He later added, addressing those who deny climate change science: “We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat-earth society.”

So what do the Flat Earth Whackos REALLY think?  Proud moment for warmists: President of real Flat Earth Society believes in the global warming hoax

Not So Fast: Prop 8 is Still California Law

Section 3.5 of the California Constitution specifically commands:

An administrative agency ... has no power: 

(a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to enforce a statute, on the basis of it being unconstitutional unless an appellate court has made a determination that such statute is unconstitutional;

(b) To declare a statute unconstitutional;

(c) To declare a statute unenforceable, or to refuse to enforce a statute on the basis that federal law or federal regulations prohibit the enforcement of such statute unless an appellate court has made a determination that the enforcement of such statute is prohibited by federal law or federal regulations. 

As of today, there is no appellate opinion (meaning an opinion issued by a court of appeals) against Prop 8. The Supreme Court refused to issue one, and threw out the only other one (the Ninth Circuit's). There is only a trial court opinion. So every agency in California is legally bound to regard Prop 8 as binding law. 

Since no one who wants to defend Prop 8 has standing to appeal rulings on it to the Ninth Circuit, there will never be such an opinion in the federal court system. So the only way to get an appellate opinion would be in the California state court system. So someone would have to file a lawsuit regarding Prop 8, and then appeal it to a California court of appeals and then maybe to the California Supreme Court. Only when one of those courts hold Prop 8 unconstitutional can the public officials in that state regard it as stricken from the books.

in other SSM news:

POLITICO: Democrats Who Backed DOMA Now Laud Its End.

hypocritical bigots.

More of theat smart diplomacy: Senegalese President Tells Obama Country “Not Ready to Decriminalize Homosexuality,” Obama: “Have to Respect the Diversity of Views That Are Out There”

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)--the legal organization representing California’s Proposition 8 supporters--went back to the Supreme Court on Saturday, filing an emergency application with the justice who became the fifth vote to strike down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), this time asking for Kennedy to restore the rule of law on the California Prop 8 case.

Texas vs. California: 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.

What should be the Federer vs. Nadal of state-level competition has become a lopsided trouncing: Texas has humiliated its opponent in straight sets. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis is out with its state-by-state economic growth numbers for 2012, and Texas is dancing the two-step all over California’s “recovery.” . . .

The most telling indictment of California’s performance? If you removed oil and gas from the Texas economy, the Lone Star state has still outpaced growth in California. Apologists for the Golden State shouldn’t forget that it is in possession of two-thirds of America’s proven shale reserves, a treasure trove that rivals many resource-rich sovereign countries.

The BEA also found, to the shock of all concerned, that while California was experiencing the largest tax hike in US history, the national economy grew at eight times the pace of California’s. The Texas economy, by contrast, grew 71 percent faster than the national economy that year.

Finally, and most disturbingly, the US Census Bureau found that between 2009 and 2011, California had the highest supplemental poverty measure in America, with 42 percent more people in poverty as a share of the population than Texas. This can’t all be chalked up to immigration either: illegal immigrants account for the same percentage of Texas’s population as they do California’s.

California is wonderfully endowed, but bad government can wreck anything.

Back in the 70's We, The People decided we needed a Department of Education.  US school kids were falling behind the rest of the world and we need to damn well do something about it.  As usual the "something" that was done was the creation of a huge Federal bureaucracy.  Because nothing says efficiency like an entrenched multi-billion dollar behemoth.

Here we are almost forty years later.  Can we safely say that roughly two generations have passed through this machine?  And of course, being a Federal bureaucracy it has done it's job and we're "back" on top globaly, right?  Right??

U.S. Spends More, Gets Less in Education

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States spent an average of $15,171 in 2010 on each student when college or vocational training was factored in—the highest in the world. The average for each elementary student was $11,000 per elementary student and more than $12,000 for each high school student. Switzerland spent $14,922 per student, Mexico averaged $2,993, and the average OECD nation spent $9,313.

The survey showed that brand-new and experienced teachers in the United States had higher salaries than most of their foreign equivalents. As a percentage of the economy, U.S. spending on education was higher than the average; the U.S. spent 7.3 percent of its economy while the average was 6.3 percent.

But all of the money spent does not guarantee success; U.S. fourth-graders ranked 11th in the world in math in 2011; U.S. eighth-graders ranked ninth. Among 15 year-olds in 2009, the math literacy rate was 31st in the world—lower than the international average—while they were 23rd in science.

If this were a store that kept charging more and more for less and less, we'd eventually quit shopping there, wouldn't we?

It was in all the papers.  But between the rise of the Administrative State and the Funamental Change that Obama is bringing us, it appears to be gone.  Mentioning it results in blank stares. 

