Cocktales - Archived Blog Posts

[cocktales]

Federal Marriage Amendment = NO

Gay Rights = YES


I emphatically oppose any attempt to amend the Constitution in order to prevent same-sex marriages.

I happen to support legal marriage for gays, duh, lol!!!
But even if I opposed gay marriage, I'd still oppose such an amendment. I feel that the amendment process should not be used in this way, for this kind of issue.

The founders included an amendment process in the Constitution in part because they recognized that circumstances change and there needed to be a means by which the constitutional system could be adjusted. On the other hand, it was clearly recognized that abuse of the amendment process could deeply threaten the system itself. The Constitution was written to grant enough power to the Federal government to permit it to perform the desirable functions of a government, while constraining its powers so as to prevent it from becoming a tyranny. If the amendment process was solely under control of the Federal government, then the government could use the amendment process to eliminate all the limits on Federal power that the Founders had included in the Constitution, and become a tyranny.

So it is the states which control the amendment process. For any amendment to be ratified, the legislatures of three quarters of the states must approve it. Amendments could be proposed to the states by a two-thirds majority of both the US House and the US Senate. The President is not involved in the process, and the Courts cannot rule on the substance of amendments (though they've sometimes been involved in rulings about potential abuses of the amendment process).

If Congress refused to act, then if the states decided they need to, they have the power to call a constitutional convention, which can propose amendments without consent of the Congress. (That's never happened.)

The requirement for three quarters of the state legislatures to approve amendments was deliberately set very high, so that amendments could not be approved unless there was extremely broad consensus that they were needed. And as the number of states in the union has risen, the hurdle has also risen, which is all to the good. As of 1959, 38 of 50 states have to approve amendments for ratification.

But in cases where it's clearly the right thing to do, that can happen very rapidly. The 26th Amendment, giving 18 year olds the right to vote, was proposed to Congress in January of 1971, approved by Congress in March, and was ratified by June. The point of the amendment process is not to be slow, but to be certain.

I do hope all of you who also oppose the marriage amendment WILL email your senators and represenatives and tell them to vote NO against the amendment! If NOT, then you cannot yell and scream when (if you are Gay) want to see same-sex marriages for all states in the U.S.!!!

 

[cocktales]

Please HELP me try to understand where Ann Coulter is coming from on her recent attacks...

Usually as an attacker of the liberal left, Ann Coulter is taking shots at a new target.

In her new book, "Godless," Coulter is attacking some ladies, who lost their husbands in the September 11 incident because a group of them have criticized President George W. Bush and have fought for an independent commission to probe the security failures on that day.

Coulter wrote in her book, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

In response, the widows made a joint statement saying, "Contrary to Ms Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day."

God Bless our freedom of speech! lol

In spite of her lack of couth, Ann is allowed to express her feelings on the issue.

..........and if this controversy just might stir up enough blogs, then I think her book will fly off the shelves....

NO! This could NOT be a advertising ploy could it?

 

[cocktales]

Another LOOOONG weekend and another visitor!! lol

I use to live on the Gulf Coast of this United States and lived right on the BEACH and I would suddenly get calls from people either I know as relatives that I had NOT heard from in years or ever; and they suddenly wanted to resume our birthrightship by visiting me at the "BEACH"!! Yeah, right!! lol

So, living in Vega$ is NOT so different, whereby the real beach is replaced by the single most visited vacation destination in the world....The La$ Vega$ Strip.."The Entertainment Capital of The World"!!!

I have to keep a ledger of people wanting to visit and since they "know us" they want to stay with us and NOT pay for a hotel.....Hmmm, I wonder how I can reciprocate???

The only way we ever get out of hosting is for us to be OUT OF TOWN ourselves!! I guess that's one way to get Ron to take me places, isn't it???

Well, we love to go to Palm Springs! No, now you get your mind right out of the gutter, ya hear? No, we are totally a committed couple and Do NOT go there! lol Sure we meet lots and lots of great, wonderful people who we are sure we'd be very compatible with; but we don't go there, so there's NO controversy!

Anyway, this friend we had this week was Ron's former work-mate with Chrysler and he wanted to resume his friendship with Ron and of course meet me....the other guy who beat him out, so-to-speak!!

Well, we had a wonderful time with Richard and he even invited us back to visit him in Florida??? Wow, now we like that kinda visitors! lol

Anyway, any of the rest of you live in great destinations where you host a lot of people, some even you know little about or haven't seen for years?

