I Need Your Lovin' (Album Version) - Teena Marie /
You're the First, the Last, My Everything - Barry White /
Dance to Dance - Gino Soccio /
One More Minute (Single Version) - Saint Tropez /
Rumour Has It - Donna Summer /
Star Fire - The Sylvers /
Woman - Barrabas /
You Know How to Love Me - Phyllis Hyman /
Subway - Bee Gees /
The Boss - Diana Ross /
You Keep Me Dancing - Samantha Sang /
You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else - The Jones Girls /
Native New Yorker - Odyssey /
One of them said, “Obama keep your promise." I thought that’s fair. I don’t know which promise he was talking about.Many thought Mr. Obama was mocking the gay and lesbian community just days after the California Supreme Court ruled that Prop 8 would stand.
May Obama follow in the footsteps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!Today's Santorum also goes to the idiot at the paper's classified desk who, according to the paper's publisher, "didn’t recognize the significance of the names."
It was one thing when we found out that super-religious governor Palin was letting Bristol’s hunkface beef accessory Levi nail her daughter more or less regularly under the family roof. It was another when we found out that the governor’s sister-in-law got popped for a B&E while her little daughter was waiting outside in the car. And it was still another thing when we found out that Levi’s Mom was going to eat a bust for dealing Oxycontin (and there’s apparently a lot behind the governor’s interest in that story). For the most part, none of this stuff is any of our business — we all have family members with issues, although mine tend to leave their kids at home when they go out to commit burglaries to support their drug habits.
But this abstinence thing with Bristol, to me, is just too much. This sort of thing always grosses me out: this country has way too many people who do stuff like this, dragging their helpless minor kids with them on national media tours or publishing lengthy parenting memoirs in which their unwitting babies play starring roles as props in Mom’s narcissistic fantasies. But this goes even beyond that. This poor little kid is going to grow up someday and find out she’s been brand-marketed to the human species by Madison Avenue as The Great Mistake. Bristol’s quote about how girls need to close their eyes and imagine spending the rest of their lives with a screaming baby before they have sex — her daughter is someday going to cough that line up, through sobs, in her fourth or fifth year of very expensive therapy. If this little kid isn’t hooked on black baggy clothes and cutting by age 11 I’ll be shocked.
Engineers now predict the day will come when we all get our newspapers and magazines by home computer, but that's a few years off.
So, will anyone be sleeping better tonight? Those full of hate and fear will surely be disappointed that 18,000 same sex couples will be living in wedded bliss, kissing their spouses goodnight, checking off those little "married" boxes on all those forms we fill out nowadays. That’s really going to drive them crazy. Then there are those of us like me who still dangle in "domestic partnership." We can adopt our own children, but we can’t bring our partners who might be citizens from out of the country, here. We can’t file joint tax returns. I could go on. Who will be happy tonight? How do I explain this to my children? Well, you know Ellen? She is married but Mommy and I are not. That is liberty and justice for all? I am hopeful as I see more and more states turn to the inevitable future of equality, California will get there. Change takes time.Marriage equality's staunchest (and earliest) advocate, Andrew Sullivan:
Politically, this seems to me the perfect decision. It would have been dreadful if voters were retroactively told their valid vote was somehow null and void - it would have felt like a bait and switch and provoked a horrible backlash.One of Sullivan's readers (a legal expert of some sort):
It would have been equally dreadful if those couples lawfully wed were subsequently forced into divorce by the court. And these married couples and their families and children will now become the focus of the debate in California, as they should be. They are the evidence that we are right: that extending the blessings and responsibilities of full family life to gay men and lesbians is a good and conservative and integrating thing. We need now to put these families forward as our core argument. Their lives are our best case. Like mixed-race married couples in another era, they will show that there is nothing to fear here and much to celebrate.
Being able to lay claim to the word "marriage" is important, but in all other respects this appears to be a spectacular decision in favor of gay rights.Expanding on the same line of thought, Seneca Doane:
The decision leaves intact the holding of the Marriage Cases that gays have the fundamental "right to marry" under the California constitution, now and in the future; but unless and until the California constitution is again amended to the contrary, such unions cannot be called marriage.
Opponents of gay civil union rights could try another ballot initiative to expressly amend the constitution to ban such rights, but under the Court's ruling, that proposed amendment would have to ban such rights expressly to be effective. The Court's opinion makes clear that generally, amendments will not be interpreted to repeal constitutional rights by implication. The disfavor of repeal by implication is a longstanding legal principle, and the Court's use of it here is a deft way of sending this issue back to the political process while upholding gay civil union rights for the foreseeable future. Under this approach by the Court, opponents of gay civil union rights would have to word any future proposed amendments in such a way as to expressly ban gay civil union rights, and as a result, their ability to secure a sufficient number of petition signatures to get the amendment on the ballot, and then a majority of votes at the polls, will be all the more difficult.
This is a very, very good day for the cause of gay marriage rights.
...if you look at who won and who lost today, we lost something emotionally important and our opponents, the people who paid for Prop 8, lost almost everything of substance. In time, they will realize that the battle was really over In re Marriage Cases, and they got their butts kicked.Pete:
So, while I'm disappointed, I'm no longer outraged. It's hard to be outraged when a unanimous California Supreme Court just reiterated that California law gives every couple regardless of gender the fundamental right to be married in fact, even if voters have messed with the labels. Our opponents lost more today than we did.
The once-great St8 of California now is not only in the toilet financially but more importantly is outshone in commitment to justice and equality by Iowa, Vermont and the other states which have moved on from h8red and bigotry.
Too bad that 6 so-called Supreme Justices put their comfortable blinders on when making their historic-for-all-the-wrong reasons decision. They’ve just Dred-Scott-ed this state and the implications are not good for anyone.
