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Only took 32 years and a civil rights movement happening to coincide with it, but some of my work is finally in print, sorta. The Stranger used three of my photos November 20, 2008 edition, on the “Anatomy of a Protest” (click for the online version) article on page 16. It’s in the free news boxes now all over the Seattle metro area, and the photos are from my Prop 8 Seattle protest photos. Silly little thing, but it made me happy.
How is it my home state gets things right, while California gets it so wrong? Did the church money overlook Connecticut?
“It shows me that public opinion is really changing,” said Robin Levine-Ritterman, the first in line at City Hall in New Haven to get a marriage license with her partner of 17 years, Barbara, who already shares the same last name as a result of their prior civil union, as she clutched red roses.
The official start of gay weddings, a month after the state’s top court struck down a gay-marriage ban, underscores a steady expansion of gay rights in the U.S. Northeast in sharp contrast to California’s November 4 vote to ban such marriages, which sparked weekend protests by thousands.
Government by proposition, referendum, and initiative is great up to a point–but sometimes you need a neutral and bipartisan judiciary to tell the people crafting illegal and unconstitutional laws, well, when they’re crafting illegal and unconstitutional laws.
How does this work? The Church moved to import millions (tens of millions?) of advertising dollars across state lines from Utah to California to ensure Proposition 8 and the banning of marriage rights for same-sex couples passed, and they’re upset now that others are using their free speech rights to protest the free speech that the Church used. That’s only extremely hypocritical, boys. Did the Churches honestly think they were exempt from scrutiny and criticism here…?
It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election.
Members of the Church in California and millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation who voted for Proposition 8 exercised the most sacrosanct and individual rights in the United States - that of free expression and voting.
While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.
The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
This is lovely. I can see the value of not naming to the general public which banks are receiving the money–it would be an invitation to have runs begin on those banks. But to refuse to name them to lawmakers, who need to know these things? And to refuse to name non-banking institutions that received the public money? Uh uh, no way. The Bush administration again oversteps it’s bounds, and provides further demonstration of how they run America as a tinpot dictatorship.
In case you somehow haven’t heard this yet, Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was convicted today on seven counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in improper gifts. The reporting oversight was blamed on a series of tubes getting clogged.
read more | digg story
Russert was one of the good ones, and one of the very, very, very, very few political correspondents I actually paid attention to.
From Digg. Why are we in Iraq, again? Oh, that’s right: Because Saddam wanted to take a potshot at Georgie’s dad when H.W. was President. Let’s get ‘im, he tried to whack my pappy. Meanwhile… we’re in the wrong country ‘fighting back’: “Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma’s ruling junta has revealed. The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: “Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about.”
read more | digg story
In response to being sued and humiliated on the internet over their “secret website,” Best Buy has added a disclaimer that warns customers that the in-store kiosk doesn’t display the same prices as the public website. Best Buy was caught using a duplicate website to fool customers who tried to compare internet prices with in-store prices.
read more | digg story
Good bye, and good riddance.
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From Digg. Yessir, they’re all about them family values… “Moreover, when Thompson married his first wife, Sarah Lindsey, at Lawrenceburg Methodist Church in 1959, she was already two months pregnant with their first child.”
read more | digg story
Slow news day, I suppose… “She does let her hair down. Once at a party Blacker threw, Condoleezza Rice kicked off her shoes and started dancing. Wanting to show his partner how firm Rice’s behind was, Blacker postulated that if he aimed a quarter at her butt, it would bounce right off like a rocket.”
read more | digg story
“Thank you for calling San Francisco 311, this is Kyle speaking, how may I help you?”
“Yes, there’s a skunk with his head stuck …”
“Hello, how long does it take to build a cable car?”
“There’s cocaine all over my clothes! There’s cocaine everywhere!”
read more | digg story
Screw this, I’m moving to the middle of the Olympic Peninsula with Andi or central Oregon, away from high-value targets. Good lord. Is it November 2008 yet? Can we get this maniac out before he destroys us all?
RENO (Thomson Financial) - US President George W Bush warned today that letting Iran acquire atomic weapons risked putting the Middle East ‘under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.’
‘Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,’ he told a veterans group here.
