From the LPO website:
In response to Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine doubling down on his opposition to marriage equality, the Libertarian Party of Ohio reemphasized its commitment to equal rights for all Ohioans. In a brief filed last Friday with the US Supreme Court, DeWine’s office repeated its contention that marriage laws are a state, not a Federal, province, and that Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage is therefore not unconstitutional.
As quoted in the Columbus Dispatch, the brief states, “Such a ruling would say that the decade-long debate in the states has been improper. It would eliminate the possibility of (and requirement for) each community to confront this issue and reach a consensus that respects all sides.” Ohio voters passed a ban on same-sex marriage in 2004 which is now under Supreme Court review, along with similar laws from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan,
“This kind of issue is what you can expect when the state meddles in what should be a private issue,” said Sarah Bevins, Chair of the LPO Executive Committee. “Who a person loves, who a person chooses to marry, should be none of the government’s business.”
Nevertheless, the LPO recognizes that marriage is thoroughly intertwined with government because of the long list of special privileges and benefits that government extends to married couples. “In a perfect world, we would have separation of marriage and state, but that is not something we’ll see any time soon,” Bevins continued.
“Things being what they are, this comes down to an issue of equal protection under the law,” Bevins concluded. “So long as marriage is a special status endowed in law with special benefits, our sense of justice tells us that those privileges must be available to all.”
The cases from the four states were accepted for review by the court in January. A ruling is expected before the close of the court’s present term in June.
Yes, Grundmann is a climatologist now. And a proctologist, too. Truly a multi-talented fellow.
langa – I appreciate your presenting several alternative perspectives regarding ” climate change ” which in my view are suppressed from consideration. As a condensed synopsis I present these ideas as to why this issue has occurred –
A) In my youth there was a program called ” Atoms for Peace ” which was based upon a Christian philosophical premise of rising prosperity for all in the world. The Plantation Masters of our nation and the world as a whole will no longer allow such an idea and have replaced it with an anti-Christian idea that people are bad ( polluting, etc. ) and hence that their number must be suppressed via abortion, the breakdown of the family, and other methods such as panicking the populace to both give up their rights to government to be saved by them/It from disaster; i.e.; ” global warming;” and allow the collapse of both industry and economy to accomplish this ” saving.” Hence the ” climate change ” campaign, which started as ” global cooling,” is actually a massive Pavlovian/Social Engineering war upon the citizens who are considered as mice/cattle by The Plantation Masters to be manipulated into aiding their own demise. Panic must be induced in the populace to be able to manipulate them as desired and that is one reason why no debates are allowed since REAL science would expose and annihilate the whole scam/fraud/lie. To achieve victory the Plantation Masters MUST keep the whole discussion on an emotional panic level.
Perhaps more later.
By definition, new data is always coming in.
Data models and theories are also constantly evolving.
The latter. And generally, that as a result of our actions, the change is becoming more rapid and drastic, with more extremes of all sorts, and that this is accelerating and may well spin out of control, possibly leaving Earth uninhabitable by humans and most other current forms of life.
We can’t absolutely prove that drastically rapid (by historical standards as demonstrated by various analyses of the bio/geological records) change in the composition of the atmosphere, as a result of substances used by recent human technology, is causing the most recent acceleration of climate change. However, we can model it, advance theories how it may be working, and test them against data. Not all scientists working in this field agree that the data shows conclusive evidence for the models, but most do. And I tend to agree, although I haven’t kept up with the most recent research in nearly the kind of detail that I used to.
http://www.amazon.com/Hothouse-Earth-Greenhouse-Effect-Gaia/dp/0802113745
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Heat-Michael-Oppenheimer/dp/1850432414
I guess I was ahead of that trend then, because I was actually up on all the current research on it in the 1990s when I was in grad school, read hundreds of scientific papers on the subject…and I never thought it would be linear warming, but rather destabilization, which is the direction the scientific consensus has been evolving in more recently.
I’m not saying that the actual data/evidence has changed. It may or may not have. Rather, I’m saying that the spin put on the data, when it was being presented for public consumption, has changed, and that there has been an attempt to sweep that change under the rug, by sending terms like “greenhouse effect” and (to a lesser extent) “global warming” down the memory hole.
I spent two years of the ’90s (one in high school and one in college) debating environmental issues, and so I did quite a bit of research myself, although probably less of the scholarly journals, and more of the books, magazine articles and so forth, that were designed for the layperson. I still remember reading books (I may have a few of them still around, although it would probably take forever to find them) by scientists with titles like Dead Heat, Hothouse Earth, and The Greenhouse Trap. These were little more than highly-politicized screeds, complete with dire warnings of the dangers of “global warming” (not “climate change”). At the time, these books were hailed as “must read” works that would enlighten the world. Since then, basically all of these dire warnings have been shown to be absolute rubbish, and yet, not once has the scientific community said anything along the lines of, “Yeah, looks like we were dead wrong about that whole greenhouse business.” They can’t afford to do so, as that would cast serious doubt on the “scientific consensus” and its alleged infallibility.
I disagree. Average deviation from the mean is falsifiable.
But exactly what hypothesis is being tested? Is it, “The world’s climate is changing”? Or is it, “The world’s climate is changing in a way that it would not if it weren’t for human activity?”
