Aaaaaand, the culture war rages on.

Think what you like about “gay marriage”… what we see unfolding now is no longer an issue of whether or not LGBT folk can marry one another. (For the record, I believe that government should have no say in who marries whom, other than to record the fact of the marriage)

It is in fact, a constitutional crisis, both for California, and potentially for the US Constitution, should the California Supreme Court choose to override a public referendum - setting itself up as the penultimate authority OVER the state constitution from which its jurisdiction arises.

I wonder if there is a provision in the CA Constitution that allows for unconstitutional judgments to be voided, or for the California legislature to remove judicial review/jurisdiction from the court.

Not very likely though, given that the CA Supremes ruled in favour of granting marriage to LGBTs in the first place… and by reviewing this case - if it goes unchallenged should it choose to overturn a CONSTITUTIONAL referendum - the will of the people - it will heap to itself enormous powers, a precedent that other courts will be very quick to observe.

I guess we shall see in about 90 days whether or not that Court upholds its own state constitution, in spite of its own views on the subject matter of the case.

(h/t to Michelle Malkin)

So Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has kinda-sorta reversed herself from her “no, not now, not ever” position against drilling offshore for oil.

But notice anything strange in how she tries to sell it?

And the consumer is our first responsibility. The American taxpayer owns this oil offshore, by the way. Let me make this one final point. This oil is owned by the American taxpayers. The oil companies drill. We give them money to drill there. But we get very little in return.

So I think as we have this debate, which is a very healthy one to have and I welcome it, we have to review and realign the relationship between our oil, big oil’s profits and what it means to the consumer and the taxpayer.

I am not the only one who smells something vaguely socialist here, as in “nationalization” of some large fraction of oil profits in exchange for “license” to drill… am I?

Or is it more like what Michelle Malkin suggests, that she is really shilling for T. Boone Pickens‘ wind farm ventures?

Don’t you love how completely dishonest the Dhimmicrats are - saying one thing about how we need to clean up Iraq’s WMD programmes before 9-11 (specifically, during the Clinton-42 regime) and then supporting the war in 2002, and then finally renouncing the war when things didn’t look so good?

Ah, indeed. How conveniently they lie to get the sheeple’s votes.

I caught a whiff of this via my usual morning link-hopping (warning: abundant foul language) …

For the actual video of the Deer Huntress, go here.

Many (most?) of the news links coming off of Brietbart.tv go straight to some of these marginally intelligent Digg discussions, and that the overwhelming preponderance of Diggers commenting on this matter seem to have a particular liberal nutroots fringe-left stupidity bias.

I mean, quotes like this:

And this is just like murdering a human. She should be tried as if she had murdered a human. Possibly hanged.

Indeed!

The last time I checked, the many states that do have some form of wildlife management program issues permits, tags or licenses to … get this… manage the population of deer (or whatever other critters that might need to be culled to keep them from overrunning the local ecology).

But not these PETA-heads, oh no.

They seem to have gotten their dander up so much because it was an albino deer. Not for nothing, but albinism - though rare - is naturally occurring throughout the deer population. Those of y’all who have actually lost sleep over a dead white deer should reflect on the fact that it probably would have been easily picked out in the wooded environment by any of its other natural predators, especially sight-hunters like mountain lions/cougars.

If anything, for a deer… albinism is contradictory to its survival, and the laws of natural selection …a natural law which these same misguided folks will defend tooth and nail when touting the superiority of Materialistic (Darwinist) Evolution over God’s ability to create ex nihilo.

I guess this is more evidence of what happens when people neglect God, and worship the creation over the Blessed Creator.

Update:

There seems to be some discussion over the current law in Minnesota regarding the legality of hunting albino deer, based upon this chart. Given that this is a voluntarily compiled list and not an official statement by any game/wildlife management agency from the various states…. one might have to dig into Minnesota’s game hunting laws for further insight.

h/t to Dan Riehl :

Looks like Bill Richardson has gotten his vibes from Denny “Whatzisneck” Kucinich and Cindy “Peace-at-all-costs-even-death-Mama” Sheehan, and has donned a tinfoil hat that even Ron Paul might envy. That’s right, calling for “ALL TROOPS OUT”, with all the flair of the last helicopter chugging slowly upwards at its max payload, as hapless Iraqis swarm the embassy in scenes rosily reminiscent of Saigon in 1975.

