Ironically, by overreaching with the state marriage amendments, the right wing may have provided the gay movement and progressives with an ideal starting point for just such a campaign. By showing the sheer number of households affected by such broad constitutional amendments, progressives can demonstrate just how narrow and extremist the pro-marriage agenda is. Defense of marriage amendments not only enshrine discrimination against gays and lesbians in state constitutions; they also severely curtail the freedom of intimate association exercised by Americans in nonmarried households–gay and straight alike. Indeed, a recent decision by a federal judge striking down Nebraska’s defense of…
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I ran across the following via Neat New Stuff: Are rescue workers in your town trained to deal with car crashes that involve hybrid cars? These new “green” cars could endanger untrained rescue workers if they unknowingly cut through electrical lines that could still be hot. A couple of interesting links: 500-volt hybrid vehicles pose electrocution risk to emergency workers A State Farm article, and eventually a link to a safety video is here. We’re enjoying driving the Ford Escape Hybrid, but it’s true that your typical EMT or rescue personnel won’t know very much about the risks and techniques…
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Adrian Paul to executive produce Highlander 5 The Highlander fan list, HIGHLA-L, has been batting this dead pony around in a desultory way for a couple of weeks now. Actually, discussion has been revitalized in the last month, with actual stuff to discuss, whether on-topic or not. It’s been nice to see some old friends ride up on their trusty steeds (which can be any sort of mammal, not excluding cows, ferrets, and wombats). However, the Dead Pony Regiment has been having the most fun pooh-poohing the thought of another Highlander movie sequel, because they’re sure it’ll be screwed up.…
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A co-worker who’s trying to fly United today is stuck at O’Hare because she was told she’d checked in juuuuust a couple of minutes too late to check baggage and was bumped from her flight. Then she was told that the next flight she was standing by for was oversold, but the airline is putting 20 flight attendants and pilots on in full uniform so they can go to Denver (her destination). A UA res person I spoke to just now was extremely tactful and careful about how she worded it, but the flight ops record is tagged that employees…
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Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has resigned. I just happened to have an NPR webcast on and heard the Resident’s statement. And Justice Rehnquist is stepping down any time now, too. The climate in this country is going to get remarkably stormy and dangerous for women whose birth control method fails them. Thank God I got the snip, and I’m probably already past it anyway. But thank God. I’ve already stopped by the NARAL Pro-Choice America website. They’re asking for people to contact our senators. If you have a story to tell, there’s a website called I’m Not Sorry. It seems…
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An entire month of festivities has begun in an annual festival designed to remind the humble employees that we are a valuable part of the company. It’s fairly innocuous, rah-rah stuff, with treats and events most days. And special dress-up fun, too. It’s all in good fun and only coincidentally it runs the entire month before the company-wide employee survey, which is important in our world because some management ratings are based on it. Today we were supposed to show up in company logowear. We’ve been given a variety of freebie shirts over the years, so I dragged the first…
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Columnist Dan Froomkin noted that it was possible to do a word search on messages posted at Americasupportsyou.mil, and wondered if certain words were more likely to show up in a search than others. A participant in his Live Online chat today obliged with an interesting list of searches: White House Talk: Dan Froomkin Douglassville, PaRe: americasupportsyou.mil Keyword search: pray – 9,425 god – 5,488 Christian – 96 Islam / Muslim – 4 Republican – 46 Democrat – 18 media – 230 democracy – 137 Interesting results. Dan Froomkin: Fabulous. Thanks. Other word searches are encouraged. Some attendees obviously think…
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Leaders from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths have urged Tony Blair to play “the fullest part” in helping the world’s poorest countries. The prime minister must use the UK’s G8 presidency to help “halve extreme poverty”, they say in a letter. The G8 leaders must cancel the debt of the poorest nations, they add. The letter is from by the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, the Chief Rabbi, the Council of Mosques and Imams chair and the Free Churches head. Now that’s what I call ecumenicalism in action. There’s actually hope they’ll succeed, too.
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So the big question about Bush’s address on Iraq tomorrow night is whether he will come to the podium equipped with a speech that addresses the mounting concerns of the American people — or whether he will simply roll out a repackaging of the talking points that contributed to the disconnect in the first place. What is “audio-animatronic?” See? That was an easy one. Fortunately, the Resident is a Pod People. So he never lacks for tunes… or text.
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Saturday dawned warm, hazy, and humid, but off to the Morton Arboretum we went to see a performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. If you’re not familiar with this play, it’s the one where girl meets boy, boy likes girl, boy runs off into exile into the woods, girl runs off into exile into the woods but dresses as a boy, boy meets “boy” and is tricked into “pretending” he’s wooing the girl so that he can be cured. Sundry rustic bumpkins and foppish courtiers intrude, and we get the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech from one…