If it’s the former, then yeah, I guess it’s technically falsifiable, but so what? A mean is just an average. There’s always going to be some deviation, and there’s always going to be periods with more deviation, and periods with less deviation. For example, we know that long before humans walked the Earth, there were periods of absolutely massive climatic change, and there were no doubt many other periods where the change was much smaller, maybe even too small to show in the historical record, but still would have seemed suspicious to scientists at the time (if, of course, there had been any). So, just the existence of change is not really significant.
On the other hand, if it’s the second hypothesis, then how exactly can it be falsified? How can we know whether the change would have been bigger, smaller, exactly the same, in a different direction, etc., if there were no humans? The scientific method works best when testing very narrow, specific hypotheses under rigorous, tightly controlled laboratory conditions. “Climate change” (as it is currently conceived) fails all those tests. It’s extremely broad, not at all specific, and involves almost countless variables that must somehow be accounted for.
I guess I was ahead of that trend then, because I was actually up on all the current research on it in the 1990s when I was in grad school, read hundreds of scientific papers on the subject…and I never thought it would be linear warming, but rather destabilization, which is the direction the scientific consensus has been evolving in more recently.
I disagree. Average deviation from the mean is falsifiable.
In Grundmann’s defense, the original theory was in fact about “global warming” (and was often referred to as the “Greenhouse Effect”). If you go back and look at literature from the late ’80s and early ’90s, when the theory was first gaining prominence, you will see scientists stating that (to paraphrase): “The scientific consensus leaves no room for doubt that the world is rapidly getting warmer, and will continue to do so.” The term “climate change” was rarely used, and when it was, it was clearly referring to change in one direction. It was not until much later, when the supposedly “indisputable” warming predictions were disproved, that the alternative theories were substituted. It reminds me of the rationalizations given by the GWB administration for going to war with Iraq: First, it was because Saddam was allegedly involved with 9/11. Then, it was because Iraq supposedly had WMDs. Finally, it was to “liberate” the Iraqi people. Just keep changing the story until you find one that is so vague and nebulous that it can’t possibly be conclusively refuted. The current incarnation of “climate change” appears to be just that.
It would help if people at least understood what they are arguing against. The main trend of anthropogenic climate destabilization does appear to be warming, but more importantly, it causes more extreme weather of all sorts.
Mr. Phillies – The greatest racist organization in the history of our nation is Planned Parenthood; an organization springing from the Social Darwinist Movement upon which Race Science; i.e.; Eugenics; was built and founded by Margaret Sanger; who declared that blacks were ” human weeds.”
Planned Parenthood has literally killed millions of blacks; a mass murdering machine which continues to this day and moment. They have killed multiple magnitudes of people more than the KKK ever ” achieved ” or could even dream of doing.
My point? All political parties, EXCEPT the Constitution Party and the non-establishment wing of the Republicans, totally support the literally murderous racism of Planned Parenthood.
The Democrats ( obviously ), ” moderate ” Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, Peace and Freedom, etc., etc., all support, without the slightest question or hesitation, the corporate racist killing machine known as Planned Parenthood.
Hence your ” Republican racist ” remark has the same validity as your ” global warming ” screeds ( see Boston being buried under record snow as just one of countless exposures of that fraud/lie ) – total BS from top to bottom; i.e.; a lie from beginning to end.
When you get rid of Libertarian support, and also your own personal support, for Big Abortion/Killing; i.e.; ” family planning ” which targets the black community for death both here and around the world; then come back with comments complaining about racism. Until then stop being a pot that calls the kettle black.
Meanwhile you can go to blackgenocide.org and learn of how many blacks Libertarian support of Planned Parenthood has helped kill.
Last … century?
Lest there be any doubt, I am referring to the Ohio officials, not to Mr Grundman, who for all his other flaws at last report was not a Republican.
Behold a Republican racist…but I repeat myself … advocating for the Republican racist States Rights doctrine that states may rule that gays may not marry, women may not have abortions, African-Americans may not vote, wives’ property and voting ballots are owned by their husbands, and people may not smoke pot or own guns.
You conservatives missed the last one, didn’t you?
Well then it is obvious that Chairman Bevins will follow her philosophy and statements and hence fully support when a father ” marries ” his daughter(s) or a son ” marries ” his sister; i.e.; incest for all. Equal rights, right? What so-called ” Libertarian ” would or could possibly oppose such a ” civil right?’ What so-called ” Libertarian ” would be so ” bigoted ” and ” hateful ” as to oppose incest in any way?? Marriage ” equality ” right?
Double dittoes for ” marriage ” to children just like they do in the Gaza strip where you have mass ” marriages ” of males to 8 year old girls. What so-called ” Libertarian ” could or would support denying children their ” sexual right(s)?” How could anyone be so bigoted and hateful to deny children their ” rights?” Marriage ” equality ” right?
Bottom Line – Such support of ” rights ” is simply sanitizing moral corruption. The Libertarian Party will NEVER, when the time comes, oppose incest, child sex/marriage, or any other pathology. This is because their base philosophy is not really ” freedom ” but, far more importantly, anti-Christianity. That is why they will, and do now, celebrate the destruction/devastation of the family unit.
” Equality ” is simply a cover story for sanitizing evil and this by those who both support that evil and oppose those who oppose such evil.