Ohmigod, you have to see this show. It's insane and ridiculous:
LINDSAY: I care deeply for nature.
MICHAEL: You're wearing ostrich-skin boots.
LINDSAY: Well, I don't care about ostriches...
Honestly, this show reminds me more of Family Guy than anything else - in the first episode I watched (the second episode aired), there was a truly surreal flashback segment with one character hawking a fried-corn-fritter-or-something-like-that device called the Cornballer on an infomercial with Richard Simmons. That actually doesn't give the weirdness enough credit there. The segment repeated in Spanish later. So f'n strange. They've got hints of incest, more bleeped out naughty words than I've ever seen, a Spanish language TV awards show, a random guest appearance by Liza Minelli...well, heard, in a sitcom... You need to see this show quickly, before it gets cancelled for being too damned weird.
I just realized that I've spent exactly one day out of the last 4 weeks at home. That is, I've been out and about every day but one for four weeks, and that one was the day after moving a load of furniture - I was in bed recovering all day. The place is kinda filthy. I'm going to spend all day tomorrow at home cleaning to make up for it...
Adams calls for assembly returnSinn Fein presses for the NI Assembly to be re-instated, but the DUP insists the Good Friday Agreement is "dead".
Freakin' wonderful. The DUP are Ian Paisley's gang of evil bastards - you'd have a hard time persuading me that Sinn Fein is anywhere near as nasty as Paisley is. And of course, the "Democratic" Unionist Party is calling for ending democracy. God, I hate these bastards even more than Bush. Then again, Paisley is Bush's kind of people...
Regardless of whether he waives his non-trade clause and signs an extension with the Sox - which it does look like will be the final outcome, but who knows for sure? - I love Curt Schilling. He's well known to be a tremendous geek - he's very public about his love for playing EverQuest, and has been known to play up to 30 hours a week during the season...makes sense to me - what else are you going to do when you're sitting in hotel rooms every night and you don't want to go out drinking? He bought a wargaming company to keep one of his favorite games from disappearing with the company going out of business. He's talked about his Strat-o-matic team, etc... He's also very much part of the sports geek community - he calls into sports radio shows while driving around, etc... You get the point.
But now he's taken it to another level - while waiting for responses from the Red Sox regarding proposals, counter-proposals, etc, Curt has been spending time reading, posting, and chatting at The Sons Of Sam Horn, the leading Red Sox-oriented online community. He's not the first baseball name to do so - Theo Epstein has done a chat session there, Bill Simmons, ESPN.com Page 2's Sports Guy, is a long-time poster, Gordon Edes, Red Sox writer for the Boston Globe, is another long-time reader, and John Henry, owner of the Sox, reads the board actively and posts once in a while too. But there's just something a little strange about Curt Schilling first posting a message at redsox.com late last night that includes a mention of wanting to post this at SoSH (the commonly used acronym) but not being able to (new posters need to be approved by one of the Dopes, the admins, due to the massive influx of wanna-be members since SoSH started getting publicity in the Globe and other mass media sources), and then showing up in the chat room at 3:30am EST (1:30am for him in Phoenix, but still...). Until this afternoon, there was skepticism as to whether it truly WAS him, but his account for posting was verified by the Dopes today and he showed up in the chat again. Most of us don't know what was said - the chat tops out at 25 people max and was basically invite only, and Curt asked that what he said there remain private (in his earlier post to redsox.com and a later post to SoSH's message board, he asked any media members who might be reading it (a certainty on SoSH) to please not print any of what he said, too, which all makes sense). But still - it's just fun. Regardless of whether he DOES end up coming to Boston (I'm betting he will - the deadline to make the deal was extended to 5pm Saturday, and Curt has said publicly that it's mainly just down to resolving a few money issues), he'll hopefully be coming back to SoSH in the future. I love being part of the in crowd. =)
EDIT: and the media went and ignored Curt's request, reprinting his entire post to redsox.com at ESPN.com - with his request at the top still there, just so everyone can easily tell that they're ignoring what he wants. Grrreat. Also, the post mentioned SoSH, so we'll be getting another massive wave of traffic there. Fun times indeed. =)
Family so overwhelms me. I'm at Dad's right now for the traditional delayed Thanksgiving, hiding in the corner with the computer - the 13 other people here, most of whom are even louder and more talkative than I am, are just too much. Gotta hide. Arwen's going to be coming by in an hour or two, which should be...interesting. It'll be the first time that I've brought her to a significant family event, and I'm worried about looking bad in front of her - not the family, but me. Hopefully things won't be too awkward..eep. Anyway...
I can't get it out of my head for hours after I hear it - Outkast's "Hey Ya". Just unbelievable - it's the catchiest, most feel-good song I've heard in a long time. I'm sure the lyrics aren't quite as positive as the song itself is, but hey - I love it. Outkast has done this to me before - "B.O.B." - aka Bombs Over Baghdad - is another of my all-time favorite songs, due to a great bass line and extreme catchiness. I like these guys. And yes, I own both Stankonia and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. And happy Thanksgiving. =)
How I became a Clark supporterGuest contributor Andrew Sabl used to think a Clark presidency would be a disaster. Then he read the general's book. Here, he explains his conversion to Clark supporter.
This article explains exactly what I see in Clark:
Bottom line: Clark is a throwback, a Rip Van Winkle, a pluralistic, optimistic, Greatest Generation-style politician lost, like Howard the Duck, in a world he never made. He's further outside the mainstream political culture than can possibly be imagined. This is what makes him so striking, so hard to parse, and so clearly the best candidate.
Kevin Drum says similar things:
Yeah, he's personally ambitious and even a bit arrogant — attributes shared by virtually all presidential candidates, I think — but he's also broadly and honestly liberal, he bridges the culture war gap, he genuinely believes in America's capability to do good, he understands at a gut level that multilateralism is hard but absolutely necessary if we're going to win the war on terrorism, and he's much more sincere in his beliefs than your average politician. What's more, he's got the vision and the drive to get things done and the coattails to help elect other candidates besides himself.
