ROGER SIMON’S ADVICE TO CONSERVATIVES: Don’t Take The Bait On Gay Marriage. “He is on so many ropes you can’t count them. The only thing that can help him is for a bunch of rightwingers to start screaming about the sanctity of marriage.”
UPDATE: Andrew Klavan: Gay Squirrel!
JUST A REMINDER: Chuck Schumer voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. Someone should ask him if his views have changed, and if so, why.
I note that Steny Hoyer voted for it too. And is that Joe Scarborough I see in the Yeas column? I do believe it is. . . .
JOHN FUND: Vetoing Democracy: Justice Roberts’s clumsy opinion threatens the initiative process in 26 states.
John Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University’s law school, says he believes people of all political persuasions should worry about the “huge hole” Justice Roberts has blown in the initiative process in order to sidestep ruling on the merits of Proposition 8. “Someday, liberals could win an environmental-protection measure in a state and see a conservative governor and attorney general refuse to enforce or defend it,” he told me. “When that time comes, the proponents may seek their day in federal court and find that there’s only darkness because they lack any standing to defend their own law.”
The threat to the initiative process in 26 states is real. Starting with California, voters should quickly explore ways to craft some mechanism that will allow proponents to defend initiatives in court if elected officials refuse to do so. Sounds like a good subject for another initiative — and if such a measure were to pass, elected officials would probably be quite leery of trying to block it.
I dunno. The spirit of Erdogan seems pretty widespread these days.
THIS WEEK IN HYPOCRISY: Clinton Hails Supreme Court Overturning Law He Signed. Hillary supported it, too.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, EUROPEAN EDITION: Educated with a dead-beat job – the unseen legacy of Europe’s crisis.
As the first anniversary of her graduation in eco-tourism and cultural history approaches, Linnea Borjars remains jobless and frustrated.
After finishing her studies at Sweden’s Linkoping University, the 25-year-old accepted an unpaid, part-time position at Fair Travel, a non-profit group focused on human rights and tourism, hoping it would lead to a full-time job and a salary.
But no such luck. . . . Borjars has filed an application for graduate school, but remains ambivalent about its usefulness.
“It’s a dilemma – you rack up more college credits, but that doesn’t necessarily make you more employable,” she said.
It’s doubtful that anything other than a bubble economy can provide full employment for graduates in “eco-tourism and cultural history.” It’s certain that a burst-bubble economy cannot.
“SMART DIPLOMACY” UPDATE: Susan Rice Wrings Hands as Grisly Milestone Passed in Syria.
HMM: Orders For Paula Deen Cookbook Surge. “Orders for ‘Paula Deen’s New Testament: 250 Favorite Recipes, All Lightened Up’ surged on Amazon by nearly 1,300% in the last 24 hours.”
It’s currently ranked #4 in books and it doesn’t even come out until October.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why Wine at Restaurants Costs So Much.
LEONARD DAVID: Scientists Search Lunar Landscape for Lost Moon Probes.
LEGAL INSURRECTION: Zimmerman Trial Day 3 – End-of-Day Analysis & Video of State’s Witnesses.
PROTESTS IN TURKEY: A LAWYER’S EXPERIENCE.
After 17 days, four deaths, hundreds injured and arrested, and meeting two different groups of people Erdogan finally said that he would respect the decision of the Administrative Court, and no work would be carried out until the court reached its final decision.
The blind eye to Gezi Park legal proceedings is only one example of Erdogan’s “rule of law”. Constitutional amendments on 12 September 2010 provided him with the tools to redesign the judiciary and the legal system and having achieved this, he is now simply uncontrollable. If a court’s decision is not what Erdogan or his clan wants then the judges sitting to hear that particular case are replaced by those who will have the decisions the prime minister wants.
Luckily nothing like that could ever happen here.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. My USA Today column for tomorrow: Solar Flare poses huge threat.
OUCH: Texas vs. California: 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.
What should be the Federer vs. Nadal of state-level competition has become a lopsided trouncing: Texas has humiliated its opponent in straight sets. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis is out with its state-by-state economic growth numbers for 2012, and Texas is dancing the two-step all over California’s “recovery.” . . .
The most telling indictment of California’s performance? If you removed oil and gas from the Texas economy, the Lone Star state has still outpaced growth in California. Apologists for the Golden State shouldn’t forget that it is in possession of two-thirds of America’s proven shale reserves, a treasure trove that rivals many resource-rich sovereign countries.
The BEA also found, to the shock of all concerned, that while California was experiencing the largest tax hike in US history, the national economy grew at eight times the pace of California’s. The Texas economy, by contrast, grew 71 percent faster than the national economy that year.
Finally, and most disturbingly, the US Census Bureau found that between 2009 and 2011, California had the highest supplemental poverty measure in America, with 42 percent more people in poverty as a share of the population than Texas. This can’t all be chalked up to immigration either: illegal immigrants account for the same percentage of Texas’s population as they do California’s.
California is wonderfully endowed, but bad government can wreck anything.
RANDY BARNETT: Federalism Marries Liberty In The DOMA Decision.
THE ANCHORESS IS not enjoying the Party.
21ST CENTURY WORKPLACES: More Offices Offer Workers Drinks. Hey, if Obama is going to turn us into Europe, we might as well get some of the good part, too . . . .
ED DRISCOLL: Blue on Blue: Frank Rich Dumps on David Gregory. “While blue on blue rhetorical violence is always fun to watch, to be fair, Rich really only has three modes of argument; his enemies are either McCarthyites, Communists or Nazis.”
PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: NRA Hammers Bloomberg Group With Latest Video.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 5 Reasons To Drink Wine.
AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Grocery & Gourmet Food.
ALAN BOYLE: Fusion energy dreams smash into hard economic realities. “In the current era of cheap fossil fuels and increasingly affordable renewable energy, there’s just not enough incentive to move forward more quickly with fusion research. But that could change if there’s a breakthrough, of if there’s a desperate need for the ‘always-on’ baseline power that fusion could provide.” Not so sure about the “increasingly affordable renewable energy,” but we certainly have plenty of fossil fuels, it appears. Why, I haven’t heard the words “peak oil” — other than ironically — in ages.
WELL, YES: Caffeine: For the More Creative Mind. “As someone who works with a lot of self-described creatives types, my experience is that the most common barriers to people creating are initiative, commitment, and self-doubt. Caffeine helps with all three of those.”
I have taken more from caffeine than caffeine has taken from me.
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