>> If you are, like me, a huge fucking dork, you know that the X-Men comics are undergoing a revamp in May, where several titles are cancelled, new ones begin, and new writer/artist teams take over on most every book. The information leaked a couple of weeks ago, but Marvel's finally released the official information, with sample art. The biggest news is, as previously mentioned, Joss Whedon writing a new X-Men comic, but everything else seems to have been taken over by either unproven newbies or proven-to-be-pretty-goddamn-awful veterans. The silver lining? At least we're getting a new ESSENTIAL X-MEN volume (the low-price collected-edition series that reprints large numbers of old X-Men issues in black and white)...

>> I've got a lot of friends who looooove Orson Scott Card, especially the Ender's Game books. (I've read Ender's Game myself, and indeed it is very good.)

Well, just for future reference, everybody, he's a fucking dick.

The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

It's that desire for normality, that discontent with perpetual adolescent sexuality, that is at least partly behind this hunger for homosexual "marriage."

Via Boing Boing.

>> It's been a shitty week, for about a dozen completely different reasons, so my apologies for "starting to blog again" and then going completely apeshit. I'm hoping this will be one of those weekends where you can audibly hear the steam going out through my ears as my brain decompresses, but God knows I could find ways to fuck it up just as badly as I've fucked a couple of other things up this week (which you haven't heard about).

I can't tell if I'm actually depressed at the moment, or just overly anxious about school/work/politics/friends/future/money/life. (None of it's going right at the moment, I'm afraid.) I wonder. It's weird how my senior year is starting to feel just as bad as my freshman year did...

>> I think I need a linkslog again.

Maybe I'll get on that this weekend.

>> This just in: The Passion Of The Christ actually kills viewers who watch it.

At a screening in Wichita, Kansas, a woman in her 50s began having trouble breathing toward the end of the movie and later died, a theater official said.

"There were several physicians in the audience, and they attended to her until the ambulance arrived," said Ken Crockett, corporate vice president of Warren Theaters. "It was a pretty emotional thing."

An autopsy was planned Thursday to determine the cause of her death, according to the local medical examiner.

(Now, mind you, I could tell a great story about how Erin Brockovich killed somebody in my hometown. So.)

And yeah, for the record, I don't think I plan on seeing The Passion; at the very least, I don't plan on paying to see it, because frankly, I don't think Mel Gibson's the kind of person who I want to throw money at. I have my suspicious about the film's moral righteousness, but I'm just going to keep them to myself until the day I see it. Which may or may not come. Back about your business, then...

>> From a letter received by Andrew Sullivan (For those not in the know, he's a conservative gay blogger who's been slapped in the face by Bush's support of the marriage amendment):

Well ... And so it now begins. My more liberal friends told me a day like this would come, and now I am forced to eat crow. Words cannot express the hurt and anger I feel for the man's blatant constitutional and moral attack on a segment of our population. And for the still wobbly among us, make no mistake ... this is an attack... I realized long ago I am (was) a Republican solely for foreign affairs. But that's not good enough anymore. I've helped feed the Kurds in Northern Iraq, I've slept in the mud and rain to enforce peace treaties in eastern Europe, seated in 100 percent humidity in southeast Asia, and I dodged too many bullets and remote controlled bombs in and around Mosul to count. But I gladly did this (and will do it again) to protect the rights and liberties of ALL Americans, not just those of my family.

I voted for this man ... despite what my family said, despite how many times I was smeared because I am African American and (was) a Republican, despite his joy in being an anti-intellectual ... they warned me, they warned me and I didn't listen ... and now I am ashamed of myself. By all that I hold Holy it will never happen again!"

It's good to know somebody understands what I'm talking about. Also, Sullivan himself has written a post which says exactly what I tried to say in my last entry and, IMHO, failed at.

>> Today I had a brief discussion with someone who adamantly supports George Bush's war on terror (and, as a subset, the war in Iraq). This person is also somebody who's deeply critical of entrenching religion in government, as well as violently critical of anti-gay discrimination. So she finds herself in a double bind: Can she support a president who is actively pursuing both the issue dearest to her heart (keeping her loved ones safe) and working to realize her greatest fears for the direction of the country?

At the moment, after a lot of thought, her decision appears to be that yes, she can cast a vote for President Bush in November. The crux of her argument is that, without a war on terror, there will be no America in which she can fight the good fight for civil liberties: What does an issue like this matter if we're all going to die?