As Dan Riehl suggests, he might be pulling the plug on his “nice guy” face to his campaign thus far. But, Riehl also thinks that Richardson - while certainly lacking firepower to pull through the primary in the #1 slot, he might make a good VP (for Hitlary) instead of Obama.

I’ll have to disagree that Richardson is positioning himself here as a possible VP - any less than Obama has a shot (see also Riehl’s “no two-glass ceiling rule”). The man’s populist riff is going to alienate him from the center-left with a few extra hooks approach to Big Tent Democratic campaigning Hitlary and Pony are doing.

I’m trying to cipher out though, what looks like a very sharp swing toward Lefty Loony Land. There’s the previously mentioned “ALL TROOPS OUT” (gotta be in all caps now) thing, which has been mauled by both Congress and the POTUS in a handful of iterations, and then his embracing of sanctions and diplomatic pressure to get Ahmadinejad and/or the Ayatollahs to play nice and stop non-working on their non-nuclear weapons non-program.

Ah yes, sanctions. We all remember how fast those made Saddam cave in on his foreign policies we “weally, weally disagweed with”.

No doubt he means it too, being a diplomat sometime during his career. As quoted from his campaign site:

“With sanctions for bad behavior and economic benefits and security guarantees as rewards for good behavior, we can strengthen Iranian moderates and pragmatists and integrate Iran into the community of peaceful nations…”

Ummm. Sure… and I’m willing to bet that the moderates we are thinking of, are Shah-loyalists and reactionaries in the minds of the Revolutionary Islamic Gov’t of Iran, and are well observed and/or silenced by the Quds Force if they get too uppity. But while I do think they understand overwhelming military might, and the ruination of their nation as an incentive to stall for time — treading ever so carefully — they’d LAUGH themselves into ruptured spleens if we suddenly reversed course and went back to status quo antebellum and scrimped and begged for them to “pwease don’t make any nucwear weapons, pwetty pwease?” through UN channels.

Perhaps he is trying to suction up the loose ends of those dissatisfied Kos Kidz, MoveOn.org, MyDD, and other chronic ultra-lefties who are starting to see that Obama’s chances are growing slimmer, and that Jon Edwards’ and Frau Hitlary’s shifting all over the map (except of course, to the far left of the Kossack Oblast)… all but ensuring that those two will be some combination of VP/Presidential team.

Will the far left Krazy McMoonbats stick with him? Is there any hope they can carry him, along with whatever moderate Dems (and I dare doubt that any Blue Dogs will be barking up his tree) might flock to him? It might even stir up the fringes enough to make the man consider an independent run once the Hitlary/Edwards ticket is cinched 14months hence*.

If that happens, look for nice “Third Candidate Siphon” to draw enough Dem votes off of Hitlary to let Fred! have a decent margin for victory.

This, I’d like to see.

S0… New York’s Governor Elliot Spitzer has lifted the “proof of residency” requirements that had been enacted under the previous (Pataki) administration, which will make it very much easier for immigrants to get driver licenses - regardless of status.

I wonder now… how many people could conceivably get licenses - and thereby, “legitimacy” (since a driver license is one of the most frequently presented forms of photo ID) toward accomplishing other business in our country, for things like gaining admission to pilot training programs, or renting large cargo vans?

Granted, the convergence of large numbers of aliens of unknown (and unquestioned) legal residency status of getting a driver license and renting cargo vans or attending pilot school is probably quite small: so small in fact, that perhaps only 18-20 of these aliens at particular time might have also taken advantage of loosened controls on aliens’ access to credentials normally reserved for citizens and resident aliens with valid visas or other legal status.

Ya know, just like those 19 kind, well-mannered young Saudi men who volunteered their flying experience to help the pilots and aircrews of at least four airliners take a break and play some pinochle back about six years ago this September.

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