Clark is liberal internationalism incarnate - he's patriotic without it being a dirty word, too. What is Clark? He's George Marshall come back again, and I can't think of what this country - and this world - needs more than another George Marshall. I can't tell you how strongly I feel that Clark is the single best potential president I've ever seen. I honestly believe that he would be a great president, not just someone who can beat Bush. He's what we need.
U.S. Arrests Wife of Hussein DeputyU.S. troops arrested the wife and daughter of a top Saddam Hussein deputy suspected of masterminding attacks on U.S. troops.
...I'm sorry, I've never heard of this pesky "Geneva Convention" you keep talking about...
As I go to start watching The Two Towers on DVD, I can't help but be amused by the rating description - it's rated PG-13 due to "epic battle sequences and scary images". Uh, does that just sound like ad copy to anyone else?
the 90'sPitchfork's 100 Best Albums of the 1990's I'm sure that you'll find plenty to bitch about on this list, but hang on, the last 20 will be posted tomorrow. You can also see where they stood at the turn of the decade.
I rather enjoyed their top 100 of the '80s, so hey, a new '90s list works for me. I own 10 out of #100-#21, though I've owned another 5 or 6 in the past - I lost my entire CD collection after my junior year in college. Their taste is definitely music-geeky, but with a few exceptions (Jesus Lizard? Twice?), it's a pretty decent list.
The Time is RipePaul Krugman responds in today's New York Times to the crocodile tears being shed by pundits on the right about the lack of civility in current political discourse. Since much of that hypocritical whining is particularly directed against Professor Krugman,...
Allen over at The Right Christians also brings a pertinent Biblical reference in his always information Obscure Bible Passage Of The Day - Amos 8:1-7. Both Krugman's quote and the passage from Amos are calls for speaking truth to power. I heard a Republican media weasel on NPR yesterday morning, justifying Bush's appalling (and doctored) campaign commercial, which lashes out at "some who attack the president for attacking terrorists" - which is the most baldfaced abuse of patriotism/national security in politics since Saxby "Piece Of Crap" Chambliss' smearing of Max Cleeland back in '02. Anyway, the media weasel said that we're at war, and that no president has been so criticized during a war before. Uh, hey, jackass - find me a war, and I'm betting I can find equally vocal opposition to it, except for World War II. Hell, George McLellan's entire campaign for president in 1864 was based on the idea of surrendering to the Confederacy - that's a hell of a lot worse than saying Bush fucked up, isn't it? Gah. These bastards want to silence dissent so that they don't have to face criticism, so that reelection is easier... We MUST resist them. Eugene Debs went to jail during World War I for opposing the war - we (most likely) won't have to make that sacrifice, but we should be just as vocal.
Sniper Jury Recommends Death Sentence for MuhammadA jury decided today that John Allen Muhammad should be executed, but its recommendation is not final.
Did anyone really think this would go down any differently? He's black, poor, Moslem - of COURSE, he got the death penalty. Now, I'm not saying he's not guilty - it seems pretty clear that he is - but if he'd been white, middle class, and Christian, would he have gotten the death penalty? I doubt it.
Mass. public supports gay marriageI went to the Globe this morning to check out...
Globe story here. To sum up - 50% supported the ruling, 38% opposed. 53% opposed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, as well. In April, a poll showed 50% in favor of gay marriage and 44% opposed - which means that the actual decision caused OPPONENTS to lose support in MA. And this is just in the immediate aftermath - three years from now, when the amendment is on the ballot, it'll go down in flames. A more interesting question is whether the legislature will still sit on its hands and leave the official move to allowing same-sex marriage to the court. Romney has said he'd veto anything allowing gay marriage, and Finneran, the speaker of the House, is a total asshole conservative, but you never know...
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, check out the always great Dan Kennedy over at the Boston Phoenix - he's arguing for using gay marriage as a wedge issue AGAINST the Republicans. I'm with him.
I've got about two hours 'til I head out to the airport, and then back to Massachusetts. It's been nice, but I can't wait to get home. This'll probably be my only post today - I'll be getting in at around 9:30 or 10 ET, and Arwen will be coming over soon after that, so I doubt there'll be anything later. Oh, and I'm posting this from Zempt, the Movable Type desktop app. I think I like it - pretty simple, but does what I need it to do. I'll play with it more later...
Brain clues to attention disorderScientists have pinpointed differences in the brains of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Dr Berelowitz said that the study should also convince people who doubted that ADHD was a real clinical disorder.
"This should give food for thought to those who view ADHD as a 21st century construct."
A-HA! My brain IS weird! That's what I keep saying, but people just won't listen... =)
AnalogiesANALOGIES....Just a note to my conservative brethren: any chance we can stop working our way through the microfilm archives of 1946 newspapers? If the analogy of Iraq to Vietnam is strained, the analogy to World War II is simply rubbish....
Kevin Drum is referencing a "snappy" Instacracker post that links to some dumbass with too much time on their hands who found a 1946 newspaper article talking about how the German atomic weapons program had been shelved well before the end of the war - not because they didn't WANT the bomb, mind you, but because their chief scientist believed that you needed an immense amount of uranium to achieve critical mass, which was wrong. Somehow, the rightist twit who found this twists it into an attempt at a sarcastic and ironic spiel about how we weren't attacked by Hitler, they didn't have WMD either, though our leaders said they were trying, etc, etc...basically, trying to compare World War II to invading Iraq. Well, it don't play that way, son. First of all, Hitler did not directly attack the US first, no - but he DID declare war on the US before the US could declare war on him! His treaty ally, Japan, DID attack the US directly - and no, the possibility that some guy in Hussein's government had lunch once with some guy who might have known bin Laden doesn't make al Qaeda's relationship (if any) to Iraq the same as Japan's to Germany, dingbat. Oh, and Germany had invaded its neighbors. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, we went to war, didn't we? God, this guy is just a jackass. So's Instacracker for linking to this with the line "Marshall lied. They died." Hey, Glenn, you dumbass, you're reaching really hard here, buddy, and you're failing. Just shut up now, thanks. Dipshits...