What a stupid idea: “With warrentless wiretapping sweeping the US, a leading congressman is proposing similar measures for the Internet. This isn’t an attempt at ‘fighting terror’ but instead a new measure to reduce so-called ‘piracy’ by making the ISPs the police force.”
read more | digg story
Awesome! But I’m still waiting for my FLYING DeLorean, ‘k? “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.”
James Espey, VP of DeLorean Motor Company: “Job one will begin the third quarter of this year, with delivery by Q1 of 2008. We’re aiming for $57,500 as the sale price.”
read more | digg story
Mike Wieringo passed away yesterday from a heart attack, at only 44 years old. Story here. Jesus…
“Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here is what matters most: [T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.”
This is really it, then? I wonder who’ll finance and drive the next assault on OSS et al, now that SCO is about to fade, er, burn away…
read more | digg story
The Internets are reporting: “Reports we’re getting in the mail say that some Gmail users have seen their storage bumped to over 9GB today - 9030MB, to be exact. If not a glitch (and why would it be?), it means Google is playing catch-up with Yahoo, which now provides unlimited storage. With no other info, we can only assume the accounts are currently being selected at random.”
read more | digg story
The underage daughter of a presidential candidate had her privacy invaded by an amateur bubbleheaded bimbo but the media then ran with the story. Now the amateur, who broke her own contract with Facebook, has her personal details on the web. Is turn about fair play? I think so.
read more | digg story
Go FRED PHELPS! The gays now have supernatural powers over the tactile strength of poured concrete and steel. Those darned gays! What can’t they do? Yesterday it was desiring equal rights, then it was taking over broadcast television, today it’s clearly the ability to alter the fundamental laws of physics.
Almost enough to make you wish you were gay, innit? Fred, you silly dumbfuck. Please go away.
read more | digg story
An security expert hired by 11 Oklahoma State University students picks apart the testimony of the RIAA’s own expert witness, pointing out the oversimplifications made by the RIAA in its lawsuits against suspected file-sharers. Read the PDF document, it’s awesome. This guy is basically a trusted expert by the FBI, the Secret Service, and he has various National Security Agency certifications, so he likely does undisclosed for them. Toss in little things like a CISSP and being keynote speaker at security conferences…? He outright pwnz the RIAA’s “technical” nonsense on file sharing in this legal document, and it’s awesome.
read more | digg story
Google has been filtering its search results for years, very useful for the Chinese government, and of course content owner representatives like the MPAA and RIAA. According to Google, the filtering of torrents from the search results is a response to the DMCA complaints they receive.
read more | digg story
Brad Fitzpatrick is leaving Livejournal.
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Six Apart/LiveJournal management deletes some Livejournal with fan art of Severus Snape buggering Harry Potter in a borderline pedophile piece of artwork, internet freak-out and cat macro attacks commence over censorship talk. Why do Internet freak-outs and cat macro attacks always happen over SNAPE BUGGERED POTTER, and not over government abuses?
NBC News got clowned at DefCon, Slashdot just reported:
“Dateline NBC allegedly attempted to infiltrate the DefCon hackerfest with a producer using a hidden camera. The show hoped to tape hackers admitting to illegal activities, but DefCon got wind of the plot and displayed the would-be-mole’s photo before every presentation. Dateline refused to deny the planned infiltration. ‘ All journalists covering DefCon sign an agreement upon registering for the conference that outlines the rules, but the DefCon organizers say the mole apparently registered as a regular attendee, thereby bypassing the legal agreement. Dateline NBC is best known for its controversial To Catch A Predator series, which uses hidden cameras to tape men who are allegedly seeking to have sex with minors they met online.”
Serves them right.
“DefCon staff lured her to a large hall telling her that the Spot the Fed contest was in session and that she could get a picture of an undercover federal agent at the contest. When she sat down, Jeff Moss, DefCon’s founder, announced that they were changing the game. Instead of Spot the Fed, they were going to play Spot the Undercover Reporter and then announced, “And there’s one in here right now.” Madigan, realizing she’d been had, jumped from her seat and bolted out the door with reporters carrying cameras chasing after her through the parking lot and to her car.”
