Kyle Boddy dot com

Many readers of this blog know that I am a libertarian-leaning person who is more accurately described as an anarcho-capitalist. It seems worthwhile to comment on In re Marriage Cases, the soon-to-be landmark case overturning the ban on same-sex marriages in the state of California. There are many opinions on the subject, and while I support the results of the case, I generally do not support state-sanctioned marriage clauses as ultimately I view such policies as attempting to legislate and arbitrate morality. I will discuss the case and marriage in general in a categorical fashion.

On the State's Involvement in Marriage

I see no reason why the state should legislate on who can or cannot be «married.» Perhaps as a direct result of this view, I do not support the addition of laws that legislate who can be married. In general, I will abstain from voting for laws that sanction gay/transgendered marriage, but if forced to vote, I would vote No. Though I agree with the result of the law, it is not enough to support what short-term results come about due to policy. For example, I think the smoking ban in restaurants is great from a personal point of view, but it is unacceptable from an individual's rights point of view. Supporting such laws cedes greater control over individuals' lives to the state, which I am not in favor of.

I do realize that In re Marriage Cases simply overturns the same-sex marriage ban, which is a bit more favorable. Nevertheless, as a result of this case's decision, focus on abolishing control of state-sanctioned marriage becomes a lesser possibility.

On Business's Rights

LJ friend 'darthbeckman' is Catholic and thus is in favor of preserving the traditional Catholic model of marriage. He states in a recent post:

Likewise, if I were a business owner then I wouldn't extend benefits to same-sex couples like I would to married couples, because the latter are married and the former are not. Call it discriminatory if you wish, because I am discriminating between fantasy and reality. And I'd cheerfully go to jail before I recognized that falsehood as reality.

Though I disagree with his view on «reality,» I find his point valid. I have long held the belief that it is well within a business's right to discriminate based on race, religion, sexual identity/preference/orientation (whatever is now politically correct, I suppose), age, wealth status, or whatever they want. One only needs to look at Stanford's overturning of affirmation action policies and the data published as to why they took such action to realize that these policies are actually detrimental to minorities. Affirmative Action policies typically discriminate heavily against whites and Asians and favor Hispanics and blacks, but with greater acceptance of the latter groups comes lower graduation rates and average GPAs. This is to be expected for obvious reasons: If you admit people to your university that would normally not be accepted on a meritocratic status, they will typically fare worse than average as a result.

Therefore, I am quite obviously against any type of affirmative action program being instituted for both private and public businesses. However, I will take it one step farther (as I said above) and say it is okay to actively discriminate against these groups. It should be within the business's right to not want to hire Asians, blacks, gays, whites, or what-have-you. In reality, this already occurs under the radar, and laws that are introduced to attempt to stem these policies only adds fuel to the fire. Furthermore, active discrimination against group X by business Y means that business Y's competition has an economic advantage and can hire group X's members. It is a financial and economic mistake to discriminate against groups of people, but that doesn't mean it should be against the law.

On a personal note, if a business openly discriminated against Asian-Americans, why would I want to work there in the first place? The business should not be forced to hire me despite their reservations regarding my racial makeup.

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I would like to say that I do appreciate the state of California telling the federal government where they can stick their marriage policies, because ultimately I think that these issues should be dealt with on a state-by-state basis with no involvement from the federal government.

This is still my favorite Penny Arcade comic, dating back to November 3rd, 2003:

The third panel is quite accurate. Now you know where my title on Livejournal comes from.

USD v. CAD

USD v. EUR

USD vs. CNY

And finally....

GLD

Class dismissed.

• Baseball game and party next week with Eurotrash, Anacardo, Brighten, Chelsea, and others. Perhaps they will watch me pitch a good game! Who knows.
• Getting into better shape. I have been working out quite a bit and have the urge to hit the batting cages as much as possible, unfortunately I have few partners who are willing to do as much as me.
• Getting a tan. Slowly, but surely.
• Moving into a townhouse after I am married so I can then build a batting cage in the basement. Oh yeah.

I have a few job/consulting interviews this week and my father-in-law-to-be is going to spread the word as well. I'd like a little stability in my life while I do my other work in the evenings, because without high school baseball taking up my time, I basically don't do much all day. I also don't spend time in the local casinos anymore for reasons that I cannot elaborate on, but that's something for the work filter.

Anyway, just rambling. Time to sleep.

Paul Nyman has decreed that I know nothing about pitching mechanics. I knew this day would come, but so soon? I can hardly withhold my joy.

I started working out again and actually paying attention to what I eat. I'm keeping that blog over at Baseball Delusions if anyone cares. It basically involves me going to the local tennis courts and throwing baseballs into a net in an unorthodox motion every night. Yeah, I get my fair share of weird looks.

Tomorrow I'm getting a much-needed haircut.

RHS Freshmen baseball is coming to a close. I'm happy that I worked with them and plan to do it again next year with Coach Nelsen, since we like working with each other and we're close in age (I'll be 25 in a few months; Matt is 30). I'll be coaching at least one individual player over the summer and I'm trying to pick up others for side cash and to pad my resume.

Speaking of resumes, I've been applying for day jobs in the field of Business Analysis and going through recruiters. I have a few pingbacks, including one from Google, so we'll see what comes of that. The other work has been getting better as well, so people on that friends list can expect an update fairly soon.