Choosing a leaderThe GOP has been able to maintain ideologial purity, in...
Kos, probably prompted by the ethanol subsidies preventing Daschle from opposing the energy bill, points out that the Republicans have long had a lead on us in terms of the ideological consistency of their leadership - Lott, Frist, DeLay, et al aren't going to be losing their spots in DC any time soon. On the other hand, Daschle (SD) and Reid (NV) are potentially vulnerable - good guys, good legislators (Reid's 9 hour filibuster last week got praise and respect from both sides of the aisle) but vulnerable to challenges. Kos argues that this should change - after the next election, there should be a leadership shuffle, putting solid blue-state senators in charge. It's worked well with Pelosi in the House, right? So it makes perfect sense here, too.
Kos DOES suggest maybe Hillary, which is a no-no - too obvious a target. Looking at the current Dem leadership, I'd tend towards Durbin - good solid liberal with a fighting reputation.
From: TAPPED (permalink)SEE CHANGE. TAP Online has two pieces on the Massachusetts gay-marriage ruling. First, check out Prospect contributing editor E.J. Graff...
[TAPPED]
You MUST read E.J. Graff's piece - we have won, and the article shows how thoroughly, and where the next fights will be.
March organisers claim 200,000Tens of thousands of protesters in London march against Bush.
I've gotten in a nasty little fight with some ignorant rightist shits on a message board, started by discussion of these numbers. They're insisting on the lowest numbers they can find, making excuses, bashing whatever source gives high numbers, then eventually accepting the earlier high numbers as they become common - like one twit bashing a BBC report of the police saying 70,000, saying that the story had said 35,000 and had been changed. Of course, additional sources showed up for that 70,000 bare minimum. When I referenced a Reuters story giving that 70,000 from Scotland yard, 120,000+ by a crowd control officer on the ground, and 300,000+ by organizers, I made a joke about how the rightists would dismiss this since Reuters is obviously part of the Communist conspiracy. They then DID dismiss at as biased, while claiming that Rupert Murdoch-owned news media is less biased than the BBC. It's fucking Orwell, man. If things keep going like this, I'm dead serious - I'm running the hell away. I'll learn Dutch. I'll learn Swedish. I want to live in a country that actually is civilized, 'cos mine is falling to barbarism...
Oh, and the same jackasses were also berating the left for opposing the war while supporting free speech, getting all snooty about the "hypocrisy" of being for human rights and against the war. None of them have yet to respond to my questions about when they think we should be invading Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt, Russia, Uzbekistan, and every other country that violently suppresses the right to free expression, for some reason. God DAMN, I hate these people so much. And I don't even have my X-Box to let me vent my frustrations on evil aliens in Halo...
Check this webcam of Trafalgar Square...
Case ClosedThanks to sensitive CIA reporting dating back to the Clinton administration, as revealed in a classified memo labeled "Top Secret" and also "For Immediate Release," I am able to report the following. 1. An Arabic student from Hamburg, Germany, who...
slacktivist proves that al-Qaeda was connected to Saddam Hussein - via Kevin Bacon!
Oh, this is just too much fun - Front Page Magazine (whacko rightist mouthpiece) has discovered Oberlin. Good times indeeed...
Whatever the radical leftist issue currently being pushed on campus, Oberlin offers students four years of extremist indoctrination for the bargain price of only $30,000 a year. Oberlin embodies a far-Left paradise of agitation, Marxist activism and sexual licentiousness. It is, in short, a model of the Left’s paradise. It is specifically for this reason that it resembles most traditional Americans’ version of Hell.
Crap! They found out! The plan's scuttled, guys! They know that Oberlin's filled with leftists! We've got to take refuge at Antioch or Reed now!
And the comments on the article are just as much fun - Obies descend, some replying in earnest, rebuking the nutty claims, some just opting for ridicule - I've found at least one Brother Jed reference so far, which just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. And did I mention that this is the 6th most talked about article on FPM? When we Obies get motivated, we'll blow you away - hey, we won an Internet poll a few years ago to get Lewis Black to speak at Oberlin, we can flood these dingbats.
Or perhaps more accurately - I do not heart having to put together and give a presentation. Powerpoint just happens to be the app I'm using. I've been asked to do a presentation on what my group (Release Engineering) can do (and more importantly - would LIKE to do) for the development group out here in San Jose. It turns out that there's about as many of them as there are on the Boxborough, MA-based products, which makes me realize that we've really been neglecting this group. In any case, I need to put together something in a couple days to present to people I've never met before to sell why my job is important, more or less. On the off chance that you're interested, there's more below...
The consultant, by the way, is both better and worse than I expected. He's semi-competent, but that's about as far as it goes. He's very obviously out of his league in terms of the skills and technologies needed, and he doesn't have a clue how to communicate, as best as I can tell. I mean, I'm sitting in the cube next to him and he hasn't said a word to me all day, for example. Just strange. Anyway - the guy they had before him was REALLY horrible, according to the development manager I've met with. From what I can tell by looking at what the previous guy did, and seeing the branch structure they've put in place, I can definitely believe it. Ouch. So the current guy has been a huge upgrade, but they still know he's not as good as he should be, considering how much we're paying him. The solution - the RIGHT solution - would be to have one of the permanent members of the group relocate out here - there's a lot of things that a consultant can't do (speak authoritatively in cross-functional situations, first and foremost) that we really need the person out here to do. But that ain't happening - I know I wouldn't even consider it unless they gave me a sizable raise, and even then I don't think I'd do it. But we definitely need do something or things will eventually get really ugly here.