This is an excerpt from the e-mail I sent her:

I don't agree with your support of Bush on national security, in that I don't think he's really made us much safer, but I do MORE than understand where you're coming from on it. The Democrats certainly haven't put a concrete plan for the problem out on the table at any point, which is a really, really tremendous failing on their part in the current climate; with Bush, at the very least you know he's pointing guns at the problem with the intent to fix it. I'm comfortable voting against him on that score because I do fundamentally believe that the Democrats know what they're doing just as much as Bush does; they just haven't had the opportunity to prove it. I might end up wrong, and hell, I might end up dead, because of that belief; but at least I'll know that I didn't have to vote to compromise the essence of the American dream in order to be right on that one key issue. At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that's what a vote for Bush means: the repudiation of equal freedoms, not just for one specific class, but for any group that becomes politically contentious.

Now look. I don't have a family of my own. (I'll leave aside, very generously, the fact that Bush's proposed amendment would make sure that remains the case for the rest of my life.) I'd like to think that I understand the overpowering, visceral need to protect the lives of the people I hold dear: but I know I do not understand the need to do so at any cost. And that's the key here: By saying that you're willing to continue to support Bush so long as he fights the war on terror, you've signed a blank check on which the words "at any cost" are plainly and clearly written. And in my opinion, that is the absolute pinnacle of monumental, self-serving ego. It is a clear statement that, at the end of the day, your life is more important than the lives of anybody else in this country.

The counter-argument to this is that in fact, you are working for the preservation of every life in this country. But are you, in fact, preserving the country itself? What is America? Is it the people who currently live on a land-mass, or is it a set of ideals which that group of people agreed to live by? Let's face it: Whether or not we live to be 110 years old, or die at age 22 because a fundamentalist snuck a nuclear bomb into midtown Manhattan, we -- the people having this debate -- are going to die. President Bush sure as hell isn't going to save us from that. Is our well-being more important thant the continuation of American democracy? Look in the mirror and say to yourself: Is my life more important than the freedom of every American citizen who comes after me?

That's the question soldiers ask themselves, and they all answer "No." They've resolved that they would die for the set of values that makes up America. How can you say that your continued life is more important than those ideals, and then claim to be absolutely committed to a war in the name of protecting America? If I thought I could guarantee the freedom of future generations to be who they choose, to live without fear of being slandered, repressed, punished, or murdered for who they are or for what they choose to believe, then listen to me: I would die right now.

Why am I not in the military, then? Because I believe George Bush's military isn't about protecting those ideals: if it was, then why would he be attacking them on the homefront? In a sane world, soldiers don't have to choose between fighting for their country's government and fighting for their country's freedoms. With George Bush as commander-in-chief, you do. George Bush's government uses one hand to protect the freedoms of everyone who lives under it, and one hand to rip them apart. It is impossible for me to approve of one hand and disapprove of the other. Both of them need to be taken off of my country before more harm is done to it.

It's an argument we heard a lot after September 11th, and for a lot of people, it started to ring hollow. But I just think it's absolutely clear that the removal of civil rights -- which affects not just every American living now, but every American which might ever live in the future -- is a much, much greater concern than the lives of those Americans who might die at the hands of terrorists. There: I said it. I said it because I'm one of those people who is absolutely the most likely to die in such a manner. I said it because I don't believe for one minute that terrorism could wipe the United States off the map and into history. I know that the principles this country was founded on can, and should, firmly repel any attempt to limit our freedoms -- from without or from within.

This wasn't really an attempt to convince those who aren't on my side in this fight; I know that for a lot of people, that one statement is just too much of a hurdle to jump over in order to see my point of view. Just read this, if you want to, as a howl of both absolute trust and complete despair. I firmly believe that the freedoms embodied in the Constitution are more important than my life. Or your life. Or the lives of everybody in New York goddamn City.

As I struggled for a way to conclude this, I went over to August's site and read his response to my earlier comments. Now, I've been going out of my way to at least somewhat submerge the identity of the person whose comments and beliefs kicked off this post, so I avoided using direct quotations. But August's use of their words, while containing a bit more of a derogatory charge then I'd employ, ended up summarizing my thoughts about as clearly as I suppose I ever could:

The idea that Bush will protect America better than a Democrat is a personal opinion. The idea that Bush is trying to ban equal rights for gays is a fact. Saying that "it's more important to keep America safe than fight for gays rights." Or, as one website I read directly said, "defend first, offend later."

