Vermont just legalized gay marriage.

The D.C. city council has voted unanimously to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.

Iowa's Senate Majority leader blocked an attempt to reverse the recent State Supreme Court allowing gay marriage, and indicated that he does not plan to allow any further action on the matter. In this video ( ( Read more... )

schneier pointed out this news item: Sir Ken Macdonald, the UK's director of public prosecutions, says There is no war on terror.

( Read more... )

The problem with big elections is that the vote totals are always wrong. 1 There's always some error in the voting process, which can't be eliminated while humans are involved. Technology may remove all other humans from the loop, but the voters will remain. 2 I'm speaking mostly about errors between the voter and the ballot: voter brain farts, ( Read more... )

[With apologies to rdhdsnippet - I'm trying to keep these posts to a minimum ( Read more... )

When Massachusetts legalized gay marriage, some people said Americans weren't ready to accept full equality and that there'd be a backlash. I'm sad to say the events of the past few years have given me plenty of reasons to think those people were right.

At this point CNN predicts that Virginia's anti-gay hate amendment is going to pass. lostvirtue pointed ( Read more... )

So let me see if I've got this straight.

Freedom of religion stops the government from interfering with religious organizations, more or less. This is clearly a good and essential thing but how far should it go? What laws should religions be exempt from? Should "religious freedom" cover questionable or illegal treatment of employees? Where Faith ( Read more... )

fabucat has some meta-commentary on CNN's handling of the issue:

> Seriously, I don't want a liberal media, and of course I don't want a conservative media.
> How about a media that doesn't assert the agenda of anyone? Whatever happened to Jack Webb's
> "Just the facts, m'am?"
( Read more... )

A few people on my flist have linked to and/or written thoughtful things about the Mark Foley scandal. I don't think anyone is defending Foley's behavior, but a number of people are upset by and uncomfortable with how the media have handled this story.

scherzoid isn't sure what offends him the most about the Mark Foley scandal - there are just too many ( Read more... )

I don't have time now for everything I need to say, but this is important. Go and read this essay. Now, please.

Bruce Schneier: What the terrorists wantAs always Schneier is the calm, expert voice of reason, and I hope that essay can bring a little sanity back into this situation. If you don't know who he is or why you should listen you can look ( Read more... )

I'm sure most people have already seen that the FDA has decided to make Plan B available OTC to women 18 and older. It's a half step, but at least it's in the right direction.

And one I haven't seen mentioned yet, which goes back to something that anotheranon and I were discussing: Men feel pressure to build perfect bodies. From my point of view this is ( Read more... )