Robert Caro, biographer of LBJ, draws the parallels between Johnson starting the fight for the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the acceptance speech Obama will give tonight.

We had our general availability release on Wednesday. The pulse at work has slowed a bit. One of the teams I was involved with held a team luncheon at a Thai restaraunt on Thursday to celebrate. The other team pretty much took the day off today ( Read more... )

Hatred in the neighborhood. I wrote my ex (whose neighborhood it happens to be) and her response was:

Whether you are gay, black orental or ugly is not a reason to "hate" anyone or treat them in this way.

Good on her.

Thanks to ToujoursDan:

100 things you can do to prepare for peak oil:

1-50 here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4407.cfm
51-100 here: http://www.

When I'm in a relationship, I'm apparently selfish -- it's all about me, how self-centered I am and blah, blah, blah.

When you're in a relationship, it's normal and fine -- it's not questioned.

Smacks to me of a double-standard.

Anna Quindlen in this brilliant essay:
Here's what I don't understand: is there so much love and commitment in ( Read more... )

I enjoyed this from Real Live Preacher a few weeks back. Captured for posterity.

When a person dies, there is a sudden collapse of all that they knew. The complex and fragile framework of their worldview, which is a unique thing in all the universe, drops to the ground like the contents of a pricked water balloon. The depth of that loss is ( Read more... )

Over at Positive Liberty, Jonathan Rowe shares his thoughts on what the founding fathers *really* believed and why it's important to us today:
[...]Indeed, Washington in his cabinet surrounded himself with those softer, milder Protestant infidels, J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, G. Morris and others. And J. Adams and Jefferson, the two Presidents who ( Read more... )

Under the strict scrutiny standard, unlike the rational basis standard, in order to demonstrate the constitutional validity of a challenged statutory classification the state must establish --

1. that the state interest intended to be served by the differential treatment not only is a constitutionally legitimate interest, but is a compelling state ( Read more... )

A gay Peace Corps volunteer reflects on what it means to suppress who he is whilst he works in hostile (to his orientation) culture.