...you ought to have a little more respect for the men and women who are corrections officers and put their lives on the line every single day to keep us safe and to make sure that those who are dangerous are detained and incarcerated. The reality is that we’re holding some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world right now in our federal prisons, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the shoe bomber, the Unibomber, and many others.Josh Marshall expands on that thought:
C'mon! I'm assuming these guys aren't going to be deposited at the county jail in Baltimore or Baton Rouge. We've got an incredibly secure and incredibly hellish Super Max facility in Florence, Colorado. And it seems clear that that's where these guys would end up. (That's where Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, now resides, along with a bunch of other high-profile terrorists.) So can't we at least stop [senators] from Texas and Idaho from pretending these guys are coming to their state?Chicken shits, all ninety of 'em.
It's hard out there for a Chloe...
Thor cools himself in the shade while Chloe suns herself...
Another big "thank you" to L & T! You guys rock.
No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions.-NY Times columnist Frank Rich, on why he thinks there needs to be full disclosure on the crimes of the Bush administration.
...the 9/11 investigation did illuminate how, a month after Bush received an intelligence brief titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," 3,000 Americans were slaughtered on his and Cheney’s watch. If the Obama administration really wants to move on from the dark Bush era, it will need a new commission, backed up by serious law enforcement, to shed light on where every body is buried.
When the World Is Running Down - The Police(Play button photo, courtesy of Mayitaazul.)
Give the Drummer Some - Nickodemus
Stoned, Pt. 1 - Lewis Taylor
As I Went Out One Morning - Mira Billotte
I'll Be Around - The Spinners
Tighten Up - The Bamboos
1,000 Miles - Blake Lewis
Of Moons, Birds, and Monsters - MGMT
Hometown Glory - Adele
Feel Good, Inc. - Skye Edwards
How Was I To Know? - M.E.G.
17 Again - Eurythmics
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Quote of the Day:There's been so much written about and spoken about in the mainstream media and in that anonymous blogosphere world also, that this will be a wonderful, refreshing chance for me, you know, to get to tell my story, that a lot of people have asked about, unfiltered.-Sarah Palin, the 2008 farcical Republican vice-presidential candidate, announcing that she is...drum roll please...writing a book.
Also, being a voracious reader, I read a lot today you know and have read a lot growing up. And having that journalism degree there, all of that, will be a great assistance for me in writin' this book, talkin' about the challenges and the joys, balancing the work and parenting...Pardon me, Gov. Palin, while I channel Katie Couric, but...tell us...exactly what books have you read recently. Come on! Name just one.
I like Jeb. I think he's a good man. I'd like to see him continue to stay involved politically...I'd probably support him for president.As if we needed any more proof that his party is so far out of touch with the American people!
The letter reads:Sandy -The President's National Security Adviser was on one of the Sunday talk shows this past weekend hinting that repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell might not take place in the first term. That is unacceptable, and gay, lesbian, and straight Americans should hold Mr. Obama to the promise he made to Lt. Tsao.
Thanks for the wonderful and thoughtful letter. It is because of outstanding Americans like you that I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete (partly because it needs Congressional action) I intend to fulfill my commitment.
Barack Obama
According to a couple of sources in the know, there appears to be a working short list of about six names for President Obama’s Supreme Court pick. The co-frontrunners (in no particular order): Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals...Five are women; one’s Hispanic; one’s male; and all are in their late 40s or early 50s, except two (Wood, 58, and Garland, 56)...For this pick, it would be surprising if Obama named someone he didn't either know well or trust personally. Wood, Kagan, and Napolitano all fit this bill (Wood taught at the University of Chicago with Obama, and Kagan and Napolitano already have top slots in the administration)...people familiar with the president's thinking [say] he's been as impressed with Napolitano as anyone in his cabinet. They click. That matters...Then again, maybe the President will surprise us all with a pick not named on this short list.
"Joe" the "Plumber" has left the Republican Party. Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he’s so outraged by GOP overspending, he’s quitting the party — and he’s the bull’s-eye of its target audience, the article says.And here I thought the GOP were going to run Mr. Plumber for something.
Mr. The Plumber has been a figurehead among Republican activists since last October, when a chance encounter with Barack Obama and the active promotion by McCain campaign turned him into the face of blue-collar conservatism. If he’s not willing to call himself a Republican, they’re really in trouble.
He also said he wouldn’t support any cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid — which, along with debt payments, would put more than two-thirds of the budget off limits.
Get Used to It
Brand New Heavies
Ghetto
Supreme Beings of Leisure
Postales
Federico Aubuele
The Power
Cher
What It Feels Like For a Girl
Madonna
Undress Me Now
Morcheeba
Beautiful Awkward Pictures
Toni Collette
Talkin' to My Heart
Fleetwood Mac
Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley
Robert Palmer
Lose That Girl
Saint Etienne
Fight For Love
Elliott Yamin
Chicago Song
David Sanborn
The governor there signed the bill that made marriage equal in the State.
Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills football player, United States congressman, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the first President Bush, as well as the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1996, died today after a battle with cancer. He was 73.
I had to do it twice, so now everyone has to do it twice.-President Obama, making a funny at the ceremonial swearing-in of Gary Locke and Kathleen Sebelius, who had both already been sworn in.
1. This will not change the balance of the court all that much. As I said, Souter is a left of center jurist and it is assumed President Obama will appoint someone of the same philosophy.
2. Confirmation hearings will be interesting. With 60 members in the Senate (assuming Al Franken gets seated before a nominee is named), the Democrats have the votes to stop any Republican filibuster IF Senate leaders are able to keep conservative Democrats from balking at whoever Mr. Obama nominates.