The product is an early enough stage that it's still salvagable - it's only been a seperate product and development team for a year and a half now. (it's also outselling the stuff done back in BXB as well, and trending even better, which is part of why I think we really need to get more involved...hey, nothing wrong with looking out for yourself, right?) They haven't had the massive problems we've had on our side, which have necessitated (hey, I spelled that right on the first try! woo!) some pretty major changes to how development is done, such as:
You get the idea. Due to various factors (crappy quality record, massive and confusing codebase, changes in planning for patches and major releases, shit hitting the fan every day or two, etc...), we've had to put in a really restrictive and regimented development environment. Out here, they don't need that - but if we let them just keep going the way they have been, with developers basically calling the change management shots, they'll end up there. So I really want to focus our attention on these guys and find a way to get their developers to accept some restrictions and some changes now, before things get out of control. I'd thought about doing a presentation like this while I was here, but never heard anything from management here about whether there'd be an interest. As it turns out, that's because no one ever bothered to ask them - I thought my boss was doing it, he thought our consultant was doing it. Ah well. So yeah, I've got to put this thing together in the next day or so, on my own. Hopefully I won't get killed in the process... =)
You'll Be Hearing from ThemThe Massachusetts Supreme Court's ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health will undoubtedly spur the Christian Right to new heights of fear-inducing and donation-raising rhetoric, but the old familiar voices may not be the ones we hear. Pat Robertson...
Not meaning to get all confrontational, but hey, that's what they are. It's people like these jackasses that make me realize why I'm a secular humanist. We need to fight, fight, fight for Goodridge v. DPH, put it up there with Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education. This is an area where the US can actually get out ahead of most of the civilized world, unlike other social issues (most egregiously - the death penalty and health care). Only the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada have same-sex marriage. Let's do something that'll make us proud to be Americans - let's get same-sex marriage recognized throughout the country within 10 years.
That seems like a reasonable timeframe for complete success to me. Let's aim at fighting this in the courts - full faith in credit is next up, obviously, probably showing up sometime next year. But let's choose the right places to fight - go for DC, New York, California next. Once we get the ball rolling, let's organize boycotts of states that refuse to recognize same sex marriages. We've got a lot of time before the Massachusetts anti-marriage amendment will come up for a vote - that's enough time to keep it from winning, which is all we need to come out on top in the end.
The biggest worry I have, to be honest, is the sure-to-come US constitutional anti-marriage amendment - actually, that makes me think of something. Let's not let the rightists get themselves any catchy and misleading buzzwords for this issue - a la pro-life, death tax, etc... In six months' time, same sex marriage will be the same as opposite sex marriage in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. From that point onward, any attempt to change that fact will not be a "defense" of marriage - it'll be anti-marriage, it'll be an attempt to BAN marriages. Spin it that way, because that's the truth, yes? Anyway - the federal amendment. That's what scares me. It'll pass the House with the required two-thirds, of course - DeLay has a tight grasp there. But we might be able to stop it in the Senate - it'd require 67 votes in the Senate to pass. I wonder if they can actually get that...I'm going to look into that. But even if it passes there, it'll have to pass 38 states - so we aim at beating it in 13 states. Hopefully, the wording will be vague enough to rule out civil unions as well - there's a much better chance of beating it then. Again, it'll be a few years 'til this could start hitting states - we can start working now to target states where we can stop it from passing. As Natalie Davis says over at Open Source Politics, this isn't the end of the fight - this is just our first victory. We've got a long way to go.
China warns Taiwan 'risking war'China repeats a threat to use force if Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian launches any independence bid.
Now this is a situation where I'd like the US to throw a little weight around - not go to war, but make it known to China that if they DO start a war with Taiwan over Taiwanese independence, they'll be getting a bigass kick in the teeth. Taiwan is one of the very few areas where Jesse Helms and I agree - I just can't see a moral grounding for NOT supporting Taiwanese independence.
From Salon's coverage of the rightist response to same sex couples having rights:
Conservative Christians say they will use that time [the 180 days before the court's decision goes into effect] to push hard for a federal constitutional amendment. Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said Tuesday that her group is working closely with Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado to build support for the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment she has introduced in the House of Representatives. Combs said the amendment is necessary to prevent liberal courts from imposing upon Americans an institution that is "not biblical and not the way our founding fathers intended the courts to go."
Pardon my French, but fuck the Bible. "Not biblical" means "not full of shit" to me as often as not - or, at the very least, not self-contradictory...you get the point. Plus, who gives a crap what the founding fathers intended? Most of them intended blacks to remain slaves and women to remain second-class citizens. As has been pointed out, it was only thirty five or forty years ago that racist shitheads were claiming that interracial marriages were unnatural, now the same types are saying that gay marriage is unnatural. Fuck them. People are worrying about the political ramifications of the decision in terms of the presidential election. Fuck that, too. This is the right thing, regardless of the political consequences, just as LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act was the right thing to do, even if led to losing the South for years.
EDIT: and Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council and general moron, sez this:
This is THE wake-up call for both the American public and our elected officials. If we do not amend the Massachusetts State Constitution so that it explicitly protects marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and if we do not amend the U.S. Constitution with a federal marriage amendment that will protect marriage on the federal level, we will lose marriage in this nation.
Hey, jackass, get the hell out of MY state. If the voters in Massachusetts choose to amend the constitution, we'll do so. I'll campaign strongly against it, and by the time it comes up, opposition to such an amendment (which already might be strong enought o beat it) will probably be the majority. It's over, you bastards.