Getting married in less than 3 months is pretty crazy, but we've gotten everything under control or on a schedule. Trida does great work; there's no way I would be able to deal with the stress from that operation.

Driveline Mechanics continues to grow at a fast pace, and though I've taken some time off from promoting the site on various message boards, I've been busy adding content to the site. The last post I made there is a video of Arizona Diamondbacks' pitching prospect Max Scherzer with a voiceover done by yours truly (clocks in around 15 minutes).

I just realized that I've been living alone for the past 6-7 months. It's weird, to be quite honest, because I haven't really put much thought into whether I liked it more when I had roommates. I think that I just miss the good times I had with Jason, Dave, Doug, and my college friends when we lived in that dump in Berea. Both Jason and I are getting married, so I guess it's time to grow up and start acting like an adult. What a shame.

Just wanted to check in with y'all.

As many of you know, the Church of Scientology has been 'under attack' for the past few months by members of a group called 'Anonymous.' Anonymous is just a bunch of people on a completely uncensored image board who occasionally get together and perform 'raids' on various businesses or organizations. Examples would include calling Gamestop repeatedly and asking for Battletoads, or logging into a popular UK avatar site and getting banned for racism.

Anonymous has no leader. It's a critical mass of the dregs of the Internet where people post the most inane and ridiculous things. They are responsible for lolcats/cat macros and almost every popular meme you've seen on the Internet. They get the name Anonymous because there is no registration on the site, and everyone is forced to post with that name. Somehow these unorganized and nameless masses actually get together to do things, and the latest raids on Scientology are evidence of it.

Members of 4chan's /b/ have been performing various disruptive actions against CoS, ranging from calling in death threats, staging peaceful protests, playing Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' at full blast (yes, they invented the Rickroll meme as well) over the phones, and obtaining stolen documents from the CoS about their ridiculous doctrines on how to 'move up' in the organization.

Interestingly enough, the CoS has fought back by publishing various videos on YouTube and getting advertising to spread the 'good word' about Scientology and bring the 'truth' to light. Obviously anyone reading this blog knows that Scientology is a crock of shit, invented by a guy who wrote B-list scifi novels and possibly performed questionable scientific experiments (including abortions) on family members. However, the CoS holds a ton of power, made so by their large coffers built from using extortionist tactics on their members and donations from Hollywood celebrities. They never had much of an Internet presence, but it would seem that these attacks and attempts to bring their injustices to light has finally motivated them to put out their own propaganda on YouTube, Google Video, and various other sites.

A quick search of YouTube will yield some interesting videos. Here are but a few:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKs-u0q467U&feature=dir - What Scientologists Say About Scientology
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ - Message to Scientology (from a random Anonymous member - seen as the first strike by Anonymous)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrkchXCzY70 - Call to Action (explanation of Anonymous and CoS)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-063clxiB8I - Code of Conduct (another Anonymous video detailing the code of conduct in protests)

It's always fun to watch how /b/ shapes the Internet*, but this time, it might actually be serious business.

Today my high school baseball team got kicked off the field we were supposed to practice on due to previous rain making home plate a mess, so we did our stretches, ran a bit, threw long toss, and took infield/outfield practice. After that, I broke out a football and we played seven-on-seven tackle football with three-man lines. Despite my right ring finger getting jammed when I was playing left tackle, it was an absolute blast and the kids loved the break from practice.

We only have another 2 weeks left in the season, and while we've had our ups and downs, this group of freshmen is very athletic and talented. Two went up to JV while another is pitching at the Varsity level already, so our freshman-only team hasn't been as good as it could have been, but we're still one of the better freshmen-only teams in the area and are competitive with the JV squads we play as well.

Coaching HS baseball is a lot of fun. I hope to do it next year, and I might be coaching some of the kids individually over the summer as well.

At the risk of sounding like even more of a person entering «real» adulthood, I'm also considering taking a full-time Business Analyst position and enrolling in summer classes at the local junior college with the eventual goal of finishing up my undergraduate degree (probably in Business Administration). I could use some stability in my life right now, and it's not like I can't do my current job at nights and in my spare time. Plus, I could use the benefits (health insurance mainly) and regular paychecks.

• Royals: Welcome to reality.
• Beane is so fucking smart.
• The Indians need to sign Bonds.

That's all for now.

In this post, I talked about how difficult it was for me to pick up baseball again. I can still vividly remember those days; my coach would cringe at putting me into the game and I was embarrassing at the plate. I said this:

On the drive home, I just wanted to stop. Stop working out, stop playing baseball, just be an overweight guy working from home and enjoying video games. Playing baseball, working out, and losing weight - none of these things come easily to me. The last time I have felt like this was the first week of soccer conditioning, where I was easily the most out-of-shape kid there. I feel so inadequate, so inferior. And I knew this was coming, I really did. But suffering through the pains of acquiring a new ability, even something that I love like baseball, is so psychologically and mentally taxing.

But I won't.

Just over 2 years later, I'm writing this post. I maintain a blog about pitching mechanics that gets thousands of viewers per day, I coach high school kids how to pitch and hit effectively, and most of all, I am capable of hitting some serious fucking light-tower shots when I'm not busy on the hill locating four pitches for strikes.

And I'm just getting started.