Darrell Issa is a member of Congress and a leading proponent of the Davis recall campaign, personally paying workers $1 for every signature they obtain. He’d like to take a shot at the Governor’s seat himself. But he’s probably too conservative for Californians, and probably has too much of a reputation as a scamming, car alarm salesman.
Washington Post: Civil Liberties Were Term’s Big Winner
Wow. This is a big one.
Washington Post: Justices Overturn Texas Sodomy Ban
FindLaw.com: LAWRENCE et al. v. TEXAS
From the opinion:
“1. Whether Petitioners’ criminal convictions under the Texas “Homosexual Conduct” law–which criminalizes sexual intimacy by same-sex couples, but not identical behavior by different-sex couples–violate the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of laws?
“2. Whether Petitioners’ criminal convictions for adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home violate their vital interests in liberty and privacy protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
“3. Whether Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986), should be overruled?” Pet. for Cert. i.
As several people have noted, the court could have considered only the issue of Equal Protection; the Texas law bans “deviate sex” between two people of the same sex, which is clearly singling out homosexuals as a group.
That they decided to address the issue of privacy and considered overruling Bowers was completely unexpected.
With this case, the Supreme Court is not only protecting homosexuals in a huge step forward for this society, but the privacy of all Americans. Get the government out of our bedrooms!
The liberal online organization held a primary last week to select a Democratic nominee. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean finished first with 44% of the votes, followed by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich with 24% and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry with 16%.
Washington Post: Dean Leads in Online ‘Primary’
While this entire exercise has been very interesting, the results are not likely to be particularly meaningful, given that MoveOn.org’s member base is likely to skew activist and progressive, not to mention the fact that the demograpics of people on the Internet are likely to be more white, educated, and affluent.
That said, Dean has been relatively successful in using the Internet to develop a grassroots’ movement, raising money and supporting local “MeetUps” via MeetUp.com. MeetUp.com is a free website that helps people organize in-person meetings and events based on common interests.
Washington Post: Internet Becoming Candidates’ Domain: Dean Leads Democrats in Using Web
The Dean group is 44,000 strong (548 active members in liberal Santa Monica), organizing MeetUps on the first Wednesday of every month. I’ll be attending the Mani’s Bakery & Cafe MeetUp on Wednesday, July 2 @ 7:00PM. Mani’s is at Ocean Park and Main.
Schwarzenegger replies, “When I promote a movie that costs $178 million, it would be unfair to the movie to start making confusion by putting two messages out there — a political message and selling my movie. I don’t do that because I’m too much of a professional, therefore I stay on message, which is Terminator, Terminator, Terminator.”
—”Arnold Schwarzenegger bares all but political plans”
Well, at least he can string a sentence together, no matter how poorly.
The FTC has set up a registry to block telemarketing calls. Sign up at DoNotCall.gov. The server might be slammed right now, though. Apparently they’re getting hundreds of registrations every minute. As of 5PM ET, they had 735,000 registrations. You can read more about the Do Not Call Registry at the FTC site.
You can also take steps to stop receiving junk mail at home: Junkbusters provides information and form letters to do this.
Another way to prevent telemarketing calls and junk mail is to send in those opt-out notices that your financial institutions provide. They often allow opt-outs by telephone, too. Credit card offers usually also provide a telephone number to opt-out of credit reporting agency spam lists. One phone call will take you off the lists of Experian, TransUnion, and the rest for two years. They’ll send you a form that you need to return if you want to make this permanent. So annoying, but worth it.
Now if I could only get the ACLU and ActForChange to stop sending me junk mail…
All this took place in a few seconds:
Driving up the 405 in the far left lane, I noticed several cars up the road in my lane with their brake lights on. The next lane over also had some cars putting on the brakes, but there were fewer cars. I moved over one lane to the right, but figured I should move over another lane because of the sympathetic braking going on in this lane. I also figured a car from the far left lane might try to change lanes.
I checked the next lane over and was starting to move over when the SUV that had been in front of me in the far left lane suddenly moved over. I turned my wheel more aggressively and continued to change lanes. The space between our cars was probably no more than ten inches–I wouldn’t want to be parked next to an SUV with only this much space, let alone drive next to one at 70 mph.
Once I got clear, I checked the rear-view mirror and noticed the SUV swerve left back into his original lane. What a dumb fuck. If I hadn’t anticipated his maneuver and started the lane change, I probably would have totalled my car, gotten my face bruised on the airbag, and fucked up traffic for an hour.
Analysis of his stupidity:
1) Did not anticipate traffic ahead of him.
2) Did not anticipate traffic behind him.
3) Did not check traffic.
4) Attempted to enter a faster lane after slowing down from 70 mph to 50 mph.
Leader of Pakistan Talks About India, War on Terrorism on NPR. It upsets me that this military man is more intelligent and intelligible than many of our own leaders.
Adarsh writes:
“The best military strategists and leaders are probably pretty smart, but for whatever reason, their intelligence hasn’t allowed them, or circumstances haven’t permitted them, the enlightenment that would render their primary expertise obsolete.”
BBC News: Spam celebrates silver jubilee. Unsolicited commercial email made its debut 25 years ago. The term “spam” to refer to multiple posts on Usenet made its debut 10 years ago.
You may have seen this commercial, but if you haven’t, check it out. It’s called “Cog.”