Laurence Tribe is on WBUR's Here and Now, praising the decision to the heavens - pointing out that besides the technical aspects of the decision, the big thing is that this decision declares that banning gay marriage is an insult to the dignity of gay citizens and more...I'll see if I can find a transcript later today. Great stuff. Tribe is just laying waste to arguments against the decision, saying that the decision also rejects civil unions - no second class citizenship for gays. What's more, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act, this is a big step in getting gay marriage legalized in other states - when a state refuses to recognize a same-sex marriage from Massachusetts, there's a hell of an anti-discrimination case there... And now some rightist is on, so I'm ignoring him. He said something about the state "forcing two men to be allowed to be married." Way to try desperately to suggest that this is going to mean that straight guys have to get married with other straight guys. Go back to Texas, buddy!
Oh, and now the dingbat is saying that the "overwhelming majority" of the state opposes this. Uh, dude, 58%, in a recent Boston Globe poll, SUPPORTED GAY MARRIAGE. HA! He's also suggesting that the rightist approach will be to push the legislature to do nothing, creating a standoff. Actually, that creates a constitutional crisis, and, by default, gay marriage WILL be the law of the state if the legislature doesn't do anything. So go ahead - don't do anything. We'll still get the right solution anyway.
First of all, you can get the complete text of the ruling here, since the SJC's web site is, not surprisingly, slashdotted all to hell. Here's the key grafs:
Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations. The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry. We conclude that it may not. The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals. It forbids the creation of second-class citizens. In reaching our conclusion we have given full deference to the arguments made by the Commonwealth. But it has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples.
We construe civil marriage to mean the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others. This reformulation redresses the plaintiffs' constitutional injury and furthers the aim of marriage to promote stable, exclusive relationships. It advances the two legitimate State interests the department has identified: providing a stable setting for child rearing and conserving State resources. It leaves intact the Legislature's broad discretion to regulate marriage. See Commonwealth v. Stowell, 389 Mass. 171, 175 (1983). In their complaint the plaintiffs request only a declaration that their exclusion and the exclusion of other qualified same-sex couples from access to civil marriage violates Massachusetts law. We declare that barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution. We vacate the summary judgment for the department. We remand this case to the Superior Court for entry of judgment consistent with this opinion. Entry of judgment shall be stayed for 180 days to permit the Legislature to take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion. See, e.g., Michaud v. Sheriff of Essex County, 390 Mass. 523, 535-536 (1983).
So ordered.
So, basically, what we're looking at is 180 days for the Legislature to do something that doesn't consist of banning gay marriage outright. The only way to do THAT is a constitutional amendment, and that won't be happening any time soon - thank GOD for Tom Birmingham, the ex-president of the State Senate, who oversaw the state Constitutional Convention for most of the last few years. For an amendment to make it to the ballot, it's got to get approved by the convention twice, if I remember correctly, in two consecutive legislative sessions. Birmingham refused to let an anti-gay marriage amendment come to the floor, guaranteeing that it can't hit ballots until at least 2006. I've seen suggestions that it might not be able to make it until 2008 - the deadline for submitting the needed petitions (with lots and lots of citizen signatures - I forget the exact number) for an amendment to be considered for 2006 was August of this year. So while Mitt Romney is covering his right-wing ass by threatening to veto any legislation allowing gay marriage, he's not going to be able to do much beyond that. It is true that the Mass. legislature, especially on the House side, is ridiculously conservative, especially in comparison to the electorate as a whole, thanks to the cronyism and machine politics of Tom (screw you!) Finneran, but the SJC has basically ordered them to do SOMETHING to ameliorate this violation of gay couples' rights. Sadly, I doubt we'll see full-on marriages, at least not in name, but I'm betting we'll see civil unions with EVERY right that marriages have, just a different name. While that's not enough, it's enough for right now, especially since this gives ammunition to the rightist culture warriors. From that perspective, the important thing is to get a bill that Romney HAS to sign - get a Republican governor's name on it and we've gone a long towards defanging Rove.
Interesting stat I came across while reading into all this - Massachusetts is tied for the second highest percentage of gay households in the country, at 1.3%, behind California at 1.4%, and tied with Vermont and New York, also at 1.3%. DC is actually way ahead of everyone, though, at 5.1%. So this is a logical place for this kind of move to occur.
Massachusetts court strikes down ban on same-sex marriage - CNN
I live in the first state in the US to not ban same-sex marriage. Which may not be the same thing as legalizing it, but it'll end up the same thing in the end. As Atrios put it, this is a nuclear bomb in the culture war, and the good guys struck first. It's also worth noting that the Massachusetts marriage statute, in and of itself, says nothing to ban gay marriage - it's non-gender specific in every way. I think it was rewritten in the last few decades to remove man-superior/woman-inferior language. In any case, marriage is never defined as man-woman - so of COURSE gay marriage should be legal, under the definitions used. Anyway - WOO!
EDIT (Feb. 5, 2004) - for more details on the latest ruling by the SJC, slapping down the attempt to substitute civil unions instead, see here and here.
Conrad Black steps downHollinger International chief and Daily Telegraph owner Conrad Black resigns along with other executives.
I'd say "Go back to Canada!" but I don't think they want him either. Black, of course, is just one of many right-wing Canadians to run away to the UK or US, where they're not so far out of the mainstream (or in the case of the US, sadly well placed IN the mainstream). Black has always reminded me of the Canadian uber-expat, Lord Beaverbrook, another nutty right-wing newspaper publisher who ended up in London, and was, if I remember correctly, a major supporter of Churchill. And he had a REALLY silly title.
BTW, while I'm thinking of Canada and politics, Canadian history is a lot more interesting than you'd think it would be.