Let me know a better way to have an excuse, because we're so well visited, it does get hectic and tiresome sometimes, even though we love our friends/family dearly!!

 

[cocktales]

Two children ages 7 and 2 months are in the hospital right now after police say their mother left them in a hot car Tuesday afternoon.

The mother, Sylvia Reed, was inside the welfare office at Nellis and Bonanza when someone noticed the kids in the car and called police.

Police say the oldest child, had a temperature of 102 degrees. Police arrested the mother. She's facing two felony counts of child endangerment.

This story is NOT uncommon in Las Vegas! I wish we only had this happen once or twice here; but NOT so!

You would not believe the number of people who leave their most precious commodities in the car: their children and their pets!

Yeah, people have NO feelings for just how quickly the little bodies of infants/children can reach really, really desperate HOT conditions, leaving the children brain dead!!

Until this year, the State of Nevada did NOT even have a law on the books to cover such neglect; but after the last session of the State Legislative body, it's at least a misdemenor to leave children in HOT cars....I think the law should be even tougher!!

In the past, we've had Moms and Dad who would totally forget to take their children to day-care, infants in car seats, left in the HOT car ALL DAY LONG! They did NOT even remember at some point during the day that they had forgotten to take the child to day-care and only remembered when they found the lifeless body of their child in the car when they returned to the car 8 or 10 hours later!!!

It's totally criminal!

We must remember to protect those who cannot protect themselves: Our children and Our pets!!!

One would think that taking care of children would be second nature and nothing could distract us NOT to remember to either drop off the child at day-care or at least remember you didn't and catch your mistake a few minutes later and save the little one's life!!

Please, if you have a small child...Please, DO NOT leave them in the car, the HOT car where temperatures here in the desert reach over 140 degrees F.!!!

 

[cocktales]

VA asking for more money after data theft

Why do some of the people who hold personal data in their possession, do so with such wreckless abandonment??

I mean, how does a company protect vital statistics when they allow employees to simply walk out the door/building with millions of important data on CDs/discs; without catching such wrong behavior???

........and, when we "finally" learn of the breech of security, it's like days/weeks later, and we never hear of the employee getting either fired or slapped with some other punitive punishment???

As a consumer and an employee where my government holds so many, many basic facts about me: My age, my social security number, my street address, my telephone(s) numbers, etc....why can't they protect this information without somehow allowing it to leave the office???

Identity theft is the number 1 crime out there and one wonders ......how in the world will it fall to the bottom of the list/die off entirely if we continue to allow people access to entire lists of people, even millions of such, and NOT control the turning in of such before the day ends and the employee goes home??

I am totally pissed about privacy breeches and want to know what I can do, NO, I want the holders of this information to be held to a higher degree of security practices..........keeping vital statistics ONLY to those with a need-to-know!!!

If some of these morons are caught/found to be lazy with maintaing security of important data, then they face the consequences of strict punishment; firing even!

Sorry, even a one-time mistake can be life-altering for the person(s) on the other end of the mistake!

In conclusion, strict, very strict control of personal, privacy information is mandatory and enforcement of keeping this information held to the highest degree of security a MUST! Otherwise, all is lost!

End of rant! lol

 

[cocktales]

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Bush administration to seek criminal charges against newspapers that reported on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists.

Rep. Peter King cited The New York Times in particular for publishing a story last week that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records.

King, a New York Republican, said Sunday he would write Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urging that the nation's chief law enforcer "begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times - the reporters, the editors and the publisher."

"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," King told The Associated Press.

Since we are "at war", ALL media must be careful about who and what they write about....

We have approximately 130,000+ troops deployed in support of the Iraqui War and their very lives are placed at risk when papers or other media sources reveal how we are tracking the enemy, the terrorists!

Think about the grave danger our troops may face at the disclosure of too much information, just because a paper wants to sell papers or someone wants to win an award for being "first" at disclosing an item of interest.

Editors and everyone MUST be held in contempt when they allow information NOT for the general public, especially the terrorists out there who read and watch "ALL" to garner what-ever they can to retaliate against our troops!!

Secretly tracking expected terrorists funds will give us vast knowledge over who they are and what they are planning without their knowledge.

Media outlets screaming first amendment rights every time the goverment tells them NOT to print something that's critical to the security of the armed forces and it's allies who are at war, is just wrong!!!

I guess one can assume that NONE of these editors or people who signed off on allowing publishing of sensitive information, have NO sons or daughters over in the Middle East fighting for democracy for the Iraqui people??? Otherwise, I don't think they would have thought about printing this information!!

