Nerds in costume. Prior to wandering around SF on Hallow E’en’
Oh, wait. There I am before the party started!
There we are. We were marvelous. A good time was had by all.
November 3, 2008
Wife of former 49er Young voting No on Prop. 8
Wife of former 49er Young voting No on Prop. 8
You GO! Steve and Barbara.
Interesting. Has there been any fallout?
Interesting. Has there been any fallout? asks Sour Grapes, in response to my Vote NO on Proposition 8, redux. post.
My answer?
The biggest fallout is Proposition 8.
Attempts to make the anti-marriage-equality stance part of the state Constitution were already in motion after San Francisco authorized gay marriage … only to have those marriages halted and then voided the same year because of the existence of the legal language brought into play by Proposition 22.
San Francisco and other proponents of marriage equality took the matter to court.
Question: Was Proposition 22, passed in 2000, to define marriage as between a man and a woman unconstitutional?
Well, said the anti-marriage-equality wing, even before the judges decided the matter. Let there be no question. Let’s change the Constitution and put the definition of marriage there (instead of in the legal code) and that way it will be constitutional!
But a move to put the Constitution amendment on the ballot had slowed until the Sanders turnabout shocked the right wing of the Republican party. If even a true-blue anti-gay-marriage Republican could change his mind …
The shock of it energized the folks who wanted to put the matter to the voters … again. Proposition 8 is the fallout.
***
On the front window of our older son’s house is an Obama sign and a hand-lettered sign.
The hand-lettered sign says:
SAVE OUR MARRIAGE. VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 8!
(Axel the window dog [ed. Axel is a big dog that spends each day sitting on the window seat waiting for the guys to come home and has become something of a neighborhood mascot] says JOINT FILING MEANS MORE MONEY LEFT AFTER TAXES AND MORE DOGGIE TREATS FOR ME!)
Our older son and his husband (yes, they got married =again= after the state courts legalized marriage equality in June) would like to stay married this time.
Make it so. Vote NO on Proposition 8.
November 2, 2008
t r u t h o u t | McCain, Obama and the Psychology of Decisions
t r u t h o u t | McCain, Obama and the Psychology of Decisions
Long, interesting article about the candidates and their respective ways of handling decision making and how their backgrounds, their relationships with their fathers, affect who they are today and how they relate to others.
Far from psycho-babble. Thoughtful.
Election 2008 – some fun from Peter Seibel @ Gigamonkeys
dashboard periodically fetches the market price of Intrade’s state-by-state election markets, which represent the probability, as assessed by the Intrade traders, that a given candidate will win a given state. From those probabilities I compute the overall probability of various scenarios and color the map appropriate shades of blue and red. I also provide some dials and knobs (sliders) actually, to allow you to play some real-time “what if” games with the results.
[via a tweet from Tim O’Reilly]
You betcha!
You know the thing that maybe bugs me most?
I can never say, “You betcha” without thinking of Sarah Palin.
(His nibs and I said ‘you betcha’ more often than I’d realized … not realizing we were mocking a potential vice-presidential candidate to be.
Oh.)
Now I can’t say “You betcha” without thinking of Sarah Palin.
Alas.
November 1, 2008
Vote NO on Proposition 8, redux.
Jerry Sanders, Republican Mayor of San Diego and former Chief of Police, made this statement a year ago September, explaining why he would not veto a council resolution supporting marriage equality, even though he’d run on an anti-gay-marriage platform.
Even up to the day before the press statement, when the resolution was passed, Sanders still fully intended to veto it.
He changed his mind and chokes up while explaining why to the cameras and reporters.
He mentions that his daughter is gay, as are members of his staff, and he found that he couldn’t veto the resolution and tell them “they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.”
“In the end, I couldn’t look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana”
Words well said, and worth listening to on the eve of the election.
Vote NO on Proposition 8.
So now at least I know how many electoral college votes there are
My enduring thanks this election cycle to Nate Silver.
Due to his fabulous (and aptly named) fivethirtyeight.com Web site (your home to all you would ever need to know about the political polls for the 2008 Presidential election), I may now be able to remember how many electoral college votes there are
five thirty eight
538
and, with simple arithmetic, how many votes Obama/McCain need to win ((538/2)+1)=270.
If you haven’t visited before, hie thee immediately over to fivethirtyeight.com and check out Nate’s prognostications and his reasoning behind them.
fivethirtyeight.com is that good.
And thanks, Nate.
Love Story–Gold Winner: Los Muertos
Best Travel Writing – Love Story–Gold Winner: Los Muertos
Lovely story and timely with its Día de los Muertos theme.
[via a link from James O’Reilly’s twitterfeed]