Well, not that bad now, but they derailed my day's plans. I got into San Francisco by 8:30, and took a cable car up California St - up the big hill. Then, I walked up Van Ness to the shore of the bay, then over to Fisherman's Wharf, and then along the Embarcadero all the way back down to California St and the BART station. I didn't PLAN to walk all the way back - but it turned out that you need exact change to take the Muni, so I had no choice but to walk. Ah well. Only problem is that I broke out a blister or two...ow. So I headed back to the hotel at around 1 or 1:30. I had a great walk, though - saw a great vision of the Golden Gate Bridge emerging from the fog, looked out on Alcatraz, toured the ships they've got tied up alongside the pier at the San Francisco National Historical Park...I even waded at the beach, just for a minute, just to be able to say that I'd been in the Pacific Ocean. I had a great lunch, fish and chips at a nice small place on the wharf. I was a good boyfriend - picked up some chocolate at Ghiradelli's for Arwen. I also got her a little something else, but she might read this, so I'm not telling. =) Got Mom some solid brass lighthouse-shaped salt and pepper shakers...she collects 'em. Not lighthouse-specific, salt and pepper shakers in general. Anyway...I was going to head over to Berkeley for the afternoon, but there was no way I was going to do much walking. But it was a good day. Tomorrow, I'm worried about, though...
I'm sitting in my hotel in Milpitas, CA, as we speak. They've got mountains here. They're just outside my window. I'm a little dazed right now - being awake for 12 hours already when it isn't even 1pm yet (I know, I know, timezones...) is a little disconcerting. My neck hurts, too, from looking out the window for at least half the flight. Anyway - I wrote a bunch while in transit, and it's in the extended body of this entry. I need food now, so I'll write more later...
11/15/03 - 5:38am EST
I’m sitting at the gate now – nice and easy. Of course, I got lost at least twice trying to find the economy parking lot, which turned out to be about half a mile away from anything else. But hey, it’s cheap parking. Then again, I’m not paying for my parking, so maybe that was a mistake. Ah well. Frugality and all that.
If you take out the time I spent driving around confused, I’d say it didn’t take me more than 45 minutes to get to the airport. Probably less, actually. Not bad at all…of course, I could never duplicate that kind of performance during daylight, but that’s fine – I just need to make sure, if I ever fly out of Logan again, that I’ve got a 7am flight. The ticket counter was cake – thank you, etickets! – and security was quick, too. Coming home, though, it’ll be a lot uglier – 11:00am flight out of SFO on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Ouch. I’m going to aim to get there by 9am at the latest, which probably will mean leaving my hotel by 7:30, since I’ll have to get to the car rental place, etc… Still, at least I won’t have to wake up at 4am.
Or should I say 1am? I’m trying to figure out when I should switch my pager/cellphone/computer to West Coast time…if I switched now, I’d be completely disoriented and mildly frightened, since it would magically turn back from 5:45am to a painful 2:45am. Eep. I’m tending towards flipping the switch at 10am EST – that’s about halfway through the flight, and will put me at 7am PST, which seems like something I could psychologically handle…just don’t remind me that that’ll be 6 hours after I woke up, and I’ll be fine. Like I said, eep.
Alright, that’s it for now. I’m going to eat a bagel and read some. Boarding starts at 6:30am, and I’ll be among the first in – I’m in row 27. Window seat, thank God. I’ll write more once I’m on board…
11/15/03 – 9:38am EST
Hey, I didn’t even realize that it was exactly four hours after I started the first entry. Huh. Anyway – I’m in mid-air now, somewhere over the upper Midwest, I think – it got cloudy somewhere Lake Ontario, though I’m pretty sure I could pick out Lake Michigan a while later. I was hoping that I’d get to see Niagara Falls, but I was on the wrong side of the plane, AND it got cloudy before we reached it. That’s a shame – I’d imagine it’s pretty nifty looking from 30,000 feet up. Hopefully it’ll clear up before we make it to the Rockies – I’d really like to see THAT.
I just had an idea – while I’m in SJ, I think I’m going to pick up a GPS unit. Nothing too flashy, just something that’ll give me a sense of where I am. I’d get a lot of entertainment out of it on long flights like this one, or my forthcoming trip to Prague in March. When I’ve flown to London in the past, I’ve always wondered where we were – not just in terms of how long it would take to get to the landing, but where we actually WERE. I’ve always gotten a kick out of geography, and I remember being really excited as a 6th grader, when I first went to the UK, when I realized that my airplane was going to be crossing the airspace of Canada, Greeland, Iceland, and Ireland, in addition to the UK. I wanted to claim that I’d therefore been in those countries, too, but my mom pointed out that that was a little silly. Regardless, I get a kick out of it, and isn’t that enough? On the Prague trip, we’re going to have a layover in Frankfurt – and I AM going to claim to have been in Germany, just as I’m willing to say I’ve been in Georgia, even though my stay consisted of a miserable couple hours of waiting for a late connecting flight back to Boston from Florida with my high school marching band. So there! Anyway – a GPS would let me know where I am right *now* which would be cool. They’ve got PCMCIA GPS units, right?
Gotta say – it’s weird to have the laptop fully functioning but no Internet access. That doesn’t happen to me very often – even when Mom and I went to London last year, I dialed in from the hotel once or twice a day. I’ve had some form of email since I was about 10 or 11, when Dad got a subscription to Prodigy. I was hooked on Mad Maze at first (which I’ve written about before – I’ll dig up the link when I’m back online), but as time went on, I got more involved with the bulletin boards, writing about David Eddings and Star Wars, mainly. Then Prodigy started trying to charge for bulletin board use, so we went “underground”, using spare accounts to communicate, sending email from the account back to itself - each main account had a number of free sub-accounts – for example, my dad had WBPK62A, or something like that, so my account was WBPK62B, my sister’s was WBPK62C, etc.. We shared passwords for our spare accounts, so that we could all login and read the mail in the inbox. Anyway…I’ve had email more or less continuously since that point – minus the times when my parents tried to coerce better school performance out of me by banning modem use, which I got around by dialing in from school during lunch.
