to act. Good kids don't murder.

A Glaring Omission in Patronizing Marriage Neutering Graphic

Have you seen "How to Explain Marriage Equality to an Idiot"? Check it out and read my thoughts over at The Opine Editorials.

Church Allowed to Fire Someone Living in Sin

An Orange County, California church wins this time. Vik Jolly reports in the Orange County Register.

An appeals court has upheld the decision of a Tustin church to fire its preschool director for continuing to live while unmarried with her boyfriend with whom she had a child.

So... it really is about the church following a Biblical model of human sexuality - sex is for marriage – and not about hating people with homosexual feelings. Imagine that.

Sara Henry, who also taught preschoolers at the Red Hill Lutheran Church in Tustin, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the church following her dismissal in May 2009 for her living arrangements contrary to the religious beliefs of the church and its school.

An Orange County Superior Court judge in 2010 ruled in favor of the church finding it terminated Henry's employment because she violated a church precept. Henry appealed.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana last week agreed with Judge Derek Hunt's ruling.

"According to the church, Henry's employment was terminated not because she had a baby out of wedlock, and not because she remained unmarried, but because she continued to live with her boyfriend in a sexual relationship while unmarried," the appeals court's three judges wrote in their opinion.

The church teaches that sex is for marriage. How can it be expected to keep someone in a teaching position who is choosing to live in a situation that indicates ongoing fornication? Note that she was warned and they would have accepted either her living apart from her boyfriend or marrying her boyfriend. Shacking up is correlated with many negative indicators, including for their child.

In the past, most women would have been mortified for people to know they were shacking up. They certainly wouldn't have sued their employer and called attention to it.

Will we see the kind of response we would see if she had been living in a sexual relationship with another woman?

Surprise! Not Everyone Agrees With Rick Perry

The MSM continues to give an unwarranted amount attention to homosexuality and gender confusion advocacy. See this article by Paul West in the Los Angeles Times.

Rick Perry took another shot at Mitt Romney's offer of a $10,000 bet, but the Texas governor found himself under fire himself Sunday, heckled at a campaign stop over anti-gay bias, including by a man identifying himself as a Marine veteran from the Iraq war.

Anti-gay? Not celebrating homosexual behavior is now considered being anti-gay. How much longer before refusing to engage in homosexual behavior is labeled as such?

"Why are you demonizing gay and lesbian people?" shouted one heckler.

Demonizing? How has he done that? Why are they asking questions that are irrelevant to the issues at hand? And if I show up and rudely yell out questions, will they make it into the MSM?

"Why can't gays compete in the military?" chimed in Jason Arment, 24, an English major at nearby Iowa State University.

They can, but isn't is a distraction to have to share close quarters with someone who makes a point of telling everyone they are attracted to your sex?

Perry is airing a campaign ad, aimed at evangelical Christians in Iowa, in which he says that "there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school."

I don't see how that is demonizing homosexual people, nor being anti-gay.

Arment, in a brief interview, said that he found the Perry ad "extremely offensive" and "insulting" to service members.

I see... Arment speaks for all service members? How about Arment speaks for himself. So what if he is offended? I mean really... so what? "I'm offended!" coming from certain people is supposed to the magic phrase that gets everyone to drop everything and do things their way instead. Well guess what? There is no right to not be offended, and nobody ever died from being offended. (Plenty of men have died from having anal sex with other men, though.) You'd think someone in the military wouldn't be so disfunctionally sensitive to free speech.

Over at The Opine Editorials, we can see that gay can "compete" in the military:

Romney Asks About a Veteran's Service, Gets Marriage Neutering Plea

U.S. Bishops Urge Congress to Extend Unemployment Benefits

That's the headline for this article in the Los Angeles Times by Kathleen Hennessey. I'm sure all of those Lefists... the Democrats, the comedians, the columnists, and "freedom from religion" groups - I'm sure they'll denounce this as an attemped violation of church and state, right?

Right?

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is weighing in on one of the remaining items on Congress' to-do list. In a letter that quotes Pope John Paul II, the bishops urged Congress to extend unemployment benefits for the jobless.

Do you know where you contributions to your church are going?

Say, I thought it was the job of the church to help the poor, rather than urging the government to take money by force from others, unbelievers included, and give it still other people.

Have the Debates Have Outlasted Their Purpose?

