I want to make a note of this success story because we have had discussions before where some people wonder if letter writing and other "minor" efforts by individuals to effect change is ultimately futile.

This is from The Nation:

Maine's lower house approved a same-sex marriage bill by 89 votes to 57, and the state senate voted 21-13 in favor of it.

The measure went to the desk of Governor John Baldacci, a Democrat who had previously been opposed same-sex marriage marriage.

Baldacci signed the bill Wednesday, saying that "the notes and letters sent to my office" swayed him.

Once again, a concerted campaign by marriage equality activists, in this case the sensitive and smart advocacy organized by EqualityMaine, paid off.

EqualityMaine, a 25-year-old LGBT rights group, ran a terrific campaign on behalf of this legislation, facing down harsh attacks in a state with a well-organized religious-right presence.

EqualityMaine put an emphasis on making heard the voices of native Mainers who said: "I want to get married."

His name can't even be mentioned once without a vomitous recrudescence of yammering and yowling!

Please take a refreshing sip of Greenwald's Full Throttle Bottled Brain Elixir.

No, but it does cure all societal ills.

;-)

For some reason, this comment of Rosen's made me laugh out loud:

Readers have asked for more information about my sources. A few weeks ago, I received phone calls from eminent liberal scholars I know and trust.

Also, I love how he lists anonymous bitch bytes by some sort of Rate Your Professor type of publication.

Rosen "received phone calls from eminent liberal scholars [he] knows and trusts"!

They are eminent! And he is one of them! That should shut the rest of us clowns up.

but this really takes the cake.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-04/fat-judges-need-not-apply/

Within hours after the news broke that Souter was resigning, concerns arose that Kagan and Sotomayor might be too fat to replace him. A commentator on the site DemConWatch.com noted that of the three most-mentioned candidates “the oldest (federal judge Diane Wood) is the only one who looks healthy,” while Kagan and Sotomayor “are quite overweight. That’s a risk factor that they may not last too long on the court because of their health.”

At The Washington Monthly, a commentator claimed to have employed a more scientifically rigorous method: “To all the short-sighted libs who are clamoring for the youngest-possible nominee... Right idea, wrong methodology. You want someone who will serve the longest, i.e. with the greatest remaining life expectancy—and that involves more than simple age. I tried assessing their respective health prospects, and ruled out all who even border on overweight. Best choice: Kim McLane Wardlaw, whose ectomorphitude reflects her publicly known aerobic-exercise habits.”

. . .

. . . nonsense about women, weight, and “health” is particularly pervasive and destructive. Indeed, if we were really concerned about medical risk factors that actually do have a significant negative correlation with a candidate’s life expectancy, the most relevant is one that has afflicted 108 of America’s 110 Supreme Court justices: being a man.

The article mentions Rosen's "odd essay," noting that Rosen makes the case that Sotomayor talks too much and is bitchy. And then, as Wonkette suggests, the subtext to Rosen's comments about Sotomayor having her staff come to her home socially, etc., is that she is an unnatural woman--one without a husband or children.

ondelette, heh heh, good one!!

Stand in line, bub.

Matt Taibbi and Naomi Klein will be on Real Time with Bill Maher tomorrow night.

Damn, I am going to have to have them turn on HBO then cancel it the next day.

Abolish the CIA. It should have been done long ago. The agency is a haven for treason, there's no other word for it. You're seeing just hints of what they're up to.

You are right, I wouldn't be desolee at all if Pelosi were brought to justice.

I think it is true that at long last, the public is getting a glimpse of the CIA's standard operating procedures. In the past, generally, the only accounts I found of their use of torture, not to mention a host of other despicable practices, were in books I found at the Revolution Book Store in Cambridge, or sometimes, in a class taught by a leftist professor.

Which is why I can't see these revelations as a wholly unalloyed good. And that is because torture is being framed as an aberration that occurred because of 911. Once everyone is satisfied that some kind of justice has been served, will they go back to trusting this institution?

Last night I saw the Republicans threatening to investigate the Clinton administration concerning rendition and other practices. I thought--don't stop there! Let's see how exceptionally pure this country has been.

P.S. Poking fun at secessionists at sig.

"From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East [...] if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death [...] because they know the consequences if their job is left unfinished."

Imagine if a pundit from the left, say, Janeane Garafalo, said something similar about Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The din of outrage and death threats and calls for arrests would give you tinnitus. Janeane would undoubtedly need a body guard. She would probably have to leave her job. The teabagging and secession contingents would storm the offices of her sponsors, after they had killed her pets. A new rightwing group would form to protest the problem of education for and tattoos on women. She would be disgraced for the rest of her life.