 

[cocktales]

No Man's Land, which stretches eerily between North Korea and South Korea, is like no place else on Earth, a relic of a war ended with an uneasy cease-fire 53 years ago this month.

Panmunjom is a creepy little village in the demilitarized zone between the two countries, where American soldiers and North Korea's communist forces maintain a tense standoff. Americans are warned against flamboyant or provocative clothing, jewelry and gestures. In 1976, two U.S. soldiers were killed there by North Koreans.

North Korea has the world's fifth-largest army, about 1 million active-duty soldiers. It boasts it has nuclear weapons. Even worse, it also has one of the world's most bizarre and ruthless dictators.

Regularly, Kim Jong Il, the "dear leader" and isolated despot of North Korea, reminds the world of his existence by showing his military might and creating crises the United States must recognize. Thumbing his nose by testing intercontinental missiles on the Fourth of July was his most recent effort.

Is there a chance we will go to war against North Korea once again?

The answer is no. But the saber-rattling will not end soon.

Part of President Bush's "axis of evil," North Korea is the most Stalinist regime on Earth. Its people do not have enough to eat, and depend on donations and foraging. (The army always comes first.) But they are thoroughly indoctrinated by a cult of personality, believing Kim Jong Il, brutal though they know him to be, is the source of all national pride and dignity and personal joy they may have.

Staying in power is his primary focus. He believes the best way to do that is to pick fights with the United States, which he believes is a paper tiger. There are about 17,000 U.S. soldiers in South Korea, down from 37,000 a few years ago. South Korea's army technically is about 700,000, but in reality is probably one-third the size of North Korea's. And Kim Jong Il's nukes make him more dangerous than ever.

Yes, his most recent missile tests are believed to have been failures. But eventually they will work. Or he could sell nuclear material to other rogue states or terrorists.

His problem with the United States now is that Bush refuses to negotiate directly with North Korea about its nuclear ambitions but has indicated he will negotiate with Iran, which also wants to be a nuclear power. That angered the potentate of Pyongyang, who defied Bush, China, South Korea and Japan by launching his missiles.

Bush is seeking tougher economic sanctions; China is balking. South Korea is nervously trying to withhold some rice and fertilizer from its impoverished neighbor without escalating tensions. Japan is withholding currency transfers.

In response, North Korea says it will test more missiles whenever it wants to do so, ostensibly to show it can still make and sell them _ and perhaps later hit Seoul and Japan and, some day, Alaska, an American territory in the Pacific or even the West Coast. The launches had the effect of raising oil prices even higher and troubling Wall Street, where stock prices fell.

At this point, in addition to winning more toothless resolutions from the United Nations, the United States has no serious options but backdoor diplomacy. The United States alone doesn't have the economic leverage to make much difference, and there is no military option that wouldn't pose a risk to South Korea and Japan.

Bush is trying to maintain a united front against North Korea and persuade China to use its influence to prod North Korea to act more civilized. China is telling everyone to take a deep breath and not overreact _ China thinks North Korea is a potential trading partner and ripe for economic reform. (Every day it becomes clearer how vital a role China is assuming in the world.)

The best outcome the Bush administration can hope for is that countries such as China and South Korea will persuade North Korea to go back to the negotiating table in the stalled six-party talks to try to work out an agreement on economic assistance, the return of frozen North Korean bank deposits and the enhanced international stature Kim Jong Il would get in return for giving up nuclear weapons. But Bush may have to reverse his adamant stand that the United States will not negotiate one-on-one with North Korea, as, after all, he did with Iran. That would not necessarily be a bad thing.

It is frustrating, however, that while old U.S. enemies such as Japan, Germany, Vietnam and Russia are now allies, the holdout is North Korea, whose people are in desperate need of help, living in a no man's land that progress, except for the ever-popular nuclear weapon, has forgotten.

Kim Jong Il is truly a Napoleonic leader who does NOT take care of his people...he clearly does NOT care if they live or die, because he clearly wants military might over food for the many people who are starving to death each and every day!

North Korea MUST be stopped from rattling it's swords by the Nations of the World...that includes China and Russia who seem to be undetered by the firing of the missiles! They must get off their asses and put this in perspective, otherwise Japan and the U.S. will have to take matters in their own hands!!!

 

[cocktales]

Italy outlasted France on Sunday in a World Cup final watched by an estimated 1.2 billion people — 17 percent of the world's population.