I guess I’m the first generation of the omnipresent computer and the omnipresent network. I made long-term friends over Prodigy, and ended up even going to the wedding of two of them – weird, weird event, that. I’m still in touch with a few people, and in very regular, close contact with one of them, who I only met in person for the first time July 4th, 2002 in DC, even though I’ve known Brad for…13 years or so? Of course, I’m not allowed to give you his full name, since he has political ambitions and is afraid of getting painted as a geek for his decade of close involvement with an online Star Wars-based role playing game. =) I doubt it’d actually hurt him, at least in terms of popular perception, at least down the road. I mean, I’m a geek, sure. If I’d been a kid in the ‘50s instead, I’d’ve probably played with build-it-yourself radio kits and model trains instead of computers. But my little sister, Joanna, isn’t a geek like I am. She’s an intellectual, sure, and a bit weird, but she’s not a gadget person. She’s deeply into comparative religion, art history, the classical world, and so on…and she knows computers about as well as I do. She just LIVES them.
Generation Y, or whatever they’re called now, is like that, or at least the middle-to-upper class sections of it. The entire generation is like that with cellphones, video game consoles, web-based email…you name it. I remember reading somewhere that today’s kids have been shown, on average, to have far more dexterity in their thumbs than previous generations, due to video games, punching text messages in on cellphones, etc… It’s not that we’re all becoming geeks – it’s that what used to define geeky is no longer restricted to just that one section of the population. I’ve read enough about the geeking of America – there was an article at Salon a month or two ago, wondering if innovation in Silicon Valley and other tech centers might be hurt by it. But I don’t buy it. There are just as many geeks, and they’ll continue to find the outside, the cutting edge of what’s strange and weird and nifty. They’ll keep getting beat up in high school, sadly, but they’ll persevere, ‘cos they always have. If the rest of the country starts to pick up aspects of geek culture, that’ll just prompt the geeks to find something new. It’s not your interests that determine whether you’re a geek or not – it’s your personality.
Ok, that’s a LOT of writing – a page and a half in Word, in fact. It’s just hit 10:00am EST, so I’m resetting all my clocks back to PST – I’m now back where we started the flight, at 7am. I might write more before landing, but I tend to doubt. I’ve been reading a pretty fun book – Mitchell Freedman’s A Disturbance of Fate, an alternate history of a world where RFK wasn’t killed by Sirhan Sirhan. It’s pretty fun indeed – it’s not like Turtledove’s alternate wars, Stirling’s romping British India adventure yarn in (title?), or even Kim Stanley Robinson’s sometimes mind-blowing European-less epic of reincarnation, The Years of Rice and Salt. It’s almost like a straight history book, slightly akin to the What If? series, which I’m addicted to, but with plausible dialogue. It’s obviously left-liberal, as its author’s beliefs bleed through pretty clearly – for example, in his world, Rennie Davis runs the Peace Corps for President Robert Kennedy, and Tom Hayden is anointed Mayor Daley’s successor by the Mayor himself – but it’s an alternate history of RFK – what else would you expect? Finding historical figures and seeing what Freedman does with them is a lot of fun, and his detailed footnotes help you get an idea of where the divergence points are. So yeah, I’m gonna get back to reading that, and give my battery pack a rest. =)
11/15/03 – 8:54am PST
Ok, lemme see here – if it’s 8:54am PST now, then it’s 11:54am EST. Which means that I haven’t been that long between entries after all. I just felt a need to write something about the landscape...before today, I’d never been farther west than Lawrence, Kansas, and had never flown west of Chicago. I’ve seen pictures of the West, but I’ve never SEEN it, y’know? Well, the skies cleared up somewhere over the Dakotas, I think it was. It sure looked like something that could be called “Badlands” – brown, riddled with the paths water took years ago or maybe during floods, but not normally, with the partially-snowed over rectangular fields scattered around the only sign of human habitation. Even the rivers looked strange, curving back on themselves, digging canyons. Honestly, it blew me away. I’ve never seen anything like it – I’m used to the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, and the area between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. Florida seemed kind of strange to me when I first flew there, but it’s just flat. This…damn. The pilot said that we could see Devil’s Tower to the right, my side of the plain, and I think maybe I saw it – but I’m not sure. The terrain alternated between barren and rugged, and barren and flat. Once in a while, we’d pass over a clustered swatch of forested hills, which just made the absence of trees (or at least conifers) in the rest of the area more glaring.
Well, I woke up at 3:30am, with my mom's assistance - a quick phone call to help with the alarm clocks. I'll be heading out the door by 4:15am, driving to the airport for the 7am flight. I'm ready - I made a list, I checked it twice, yadda, yadda. I'm nervous, sure, but I know I'll be fine. I've got approximately 5,000 pages of reading - about half unread, about half familiar. My throat feels a little messed up, but I think that's just a combination of nerves, waking up at 3:30am (though I did fall asleep by 9:30pm or so), and the fact that it's really freakin' cold and dry in my apartment. Anyway - if there's a hotspot at Logan, I'll post from there. Otherwise, you'll likely next hear from me once I've settled into my room in San Jose. 'til then!
One blogger is worth ten votes - Harvard manEmergent marketing aids suggestions welcome
Normally, Andrew Orlowski is a dickhead, but here, he's going after my favorite dickhead - Dave Winer.
Normally we avoid ten-a-penny Internet cranks. The gaffe-prone former software developer has put his foot in his mouth so many times it probably qualifies for a residential parking permit.
tee-hee! Basically, this is making fun of Winer for his ludicrous claim that a voter with a weblog is ten times more powerful than a voter without a weblog - previously taunted by me here. Orlowski's still a dickhead without much to say other than nastiness and bitterness, but he's dead on in trashing Winer's goofy and self-promoting politics-and-blogs assertions.
I've got a problem with anxiety. Typically, it manifests in the stomach, which is really, really annoying. But sometimes, it manifests in the chest - tightening of the chest, yadda, yadda. That's actually what got me to quit smoking - I kept feeling like I was having a heart attack or somesuch, and since I'm a hypochondriac, it would just get worse...quitting smoking almost completely eliminated THAT problem. But it's back now. I'm 100% sure it's about the trip to San Jose. I know, I know, there's nothing for me to panic about, but that's not stopping me from panicking. =) This is the longest I'll have been away from SOME home (dorm, apartment, parents' houses) since I was...15? 14? Something like that. Definitely the first time I've had to fend for myself on a trip like this. So I'm scared that I'm going to forget something important...
