No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for March 18th, 2006

Massacre Friday

by @ 2:25. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Editor’s note; this will be updated throughout the day. Times updated will be noted (last update 2:25 am 3/18)

2:00 pm 3/17 – It is not a good day to be from the Big 10 – Wisconsin and Iowa both lose, Wisconsin blown out, Iowa upset on a last-second shot 64-63. Throw in Bucknell with a 59-55 skinning of the Razorbacks and there goes my first Sweet 16 team out of the West. At least Ohio State is still alive after getting a scare from the smartest team in the tourney.

6:53 pm 3/17 – The carnage continues. I lose my first Elite Eight team in SIU (in guess what bracket – South) and another game. At least I’m guaranteed of going .500 in the first round as I hit 16 wins.

8:45 pm 3/17 – There’s just no stopping the South carnage. I lose my 3rd Sweet 16 team, and my 2nd in the South. At least the other 3 teams won, with UConn waking up late to put away Albany to avoid being the first #1 to lose since the NCAA went to at least 64 teams, to pull me back to .500 on the day and 20-9 going into the final 4 games of round 1. My Final Four remains intact.

2:25 am 3/18 (last update) – Owie, stingie. I should’ve known that Conference USA would screw my only perfect regional. Throw in the Kansas Chokehawks and I ended up 21-11 on the round and 22-11 overall. At least I didn’t lose any more Sweet 16 teams.

Winning calls from the prediction post underlined, losers and losing calls struck out, future picks still alive in bold, and substitute teams for early eliminations in italics:

Play-in – Monmouth 71 over Hampton 49

First round, Midwest: Villanova (1) 58 over Monmouth 45, Wisconsin (9) 75 over Arizona 94 (in the battle of fading programs, the Mildcats have fallen further than Bucky), Montana (12) 87 over Nevada 79 (your historic 12-5 upset split, plus a Milwaukee connection with Montana coach Larry Krystowiak, a former Buck), Boston College (4) 88 over Pacific 66, UW-Milwaukee (11) 82 over Oklahoma 74 (too much offense from Rob Jeter’s group), Florida (3) 76 over South Alabama 50, Northern Iowa (10) 49 over Georgetown 54 (no, there’s no anti-Thompson bias here :-) and Ohio State 70 (2) over Davidson 62

First round East, er, DC: UConn (1) 72 over Albany 59, UA-Birmingham (9) 64 over an over-seeded Kentucky 69, Washington 75 (5) over Utah State 61, Illinois (4) 78 over Air Force 69, George Mason (11) 75 over Michigan State 65, North Carolina (3) 69 over Murray State 65, Wichita State (7) 86 over Seton Hall 66, Tennessee (2) 63 over Winthrop 61

First round South, er, Atlanta: Duke (1) 70 over Southern 54, UNC-Wilmington 85 (9) over George Washington 88, Texas A&M (12) 66 over Syracuse 58 (this 12-5 upset’s for you, Owen), Iona (13) 64 over Louisiana State 80, Southern Illinois (11) 46 over West Virginia 64, Iowa 63 (3) over Northwestern State 64, California (7) 52 over North Carolina State 58, Texas (2) 60 over Pennsylvania 52

First round West, er, Oakland: Memphis (1) 94 over Oral Roberts 78, Arkansas (8) 55 over no-longer-a-surprise Bucknell 59, Pittsburgh (5) 79 over Kent State 64, Kansas (4) 73 over Bradley 77, San Diego State (11) 83 over Indiana 87, Gonzaga (3) 79 over Xavier 75, Alabama (10) 90 over Marquette 85 (sorry CareBears, Novak and a bunch of freshmen can’t get it done), UCLA (2) 78 over Belmont 44 in the battle of the Bruins

Second round Midwest: "˜Nova over Bucky (if one Wildcat doesn’t beat you, the other one will) Arizona, BC over Montana, UWM over Florida (that’s right, the Panthers are Sweet-16 dancing again), Ohio State over Northern Iowa Georgetown

Second round East: UConn over UAB Kentucky, Illinois over Washington, UNC over George Mason, Tennessee over Wichita State

Second round South: Duke over UNC-Wilmington George Washington, Texas A&M over Iona LSU, SIU over Iowa West Virginia vs.Northwestern State (dead game), California over Texas vs NC State (dead game)

Second round West: Arkansas over Memphis vs. Bucknell (dead game), Pittsburgh over Kansas Bradley, Gonzaga over San Diego State Indiana, UCLA over Alabama

Midwest Semis: "˜Nova over BC, Ohio State over UWM (too much inside from the Buckeyes)

East Semis: Illinios over UConn, Tennessee over UNC

South Semis: Duke over A&M, SIU over California TBD vs TBD (dead game)

West Semis: Pittsburgh over Arkansas TBD, UCLA over Gonzaga

Final Four: "˜Nova, Tennessee, Duke, Pittsburgh

Champion: Duke over Tennessee, Bruce Pearl still gets hoisted off the court on his players’ shoulders

The Defense of Marriage amendment – part 2

by @ 1:56. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

In part 1, I stated why I am voting for the Defense of Marriage amendment in November. Now, I’ll specifically take on various conservative/libertarian arguments against this, mainly culled from Charlie’s Isthmus column.