"Defend first, offend later" sounds a lot to me like "me first, you later." To put the hope of a "better" commander-in-chief for the next four years over rejecting someone who endorses the stripping of equal rights for gays sounds a lot like giving up essential liberty for temporary safety. Ben Franklin covered a long time ago what people who think that way deserve.

I've had a headache all day from being so angry, so saddened, and so heartbroken by the things I've heard from a lot of people, so I guess I'm not at my most expressive. I tried as hard as I could here, and I dunno if it actually got me anywhere. All I can say to those who disagree with me on this issue is, I'm sorry we've reached this place. I'm sorry the world's gotten so fucked -- ignore the reasons why -- that people who all believe in liberty have to be torn apart by which ones to protect first: I'm sorry that the assault on our freedoms is so fierce, and comes from so many assailants, that we have to fight each other before we can get permission to fight back. Shit's fucked up and I have to believe that I'm doing what I can to make it better. I guess you do too, but at the end of the fight, if it ever comes, I want you to sit down and take stock of what you have, and then think about what your neighbor still has, and ask yourself: Was it worth it?

>> And now I'm going to say something that I may later regret.

You, as an American (and that's not everybody reading this, but y'know), have the right to vote for whomever you desire in the forthcoming election.

But if you know me, and consider yourself my friend, and appreciate me as a person, and you still vote for George W. Bush this coming November, then let me tell you something right now: Don't ever let me know that you did. Because I will never speak to you again.

And yes, I think you know why.

I know that there are a lot of issues that you have to vote your conscience on this year, and that this is just one of them. You may honestly believe that George W. Bush would keep this country safer from terrorism than his opponent. You may honestly believe that he's taking a sensible and necessary course with regards to the economy. You may honestly believe that his stance on the environment is responsible. But if you believe that enshrining discrimination in the Constitution is even remotely acceptable -- if you believe that catering to grotesque misconceptions about both homosexuality and human rights, while sabotaging the system of checks and balances in the name of the tyranny of the majority, is the direction this country should go in -- then I am sorry, but I do not ever want to see your face or hear your voice in my presence. It's a done deal.

My apologies if that offends anyone, but guess what? If that's you, you've been offending me for a long, long time. And I'm just a little bit angry about what you would allow to be done to me, and to our country.

>> The Good News: Finally, after (literally) a month of trying, I found an iTunes Pepsi bottle today, in the newsstand at the Union Square subway stop!

The Better News: I won a song off of it!

The Bestest News: I did it without using the now-well-known cheat! I know I'm an old-fashioned motherfucker, but I'm sorry, that's just cheating and I oppose all forms of cheating in our society. Believe me, my code of ethics has started more than enough fights for the week, so I should maybe be staying quiet, but hey, it's what I think.

The "Uh, Dude, Why Are You So Excited?" News: I did, theoretically, pay $1.25 for this "free" song. But I was gonna be buying soda anyway, y'know? I'll let you know what I squander it on. And make no mistake, it will be squandered -- I've got a list of songs to waste free tokens on waiting for me on my hard drive, and none of the items on it are respectable. Wheeeee!

>> I really need some new hobbies. That have nothing to do with computers. Preferably something that's not even talked about on the Internet, so that I have no excuse to sit on my ass in front of my laptop for seven-plus hours every day. Anybody got any suggestions?

What I need is a personal trainer. And a million dollars. And a throne of alabaster. And two velociraptors to flank me on my throne. And I'm off to Google Images for good velociraptor pictures...

>> Just for the record, I intended to vote for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. I do believe, to a certain extent, that America needs to break out of the two-party system trap, and I was disillusioned by the absolutely pathetic character of Al Gore's 2000 campaign -- I liked the guy, but he was just washing out against an opponent he should've been able to knock to the floor almost instantly. So I thought, hey, why not support Nader -- I know he won't be President, and to be honest, I do not want him to be President, I just want the Greens to get 5% representation.

But I didn't vote for him, because I knew Florida would be a tight swing state, and there was no way in hell I was going to take the chance of Florida going Republican because of my contribution. I would only vote Nader if I was secure in the knowledge that Gore would win my state. I wasn't, so I didn't. Of course it turned out to not fucking matter, since the Supreme Court probably threw out my vote because I crossed a seven in my address or something... but whatever.

