I know it's a short comic, but I wanted to get this up so that I could rant about stuff before Otakon.
     Right off the bat, I'm ranting about House Resolution 3313. Now, let me preface this by saying that I almost never watch CSPAN. It's slow, boring, and the overly restrictive and cumbersome rules of Congress typically make the proceedings more or less incomprehensible to the common viewer. Granted, I understood the basics of the debate portion (pro gets a time limit, con gets a time limit, there is one main speaker for each side, he or she can yeild his or her time to other speakers to make their arguments, etc...), and got a lot out of it, but the actual intermediate steps and voting portions were nearly incomprehensible.
     At any rate, it's about time that I actually told you what HR 3313 is. First, you can read the text of the resolution all by yourself and see what it says. It's an edit to an allready-passed measure called the Defense of Marriage Act. I'm not sure about the content of that act, but liberals tend to say that it discriminates against homosexuals and denies gay marriage, while conservatives say that it further cements the concept of states' rights by defining interstate jurisdictional rules for state marraige laws. I cannot verify either of these as I've not read DOMA and know relatively little about it. I don't know if it's good, bad or other, but HR 3313 adds the following line:
     "No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, section 1738C or this section."
     WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?
     I say there's no way Congress can pass a law that's exempt from Constitutional review. Fuck, if they wanted to pass a bill that would guarantee a clean environment and wealth for all, and then exempt it from Constitutional review, I'd still say vote it down.
     The Republicans debated that they wanted this to defend the DOMA from "activist judges" like the ones who approved gay marriages (kinda) in Massachusetts. To this I say The Supreme Court is not a league of activist judges. They are the strongest court in the land, populated by the best of the best judges in this country. Now that the resolution has passed in the House, I beleive it moves on to the Senate. Hopefully it'll get shot down there.
     In other news, Otakon is coming up tomorrow and I'll be taking all sorts of pictures. Tryon is loaning me one of his CF cards, which is great considering how fast I filled up my 128 MB one last year. I'd get you some really really great pictures if I could use Tryon's camera (similar to this), but I probably wouldn't get much out of it. Given the relative madness of Otakon, I'd be too afraid to take it out of the case to start with.
     Tonight we'll probably all be heading to Bennigan's in Ramsey since it's basically been our #1 hangout spot for the past few years. Apparently it's gone really downhill recently since it's been declared terminal and may even be demolished by the time we get back from Otakon.
     There's plenty of other great stuff to talk about still. Michael Moore went on Bill O'Reilly's show and the world didn't end. (click on the "video" tab to see the broadcast) The interview was giving me agita, though. Bill O'Reilly would pose questions in such a way that, were you to answer them directly, you'd make yourself look like an asshole. Stuff like "Mike, you called our President a liar about WMD, but it turns out that he got bad intelligence, that there were errors in the CIA and in British intelligence ... (etc) ... the question is, would you like to appologize to our President for falsely calling him a liar?" If you answer "yes" or "no" you silently admit that the President wasn't lying. So Moore tries to answer by not answering, and they bicker about that. Great. That's what I wanted out of a "fair and balanced" interview. Of course, Moore threw it right back and asked "Would you sacrifice your child to defend Falluja?" "No" means you're a pussy with no real commitment. "Yes" means you're a heartless asshole who wouldn't mind seeing their kid dead.
     I know Mike Moore isn't evil, and the jury is still out on Bill O'Reilly (who's at least a jerk, but has a sense of very conservative morality). It annoys me that the two of them couldn't sit down and discuss opposing viewpoints without taking pot-shots at each other. I would love to see a couple of pundits get together and actually have a civilized debate. I used to think I could count on Michael Moore, but some of his tactics are just as dirty as the Republicans. His intentions are far better for sure, but the tactics are dirty. I beleive there needs to be a fundamental shift in the way we handle politics in this country, or we'll have the world's shittiest government-elect come September.