GAY MARRIAGE WARNING

If you think that legalizing same sex marriage will result in the courts treating gays equally with male/females marriages, you are WRONG.

A California appellate court found that a domestic partnership is NOT the same as a marriage. BUT, they said, by statute, the property part of a domestic partnership IS the same as in a marriage. Therefore, a pre domestic partnership agreement signed in anticipation of a domestic partnership will be treated as if it were a pre marital agreement signed in anticipation of a marriage. Of course, this results in the gay spouse NOT getting his share of his husband's estate.

Are you surprised? I was. I was certain that the courts in San Francisco would not be biased against gays.

The appellate court also found that a certificate of marriage is a written instrument signed by the parties. The court agreed that the pre domestic partnership agreement could be amended or terminated by an instrument in writing. THEN, they held that the marriage certificate did not change the pre domestic partnership agreement, because the property parts of marriage are, by statute, the same as the property parts of a domestic partnership.

This is akin to saying that an addendum for a lease on 5 stories of a 10 story building will be automatically included in a new lease of all 10 stories of the building, because the property parts of the contract are treated the same in real estate law.

The court pretty much ignored the argument that marriage is a contract, which is intended to give the spouse all of the rights and privileges of marriage. A marriage contract can only be changed by a premarital agreement signed IN ANTICIPATION OF MARRIAGE.

Of course, a petition for rehearing has been filed. It has less than a 1% chance of being granted.

At least you are warned. Otherwise, married gays might think that a legal marriage required a premarital agreement and would not realized their old pre domestic partnership agreement was still in effect.

The man who brought me this case told me that he had NEVER seen the gay partner get ANYTHING from his partner's estate. I guess a valid gay marriage is not going to change that.

But, oh, how low The City of Harvey Milk has fallen! SIGH!

YUCKY HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM A PROSTITUTE

I woke up to a text from an unknown prostitute, giving me a web address. This is after Verizon stopped my phone from receiving all such texts.

I felt like washing Siri's mouth out with soap.

I TOLD you all that it was easy to put "backdoors" into phones made in countries that did not share our values.

WARNING, if you click on text ads, you may add a virus to the problems your phone already has.

Currently, ATT, Verizon, and my iPhone do not "talk" to each other. For some reason, I can not use my key pad to put numbers into ATT's phone answering systems. Good thing I am not paranoid or I would think that ATT is purposely blocking Verizon iPhones from using their systems.

Did you know that Homeland Security just ordered 100,000 iPhones? Blackberry provides secure phones that can not be hacked. I guess being "cool as ICE" is more important to Homeland Security than security.

MAYAN APRIL FOOLS!

The world did not come to an end AGAIN.

There is a tradition in the US to play jokes on the first day of April.

First you tell a very plausible lie. My kids' favorite was, "I flunked my math test."

When I would say, "Oh, no!", the reply would be, "April Fools!"

This is a VERY good game as it teaches critical thinking, and checking your sources. Since it is only done on ONE day of the year, it can be somewhat overdone. I am thinking about a blog stating that The Sun published photos of David Cameron sunbathing in the nude and the photos were taken by his security force.

Remember it is a game, so do NOTHING that will really put people in danger.

And you have a riddle for Christmas. WHY did I chose that April Fools joke? Hint. There is a villa in France and a bicycle in Britain.

DOING BAD WHILE TRYING TO DO GOOD

Target's website is advertising flu shots, saying "easy peasy, no appointment necessary". The problem is that there was no one available to give a flu shot on Tuesday. A man is line said that a shot had not been available to him when he tried several days before.

It is illegal in most states to advertise something that you do not actually have available for sale.

Worse, it is a danger to public health to require people to return multiple times just to get their flu shot. I talked to Target management, the Santa Clara County DA's office, and Santa Clara County Health, all of whom blew off my concerns.

Please do not attack the Target website. Target is always very nice to wheelchair users. Feel free to tweet about this problem.

However, if I get the flu before I get a flu shot, I am going to sue Target in small claims court. I have already printed out the website page to use as evidence.

PLEASE STOP THE WORLD, I WANT OFF!

When I was a child, complaining of unfixable injustice, my dad would joke, "Why don't you just tell the world to stop so you can get off?" We would all laugh because we knew we could not stop the world, like we could stop a car.

In the last quarter of this year, young children were killed by a madman, women burned to death in a clothing factory, floods ruined lives, children were killed by a mine, an alleged war criminal was found not guilty, and a dead TV star was accused of molesting teenagers during a twenty year period.

I could not stop any of these things from happening. People who believe the world is coming to an end are really saying, "I want the world to stop so I can get off."

The world is not going to end. So we must all do the best we can to live our lives well, and to help other people as best we can.

May I suggest a New Year's resolution to do your best, every day, to make the world a better place.

An article in the defunct Whole Earth Magazine discussed a decision matrix. It was laid out on a square divided into four quadrants. The quadrants were:
   I WIN, you WIN.
   I WIN, you LOSE.
   I LOSE, you WIN.
   I LOSE, you LOSE.

The article said that too many people believe that a decision where BOTH people WIN was unacceptable because they believe they really WIN only if the other person LOST.

Ever since I read that article, I have tried to find I WIN, you WIN solutions.

It is surprising how often I can find WIN - WIN solutions.

MAYAN MATH & MYTH or THE WORLD IS NOT COMING TO AN END

Around a thousand years ago, a brilliant Mayan mathematician decided to make a calendar that went far into the future. He ended his calendar on a Mayan high holy day, which we call the winter solstice. It was an amazing job, especially considering that he had no computer.

Now a movie decided that when the calendar ended, so would the world.

Honestly, hasn't ANYONE heard of the concept of INFINITY? Infinity is that mathematical concept which points out that the biggest number you can think of can be made bigger by adding that number and the number 1. In other words, there is no limit to the number of things that you can count.

If that ancient Mayan mathematician had known how we would treat his calendar, he would be laughing. Or else he would be on a computer, making his calendar go into the 22nd century.

So far, all of the times people thought the world would end were WRONG. This time, the rumors of the imminent demise of the Earth are so wrong it is silly.

THE ONLY THING TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF.

RAISING TAXES BY DEFAULT

Republicans planned the fiscal cliff so that taxes on the middle class will be raised by default. In order to protect the rich from a tax raise, the Republicans are allowing taxes to be raised for EVERYBODY.

Republicans seem to be counting on the stupidity of the people of the US. Personally, I think they are overestimating our credulity.

As far as I can tell from reading about the so called fiscal cliff, the Republicans want to take from the poor to give to the rich. OVER THE LAST TWENTY YEARS, THE RICH HAVE BEEN GETTING MUCH RICHER AND THE POOR HAVE BEEN GETTING MUCH POORER. I guess the Republicans will not be satisfied until there is again starvation in the US. (If you think I exaggerate, you have not read the Republican plans to cut food stamps.)

ONE MORE TIME, the Republicans are using Christmas vacation as a blackmail tool. This is SO like last year that I re-read my blog on Republicans as the Grinch and/or Scrooge from December 2011.

The truth is that the Republicans want to spend money on military hardware that we no longer need in order to please the manufacturers of military hardware.

BTW, the new plan from the Republicans to cut the tax deductions on home purchase interest will totally destroy the fragile housing industry.

CEOs get HUGE raises while complaining about paying their workers. CEOs refuse to buy health insurance for workers, but insist that their health insurance lasts a lifetime, even if they get fired for cause.

Is this the kind of US that we want?