I've got an e-ticket, so that just means I need to show up and provide ID, right? I booked the trip through Cisco's internal travel service, and didn't get a receipt in email like I have the other times I've booked travel for myself online. I know my seat number. I'll be fine, right? Right?
I'm prepared on the books, like I mentioned earlier. I'm going to almost certainly bring way more than I need, but I'm willing to carry 'em, so hey, right? I found myself vaguelly considering bringing my X-Box, but then I realized that that was stupid. I've got broadband in the hotel room, so it's not like I'm going to run out of things to do.
I think I'm set on the toiletries front. I haven't gone out and gotten any of it yet, but I will be in a couple hours. I know you can't bring nail clippers in the cabin of a plane, but it's not a problem to pack it in your suitcase, right? And I need a lock for the suitcase - it's got two, but Mom doesn't know where she put the keys for 'em, and she's moving tomorrow, so there's no chance of me getting them in time.
Yeah, like I said, I'm panicking. But all will be will well. Right?
My Name is Wendell and I'm a TiVoHolic"Wow! I have a lot of shows to watch... Will I ever catch up?� Reuters reports on TiVo addiction, and it's tonight's #1 story on Keith Olbermann's Countdown, a news show with less viewers than TiVo has owners. When they put up a transcript, it'll be in here. Still, Keith asked one very good question: "Is it just part of the inevitable pattern of technology that everything starts as a luxury, becomes a necessity and finally becomes something for which we need therapy?" (I was able to do my own transcription because... I got it on my TiVo!)
I had to delete most of a week's worth of scheduled TiVo recordings, since I won't be here for a week. It felt dirty and wrong. I keep things under control, generally - I've got a few movies sitting on the TiVo that I've been meaning to watch with Arwen for months (most notably Raise The Red Lantern), but by and large, I get through things quickly. The problem is that I only have 40gb of space, so I can't record that much...hence clearing space for next week.
Seen while watching the 30 hour marathon of Republican whining over their four bad, bad judicial nominees (with 168 confirmed, mind you!) - Sen. Kyl of Arizona sez: "Up til now, no one has ever used it [the filibuster] to stop executive business [nominations]". Oh, really? In 1968, Senate Republicans used a filibuster to keep Abe Fortas from being confirmed as Chief Justice.
And now Barbara Boxer has become my favorite person in the world by making fun of the Republicans for whining (her word!) about 2% of their nominees getting blocked, with nifty big graphics showing how many more Clinton nominees got blocked, etc... Screw you, Republicans!
EDIT: Barbara strikes again! She ended her 15 minutes by proving a point: she proposed bringing a bill raising the minimum wage to a vote and it was objected to by a Republican. Sweet. And Charles SCHUMER~! is kicking ASS~! He's got a CHART of filibustered judges, and a big replica of a front page of the New York Times from '68 on the Fortas filibuster. And then he made a snarky comment about the New York Times being a liberal front...heh. WOO! Now he's busting out the Senate web page on the Fortas filibuster, the very one I just found a few minutes ago...sweeeeeeet. I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep, since I'm going to want to watch this at least 'til the Republicans get back the mic...
In case you happen to be looking at the blog while the listening to list looks like it does right now...yes, I am the last human being on the planet who listens to The Prodigy. I like 'em. Gets me through pissed off days at work very well. And yes, today is very definitely a pissed off day at work...only good thing is that I'm leaving in a couple minutes to pick up a perscription.
And while I'm thinking of it - what do I need to get my hands on for the trip? That is, what essential crap am I going to forget to bring with me if someone doesn't tell me first? This is my first long trip in...well, a really, really long time. I know I need toothpaste, dental floss, my toothbrush, deoderant, my razor, shampoo, something to hold all the toiletries in, clothes hangers... Do I need an alarm clock/radio, or will there be one in my hotel room? What am I missing?
So yeah, I'm goin' out west on Saturday, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my non-work time in San Jose. I've got a massive array of books -
From a CNN article on security issues with Bush's trip to London:
The Stop The War Coalition, which is organizing a series of demonstrations during Bush's visit, said it would demand the right to march through the center of the capital as part of a protest that could attract more than 100,000 people.
The group says it has been told privately by senior police officers that a decision to ban the marchers from some parts of London followed pressure from the White House not to have people protesting near Bush.
"It is an outrage that the most unwelcome guest this country has ever received will be given the freedom of the streets, while a movement that represents majority opinion is denied the right to protest in the area which is the heart of government," said Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition.
The Times newspaper reported Wednesday that U.S. and UK authorities also are in disagreement over how many armed Secret Service agents can travel with Bush and whether they will be immune from prosecution if they fire their weapons.
The Times quoted unnamed senior British police officials as saying U.S. officials fear al Qaeda terrorists will use any chaos caused by street protests as cover to launch a suicide attack against Bush.
Quote of the Day"If I saw someone burning the flag, I'd punch them in the mouth because I love the flag, but the Constitution that I fought for preserves the right of free expression." -- Sen. John Kerry, as quoted by the Arizona Republic, showing a "possible hint of new aggressiveness." Kerry was...
I'll admit it, I was trying to ignore all this, since Clark got really stupid and endorsed a flag burning amendment. I'm hoping to God that it just blows over and Clark backs down - honestly, this is just about a make-or-break issue for me. But Kerry's quote is dead f'n on. Well, ok, I don't love the flag at all - I consider it an empty symbol, stolen by right-wingers and stripped of all positive meaning - but the very idea of making it illegal to burn the flag turns my stomach. That's just about as anti-American as you can get.
