The OC Disorder

David and Damon get on it.

It appears that somehow, the Register has scored an interview with Harrison Ford in anticipation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which comes out next Thursday. Worth checking out if you have a few minutes.

OCR: How do you go back to making other kinds of movies after an experience like this?

FORD: For money.

Ah, he’s still got it.

I’m sure you’ve all probably heard/read this by now, but the CA Supreme Court has ruled that a statutory ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional (by CA Constitution’s standards). In addition, the Court has stated that current marriage legislation is discriminatory in nature when it comes to gays and lesbians. To quote the article:

The California Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory.

While this is most definitely a victory, I’m more interested in seeing what the practical effect of this ruling is (the opinion should be published in a few months). It only sounds like the Court is saying “these laws are unconstitutional; fix them now.” If that is the case, then, as a practical matter, the ruling doesn’t do much in the short term. We’d have to wait for the legislature to implement some legislation or the pertinent agencies have to do the equivalent. In addition, the ruling itself was a 4-3 ruling in favor of gay marriage. As a win, this one was a close one. Even the Court was divided on the issue. The dissenting/concurring opinions ought to be very interesting in why they dissented as a legal matter. I’ll see if I can do a follow up in the future.

EDIT 5/15/2008:

Professor Marc J. Randazza quoted a document that I am probably going to read in the next few hours that had the Court’s opinion. It seems that this ruling goes even further than I originally thought. To completely crib from his hard work:

[I]n light of the conclusions we reach concerning the constitutional questions brought to us for resolution, we determine that the language of section 300 limiting the designation of marriage to a union “between a man and a woman” is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples. In addition, because the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples imposed by section 308.5 can have no constitutionally permissible effect in light of the constitutional conclusions set forth in this opinion, that provision cannot stand. (I “liberated” it from here)

Basically: “… that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples …” Ladies and gentlemen, Same-sex marriage is now apparently allowed under CA law until otherwise stated.

Just days after the OC Register printed a defiant editorial warning against the folly of protecting Polar Bears, the Bush administration today designated the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endgangered Species Act.

The move is significant because polar bears are the first species to be designated as endangered primarily due to the effects of global warming. Hopefully, this action will set a precedent that will make it all the more difficult for future legislation to blatantly ignore the effects of global warming. Specifically, it will probably make efforts to drill in the Artctic National Wildlife Refuge all the more difficult, since the drilling could now potentially violate the Endangered Species Act.

All in all, the environmentally concerned can breath a small sigh of relief today that a step forward has been made. Now, all we have to do is wait for, as the Register put it, “every aspect of American life to be stifled.”

Below is my response to an editorial by the OC Register Editorial Board published today, entitled “Wrong species endangered”, in which the board tries to argue that polar bears should not be named as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, as recommended by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Re: Editorial: Wrong species threatened.

Are the readers supposed to take from this article that the OC Register Editorial Board still doesn’t accept the science behind anthropogenic global warming? Or, does the board simply believe that polar bears are not a species worthy of our protection?

To prove its argument that polar bears are not threatened, the editorial in question employs the exact same cherry picking of figures that it accuses global warming “believers” of doing. The quoted five-fold increase in polar bear population over the last few decades is based on an estimate of 5,000 polar bears in the early 1970s. The writers neglect to mention that those early estimates were not based on any scientific studies, but on observations of explorers and ship captains. They also neglected to mention that estimates in the 1980s varied from a population of 20,000 to 40,000 bears, more than current levels. Furthermore, even if there have been increases in polar bear populations in the last few decades, it could easily be attributed to restrictions placed on harvesting of the bears, such as the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears of 1973. Over-harvesting and habitat reduction are apples and oranges when it comes to the effects on polar bear populations.

Another of the editorial’s “expert witnesses” is Nigel Marven, a British nature documentary presenter. While Mr. Marven is an ornithologist (that’s birds, not bears), he has not published any known scientific studies on polar bear habitats, and his opinions on bear populations seem to be based on his first-hand encounters during the filming of “Polar Bear Adventures with Nigel Marven.”

The silliest notion of all is that a species cannot be considered threatened unless it is currently facing extinction. Polar bear habitat is well studied, and the only way you can deny the threat to polar bear populations is if you deny that global warming is causing a consistent reduction in sea ice. To quote Dr. Andrew Derocher, chair of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialists group, “You can distort the issue any way you so desire. At the end of the day, the sea ice is disappearing. Take away the habitat and the species follows shortly thereafter (or before).”

So, come clean OC Register Editorial Board. If you want to make a stand and deny the existence of global warming (an increasingly unpopular opinion), just do it; don’t use polar bears as your proxy.

Damon Tordini
Santa Ana

i thought this might interest you bac
Corona “Cockhead” Stimulator (NSFW)

Some of you may have seen the hands free Super Mario World video where a clever fan used a glitch in the game to make a level that can only be beaten without any user input. You’d think that would be the end of it, but, no, someone decided to take that idea to the next level. The video is set to some kind of super-techno-remix of various songs from well-known video games and anime, but is thoroughly enjoyable if you’re into my brand of nerdery.

Slate.com: Meatless Like Me

I’m not a vegetarian and I’ll admit I don’t know a great deal about vegetarianism. This is a great, humorous article about vegetarians, written by a vegetarian. Some good points I learned: 1) Vegetarians know meat tastes good; 2) Vegetarians aren’t judging you when you eat meat in front of them, and 3) Even vegetarians don’t like tofu that much.

The piece is full of great quotes, (”Believe me, if obtaining bacon didn’t require slaughtering a pig, I’d have a BLT in each hand right now with a bacon layer cake waiting in the fridge for dessert”). Read it all the way-it ends well.

Coming off the Kentucky Derby, it was hard to read about Eight Belles breaking her front ankles and then having to be euthanized right on the track. Why does a horse have to be euthanized when their legs get broken? Slate.com explains it here.

Unfortunately, this idiot Yankees fan took her Yankee pride way to seriously. A drunken Ivonne Hernandez got into an argument with some Red Sox fans and decided to run the group over with her car. One man died with massive head trauma. Please, don’t bring baseball down to soccer hooliganism.

In the space between “sleeping” and “studying for finals,” I came across this article where some guy wrote letters to various people posing as a 10-year-old boy asking for advice on various topics. It straddles the line of both being interesting and funny (funnier near the end). What I find most interesting is that, with the exception of Charles Manson, all of the convicts gave relatively cogent responses.