The game capped off a 2006 Germany World Cup marked by some mediocre play and questionable (to say the least) officiating. But a lackluster tournament will do little to tarnish the simple beauty of the game for billions of fans worldwide, this writer included, who must now, with heads bowed, return home to make peace with their loved ones, reconnect with friends, and — ahem — make up for a month of lost productivity at work.

These fans will attest that, like no other sporting event, the quadrennial World Cup reaches beyond the chalked lines on the field. Every four years, soccer stimulates economies, spurs political careers, ends marriages, converts the previously agnostic, and — literally — kills. So as memories of lost opportunities and bungled calls on the field quickly fade, it's the stories outside the stadiums that will linger with us for months to come. Just long enough for the start of qualifying rounds for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Let's hope the world's Sporting Game of Soccer will tend to show more sportsmanship on the field as well as in the stands of filled stadiums and in pubs, bars, gasthauses or where-ever you view soccer/football!!!

Italy, bask in the glory till 2010, and then we will crown either you as a repeat or another winner!

 

[cocktales]

The head of the agency overseeing Boston's Big Dig highway project ordered a review of the entire metro highway system Wednesday after investigators looking into the fatal collapse of concrete ceiling slabs found 60 more questionable areas inside the same tunnel.


Initial inspections revealed dozens of signs of bolts loosening and other potential failures in the eastbound connector tunnel, part of the main route to Boston's Logan Airport, Turnpike Authority officials and the Big Dig project manager said.

Twelve tons of concrete ceiling panels in the tunnel crashed down late Monday night, crushing a car and killing a 38-year-old woman inside. Her husband barely escaped by crawling through a window.

The Big Dig, started in 1991, was the most expensive highway project in U.S. history. It buried Interstate 93 beneath downtown and extended the Massachusetts Turnpike to the airport. It also gained nationwide notoriety for its soaring costs, years of traffic snarls, the criminal investigation into the concrete suppliers and problems with leaks that sprouted in another of the Big Dig tunnels.

I am afraid either the contractor, the City of Boston or both could face a negligence law-suit or maybe some other law-suit and cause further embarassment to the "Big Dig"!!!

 

[cocktales]

I strongly believe in the sincerity and genuine heart of people who fight Evil on one hand yet make peace on the other one.

The problem is when you try to make peace with the Evil.

The Palestinians are not evil. Hammas and Islamic Jihad are.

The Palestinians are not evil but Fatah and Al Aqsa Brigade are.

The Palestinians are not evil but the heads of these organizations are.

As long as we speak and not fight with those evil ones – we will prolong our bloody reality here in the middle-east.

Most of the Israelis are for peace. Most of the Israelis are even willing to make some very painful concessions in order to achieve that peace.

But most Israelis are much more sober today than they were 3 years ago.

The question that almost every Israeli is asking himself today is: “do we really have partners for peace on the other side?”

Are they really going to abandon the ways of Terror and start fighting it wherever it is?

Is it really a sincere effort on their behalf to achieve even a compromise or is it the same old rule: All or nothing?

If someone openly says, "We will try in every way possible to totally wipe ALL Jews and their home-land off the face of the earth", then I think those peoples have every right to fight to see that "this" does NOT happen!

I know, I know, America is considered totally PRO Israel without any regard for the Palestinians; but NOT so...We are "FOR" the free Paletinians; but against those terrorist organizations who are controlling these people in the name of Palestine!

Israel will NOT allow someone to attack them without provocation and then turn the other cheek, so to speak!

 

[cocktales]

I am so mad right now at President Bush II that I could just spit!!!

Why does he have to be so damned righteous about the stem-cell issue?

We ALL know that these "parts" are what will be thrown away anyway..........it's NOT unborn children that will NOT be born!

President Bush and the Ultra-Far-Right, just try and put it "ALL" as just being a "Black or White" issue........Well, it's NOT that easy!

I bet if George W's daughters had say, Parkinson's Disease, or some of the other diseases that "could be helped with stem cells", that his tune would change right quick in order to try and save their lives!!!

I know I should NOT let my emotions come out in this blog; but dammit, lives can be saved or made more comfortable and even possibly cure some of the freaky,
bad, diseases we have to live with and accept as life-altering diseases!

I guess, before I say some further "bad-things", I best call it a night and just say........."Why oh why did the Senate NOT over-ride that damned veto he put on the stem-cell research issue???

Hmmmmm, one last note from the Republican side of the coin here: I know that some of the Senators who voted NOT to use stem-cell research will find it very, very difficult to get re-elected in the Fall!!

Pay back is a bitch my mealy-mouth Senators!