But the blogosphere seems to be noticing and mentioning it a bit more.  A sampling:

WHO NEEDS A CONGRESS, OR JUDICIARY? Obama Orders EPA to Regulate Power Plants in Wide-Ranging Climate Plan.

AFTER THE 2014 ELECTIONS, IN OTHER WORDS: White House delays employer mandate requirement until 2015.

and the biggie is here: From the Constitution to Pandora’s Box

intro

During the presidency of Barack Obama, we’ve learned something about our Constitution that we did not know: The president can simply refuse to enforce whatever laws he doesn’t like. Not as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, mind you, but in general, as to whole categories of people.

First it was DOMA, in a sop to the gay lobby. Then it was the immigration laws, which the president has decided not to enforce against young illegal immigrants. Now it’s the crucial employer-insurance mandate in Obamacare, which is “suspended” for a year, because the president feels like it. I say “crucial” because, absent the employer mandate, the official estimate of how much Obamacare is going to cost, and how it’s going to affect the number of uninsured, is no longer valid.

read the whole thing ... then forward it.

unrelated but mentionable:

HOPEY CHANGEY: D.C. awards Obamacare IT work to offshore outsourcer; Contract details not available.

Why Today Is Better Than Yesterday

CNN's Joe Johns Pits 'Conservative' Opponents of Voting Rights Act Against 'Civil Rights Advocates'

MSNBC Contributor: SCOTUS VRA Ruling Means We Now Have to 'Trust the Paula Deens of the World' But not the Alec Baldwin's?

Top Voting Rights Overreactions

Guess which Supreme Court member is "a symbolic Jew [who] has invited a metaphoric Hitler to commit holocaust and genocide upon his own people"

I really don't think he could POSSIBLY know who Hitler was OR what the Holocaust was OR what the 13th, 14th or 15th Amendments were about OR what the VRA was about.  Other than that, he's spot on.

I first encountered the old joke via an Archie & Jughead comic.  Jughead is on the roof of the school crawling around looking for his keys.  Archie asks where he dropped them.  "Down in the locker room."  Archie then asks "Why are looking for them UP HERE?"  to which the Jugster replies" There's more light up here.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you the NSA Suveillence Program.  Let's start with this 2012 report from Holland's General Intelligence and Security Service, Jihadism on the Web: A breeding ground for jihad in the modern age, that asks the seemingly key question, "Where do the cool terrorists hang out online?" The report finds that terrorists may meet in well-known social media sites, but these areas are in the small part of the Internet that is indexed and commonly trafficked by regular people. For exactly that reason, that's not where plotting and planning takes place.

They meet in ‘public’ virtual places, for example on social media, on Internet forums and in chat rooms, but also in semi-public or private virtual places. This is where jihadist activities and processes unfold that constitute the greatest threat. These more private virtual places make up an important part of the Invisible Web (by scientists also referred to as the Deep Web, Da knet or Unde net). Unlike the visible part of the Internet, also called Surface Web or Indexable Web, this invisible Web refers to a part of the World Wide Web that has not (yet) been indexed and that cannot be found by readily accessible search engines such as Google. Scientists estimate that the invisible Web is 550 times larger than the visible Web.

The Dutch report goes on to say that "Just like criminals and hackers, jihadists use the invisible Web as a hiding place and do their utmost to keep activities from being tracked. Virtual gathering places constructed, administered and secured by fanatical jihadists are hidden inside this invisible Web."

But the NSA's Prism specifically targets Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple, with promises of more high-profile companies to come. Is there value in that? "The AIVD has found that radicalising persons erase their social media accounts sooner or later. They consider the (mostly American) social media to be kuffa (infidel) sites, and therefore unacceptable and unsafe."

We may be trading off privacy for something, but it doesn't seem to be security.

on SO many levels ...

The New York Times Magazine had a fascinating story yesterday about Jason Everman, erstwhile guitarist for two of the biggest rock bands of the past two decades, Nirvana and Soundgarden. Author Clay Tarver, himself a former rock musician, traces Everman's story, one of the more unusual I've read in a while. From moody, angry young musician to U.S. Army Special Forces combat veteran, Everman trod a path that seems made for a Lifetime movie: redemption, peace of mind, and perseverance. What makes the story so intriguing is that Everman wasn't just a member of any band; had he stayed with either group (he was fired by both), he would have become one of the biggest names in youth entertainment, and a multi-millionaire many times over. As Tarver points out, Everman was Pete Best (original drummer for the Beatles) doubled.

go read it ... and celibrate safely

ROGER SIMON: Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th? “Ironically, if our society enters a revolutionary phase, liberals will find themselves in the role of the Islamists, defending a shopworn and reactionary ideology on religious grounds, because it is only their faith that holds their ideas together at this point. The facts of the American decline tell us otherwise.”

 read it and weep