Have the Presidential candidate debates outlived their purpose?

I like meaningful rituals and ceremony. I enjoy various forms of theater, from cinema to theme parks, and even, on rare occasion, well-done pro wrestling. And wile I enjoy parody and satire, I don't suffer theater seriously pretending to be reality. I haven't been watching the GOP debates, because I think from what I've seen they are closer to theater than a meaningful exercise. Then the reaction spin cycle adds to the circus. The problem is, this mess has an effect on our lives, and the whole world.

What is the purpose of these debates? Of what benefit are they to the electorate in helping to decide who would be the best President from pack of candidates?

That brings up the question, "What are the duties of a President?"

-Serve as Commander-in-Chief. This includes protecting our national security, directing the military, controlling our nukes, and securing our borders.

-Sign or Veto Legislation. Could the legislation have been written much better? Will there be a veto-proof voting block in Congress?

-Make Appointments/Nominations. This is especially important with judicial nominations, including to the Supreme Court of the United States.

-Execute/Enforce Federal Law. Will the President aggressively crack down on crime and corruption?

-Issue Executive Orders, Pardons, Commutations.

Who do you want as Commander-in-Chief?
Who do you want nominating judges?
Who do you want wielding the veto pen?
Who do you want giving executive orders?
Who do you want issuing pardons?

In addition to these duties, a President can offer moral leadership and use the bully pulpit to encourage some things and discourage others; and be the international face of the union. The President acts as a national cheerleader (and, in the case of Leftists like Obama, a national apologizer).

As Republicans, conservatives, and advocates of limited government, we would tend to also want a President who will contribute to limiting government, advancing our American principles in the public mind and around the world, and strengthen the Republican Party by getting Republicans elected and raising funds.

It is NOT the duty of a President to:

-Ensure you get the education you want at the cost to you that you want.
-Ensure you have a job you enjoy with the compensation you want.
-Ensure you have the kind of house you want at the cost to you that you want.
-Ensure you have the health insurance coverage you want at a cost to you that you want.
-Ensure that everyone else likes you and supports your goals and needs, or that you like you.
-Control the climate of the world.

So how to these debates show voters who would be best at fulfilling the duties of President? They can show if someone has poise and an attractive personality under pressure, and if they can give a persuasive argument in a short amount of time. That’s about it. The negatives about these debates outweigh the positives.

"Town hall" meetings may lack some of the more important questions, with people stuck in 1968 who want to know how the President is going to take care of them and supply their weed, or teens who want to know what style of underwear the candidate is wearing.

There's a better way to show has poise and an attractive personality under pressure, and if they can give a persuasive argument in a short amount of time. Rather than debates, we should have interviews. Yes, we already have interviews on Sunday morning news shows, or other news magazine. But we need more formalized, live interviews of all of the major candidates. Ideally, there would be multiple interviewers – let's say three – balanced by bias or ideology, who are serious people who would have researched the candidates' backgrounds, records, and policy positions relevant to the duties of President, and prepared questions of substance rather than question that are part of a silly game of "let's try to trip you on on TV and see if you can remember things that you'll easily be able to look up or ask an advisor about". There should be no mob audibly, booing, cheering, or shouting things out.

It would be up to each candidate to answer the questions, including follow-up questions, asked by the interview panel, who could show video clips, play audio, put up articles, etc. and use those as reference. There would be nobody interrupting the candidate, except perhaps one of the panelists if the candidate goes off on an extended, irrelevant tangent.

It would very much be an on-camera job interview.

Would it be perfect? Of course not. But it would be more effective, I have to think, than the debates and town halls we have now.

Fort Hood Shooting Was "Workplace Violence"

Ted Bundy was a "Bad Date".

The Challenger and Columbia had "Industrial Accidents".

2008 saw an "Economic Correction".

Occupy Wall Street was a "Tailgate Party".

Katrina was "A Little Wind and Rain".

Jesse Ventura has "Thinning Hair".

Seventy years ago, Pear Harbor was "Treated to a Pyrotechnics Show by Japan", and a few years later, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were each "Treated to a High Energy Event" by the USA.

UC Davis Pepper Spray - What Really Happened

It would have been nice to see this happen to more people doing unlawful occupations of property that does not belong to them.

Adam Carolla Tells It Like It Is Re: Occupy