It’s unnecessary – As I stated previously, it is very necessary (at least if one is not in favor of government sanction of gay marriage), not only to pass something like this but to make it part of the Wisconsin Constitution, especially in Wisconsin. There already exists in the Wisconsin Constitution legitimate legal grounds for a court to overturn any statute that does not extend the full benefits of marriage to gay couples; a clause that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The “infamous” second sentence (“A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”) will not only allow Wisconsin to ignore other states’ “gay marriages” that do not explicitly use the word “marriage”, but force Wisconsin to invalidate items such as “domestic partner” benefits for both public and private employees and for both gay and straight employees – To extend this sentence from invalidating a broadly-encompassing government sanction of gay marriage to invalidating a single benefit that has been extended to non-married couples would take an overreach essentially equal to that taken by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in forcing gay marriage there. As my non-lawyer mind reads that sentence, it would take a single legal status attempting to confer most of the legal privileges of marriage to unmarried individuals to trigger this. Morever, something such as “domestic partner” benefits, even one offered by government, is not a legal privilege restricted to marriage.

This represents an absolute freeze on social and legal policy, which can never be changed – Again, wrong. The only “freezes” are that a gang of 4 lawgivers-in-black cannot cram their wishes down 5 million Wisconsinites’ throats, and that 50 Assemblymen and 17 Senators in the Legislature cannot unilaterally do the same. An “evolutionary” change instead will require those 50 Assemblymen and 17 Senators to vote for it in 2 separate biannual sessions, then a majority of the public that cares vote for it; just like this amendment.

This limits the power of individuals, not government – Like a broken record; again, wrong. I don’t see any prohibition of two or more consenting individuals to do what they please; instead, I see a prohibition against government granting a special sanction to certain actions taken y those consenting individuals.

But, but, but government needs to recognize stable relationships regardless of who enters it – No, it does not, even if other governments recognize “common-law marriages” (more-properly called long-term shack-ups). The main reason why government does recognize marriage is that society has recognized marriage as providing the best general situation for the raising of the next generation. Of course, it does so in what can be called a ham-handed fashion. Morever, with the advent of “no-fault” divorce, government has started to not recognize marriage as a stable, lifelong relationship.

But, but, but gays only want “in” on marriage, not to destroy it – What legal privilege automatically granted to married couples, other than the special tax rate given to married couples, can gay couples not get? Tax deductions for children are marriage-neutral, and various legal contracts, including wills and life insurance, can easily be written to replicate the publicly-recognized situations enjoyed by married couples, right on down to the joint-property mandate unique to Wisconsin. That special tax rate is hardly special for a couple where both people work full-time, which I suspect describes nearly all gay couples; they would end up paying a higher tax than if they weren’t recognized as a “married” couple.

Since the governmental reasons for gays to merely want “in” on marriage through government recognition have been severely damaged, and society as a whole does not (at least not yet) accept that gays should enjoy the full privileges and benefits of marriage, what reasons other than its destruction in its present governmental form and a further damage to its religious form remains for the push for government recognition of gay marriage? The only one I can think of is to attempt to force companies that do not offer “domestic partner” benefits to offer benefits to both members of a gay couple. However, there is a “slight” flaw in this attempt; health coverage is not a right, and neither is spousal coverage. I strongly suspect that a large number of companies that do not offer “domestic partner” coverage will drop spousal coverage (if not health coverage entirely) rather than have the expanded definition of “spouse” imposed on them. The companies that don’t will quickly find themselves in court, sued by heterosexual unmarried couples wanting theirs. They’ll likely win, and everyone can start kissing health insurance for their significant other goodbye.

The Defense of Marriage amendment – part 1

by @ 0:14. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I’ve delayed this as long as long as I could and then some, but Charlie called me out. This is part one of a 2-part series; part two will deal with the conservative/libertarian arguments against. I will be voting “yes” on the amendment in November for a mix of reasons.

The first reason is that it will, at least temporarily, keep the government definition of marriage as close to my religion’s (WELS) definition as government can keep it: 1 man and 1 woman. Despite the relatively-recent (and probably necessary) divergence between the Christian and government definitions of marriage (namely, “no-fault” divorce), the acceptance of adultery by society, and the rise of activism among both the gay and polygamist crowds, society as a whole still accepts the basic definition of marriage as being between 1 man and 1 woman.

Indeed, that divergence belies the claim that government does sanction a stable relationship through marriage. That leaves only special legal and tax statuses given to married couples based on the societial recognition that married couples do best with raising the next generation. Even here, most of those statuses can either be duplicated by non-married couples through legal processes or shifted into marriage-neutral policies. The only major “marriage-only” policy that cannot be replicated is the tax policy, which was written (imperfectly, as only government can write it) as a recognition that one parent works full-time and the other raises the children and maybe earns a small salary in a part-time job. Even though (in no small part due to goverment’s ever-growing appetite), this ideal is workable for fewer and fewer married couples, there are very few gay couples that would have children, and even fewer where that ideal would happen.

Related to keeping the government definition of marriage what it is, it is absolutely necessary to put this into the Wisconsin Constitution rather than Wisconsin state statute. As the lawgivers-in-black-robes in Massachusetts proved, activist liberal justices will use the most-obscure loopholes to void the will of the people as expressed by the Legislature. Indeed, it would be even easier in Wisconsin; we already have as part of the state Constitution an “equal-rights” clause based on sexual orientation. I’m surprised that the activists haven’t used this to hammer through gay marriage in Wisconsin.

Another reason for using the Constitutional process is that it is the only process that directly involves the people. Neither judges ruling by fiat nor the Legislature passing a statute does this. Morever, by putting it into the Constitution, it does not “freeze” the definition for all time; it merely takes the mechanism of change out of the hands of the state version of the lawgivers-in-black (only federal action could take it out of the hands of federal judges), as well as the unilateral hands of the Legislature. Instead, if Wisconsin society eventually does want to extend full marriage rights to gays, it will simply go through the same Constitutional process as this went through.

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