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codepoet on Huge Single Celled Organism! (1.2 inches)

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 11:25pm
Nope.
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on Apple releases iPhone 2.2

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 4:54pm
NO FUCKING NOTIFICATION CLOUD! Damn it, Apple! We were told September for that feature and now we're two releases later and almost to the end of the year and have nothing. Grr.
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on Autistic Boy loses Massive Hot Wheels collection in a fire; Mattel comes to the rescue big time.

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 4:52pm
The panicked, reaching grasp of other, healthy children?
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on Parrot 1.0 will be out in March 2009

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 4:51pm
Honestly, I stopped paying attention a while back. If you've hit your goals reliably, that's fantastic. However, my issue with Perl 6 came from the first year or two when it was being talked about and it seemed that every time someone was going to do it, someone added another layer of work. Now we have Parrot with a P6 module as the answer and those of us that used Perl a lot are left in 5.8-land with an increasingly irrelevant language. So, I gave Perl the Duke Nukem treatment a long time ago: put it to the back of the mind and if it happens, yay! and if not, oh well.
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on You found the Puppy Tosser. Let's see if you can find this fuckhead.

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 4:36pm
Well there we have it, crisis averted. Good job.
Categories: Metablog

How to Challenge Texas’ Gay Marriage Amendment

Cedar Spot (Jeremy) - November 21, 2008 - 12:45pm

Ever since Texas passed Prop 2 in 2005, I’ve been idly pondering how on earth to challenge this insanity. To be fair, I haven’t been pondering it the whole time, otherwise the last three years would be a considerable waste.

The trouble with Prop 2 is that it is indeed a state constitutional amendment, meaning there’s very limited avenues to challenge it. The most straightforward would be a new proposition to repeal the first, but given this amendment’s shameful public support, that seems absurdly unlikely. Judicial review would be the other avenue, but there’s two problems. First, being embedded in the state constitution, state courts can’t touch it. Second, federal courts are loath to intervene in what is widely considered a state’s issue. The right thing to do would be to challenge it federally on equal protection and civil rights grounds, but again, the feds are unlikely to go along.

I suggest a nuclear option. Let’s look at the wording of the amendment.

SECTION 1. Article I, Texas Constitution, is amended by adding Section 32 to read as follows:
Sec. 32. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. (b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

Subsection (b) is very curiously worded. This state … may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage. In other words, this state may not recognize marriage as a legal status. Therefore, any and all laws that pertain to marriage and now null and void, as the state can’t recognize the marriages in order to enforce said laws. Standing might be an issue, because most of these laws are simple definitions. You’d be hard pressed to prove you were harmed and, thus, had standing.

Unless you were going through a divorce. The judge is going to have to recognize your marriage in order to sever it. It’d be fun to see someone in the middle of a messy divorce make a motion…

Your honor, as you’ll see from Section 32(b) of the State Constitution, the state may not recognize this as a “marriage.” As such, divorce law doesn’t apply here… or anywhere.

If the judge refused, and things didn’t go their way, they could appeal up through the ranks and, possibly, have purchase to go federal with it. Sadly, this wouldn’t challenge the amendment directly, and even if all this transpired, the end-game probably wouldn’t be to toss out the amendment. However, it would force the state organizers to quickly repeal or revise said amendment, which would take time. A lot of time. In the mean time, divorce law has been stood completely on end, and they’ve actually done more factual damage to the concept of marriage than even they claim would be done by gay marriage. The hope would be that the movement would be dealt such a significant PR blow that they would have trouble passing a properly worded replacement.

This is, however, Texas. Even if the organizers are dealt such a blow, the replacement might still pass. Probably overwhelmingly. And then we’d be back at square one. But time will have passed, a victory will have been won, and maybe, just maybe, the cultural landscape will have continued its inexorable slide forward, and saner heads will prevail either here or elsewhere.

Categories: Friends

NOM

Reddit Liked - November 21, 2008 - 11:45am
Categories: Metablog

Huge Single Celled Organism! (1.2 inches)

Reddit Liked - November 21, 2008 - 6:56am
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on Parrot 1.0 will be out in March 2009

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 5:57am
Which means Perl 6 really will come out after Duke Nukem Forever.
Categories: Metablog

Apple releases iPhone 2.2

Reddit Liked - November 21, 2008 - 5:43am
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on 'A review of my toddler's pretend restaurant'

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 5:38am
And my mind went straight to an unwashed South American woman. Thanks for that.
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on Teenage girls implode when their American Idol choice isn't picked...

Reddit Comments - November 21, 2008 - 5:30am
You have discovered the line called "too far".
Categories: Metablog

codepoet on Ask Reddit: Flickr, should the shared secret key actually be, you know, secret?

Reddit Comments - November 20, 2008 - 10:33pm
I think you're talking about different secrets. The secrets on the photos themselves are the secrets needed to get the original-sized image. The secret that makes the method signature really _is_ secret and is what proves that you're the correct user of the API key. Make sense?
Categories: Metablog
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