Re: Ralph Nader in 2004... Fuck him. Fuck him right in the ear. It's been said all over the place, and they've all been right: If he wants to run on the platform of third-party legitimacy, then why isn't he affiliated with a party? If he wants to run on core liberal issues, then why isn't he endorsing Kucinich, whose platform is -- he admits it himself! -- extremely similar to his own?

I'm not entirely worried that he'll cause any damage -- after 2000, his support base is disillusioned and disbanded, and he'll be lucky if he can scrape up 1% of the popular vote. I just don't understand why he's besmirching the memory of what has been a strong and just career in fighting for what's right. A lot of people argue "How can you say somebody shouldn't run for President?," but that's a false accusation. Anyone who wants to run for President should be able to, but at the same time, they need to be realistic and look at the situation they're in and think about how they can do the most good -- with a completely symbolic vanity run, or with a disciplined, focused attempt to drive the issues into the hands of people with the power to take them on?

In the end, I guess this quote -- from Tom Tomorrow, so I guess if you've got an irrational mad-on for lefty cartoonists you'll probably dismiss it, but I think it's remarkably cogent -- pretty much sums it up for me:

Nader's critique is, essentially, that there is a cancer on the body politic--and he's right about that. The problem in the year 2004 is that the body politic is also suffering from multiple wounds and blunt force trauma, we're in the emergency room and it's a damn mess and there's blood everywhere and the doctors are working furiously but it's anybody's guess how things are gonna turn out. We are in triage, and we have to deal with the immediate problems, or the long-term ones won't matter anyway.

People also ask why liberals are so angry about Nader, and the answer is because we're furious that we've been put in this triage position; we're furious that we have to spend our time fighting battles that should never have even been on the table in any sane country instead of focusing on the policies and ideas that we really want to shape. I don't blame Nader for Bush's victory -- I blame Gore -- but there's no denying the fact that if Nader hadn't been in the race, Gore would've taken the Presidency, and I simply cannot understand why Ralph Nader thinks his personal quest is more important than the lives of soldiers, peace in the international community, basic American rights, and all of the other things which have been trampled on and destroyed by a Bush presidency. A presidential run is not the right vehicle for Nader's ideas and he really ought to fucking know that by now.

>> Tonight, I went to a screening of an unnamed Japanese film at the Tribeca "We Continue To Play Electroclash In Our Lounge" Grand with Josh. (I do not name the film because Josh had to go see it on business, and I did not like the film much, but I was mooching a free ticket and therefore it's not really necessary, or ethical, for me to slam the thing.) It was, as my parenthetical comments indicate, underwhelming. But we got free drink tickets. So I had one kinda-strong Jack & Coke on an essentially empty stomach (it had been five hours since I'd eaten, and that was just a crappy wrap), and I drank it a wee bit too fast (in about two and half minutes, maybe?), and became pathetically, dizzily tipsy for the first time in my life. We had to take me to the McDonald's in Chinatown and stuff me full of Double Quarter Pounder before my inner-ear balance was restored. I've never felt so lame.

Anyway, feel free to consider me blogging again. The short-form explanation for my brief freakout is that I became utterly convinced that I was a worthless, lazy sack of shit who was wasting my time and the time of those around me. I was not wrong in being convinced of this, mind you. So I decided to completely reform my life -- I shut down the blog to prevent me from spending too much time in front of the computer. I made a schedule of things to do the following day, itemized by hour. I resolved that it was time to put up or shut up: If I did not emerge from this experience a completely new human being, then I had failed myself and any of my future dreams.

Unsurprisingly, I failed myself and any of my future dreams. I overslept the next morning by three hours, and I'm afraid Turbo-Organized Chris died a quick stillborn death right then and there, though it took me a couple of days to come to terms with his loss. But can you mourn for someone you never really knew? (Farts quietly)

Anyway, I'm back to being my usual self, though at least I've shaped up a little bit in that (a.) I've gone back to my internship at V2 Records, (b.) I've stopped putting off my homework quite so blatantly, and (c.) I actually went out into a vaguely social situation tonight. And ended up retarded-tipsy but hey, what can I say.

All bets re: my personal tolerance for alcohol are off, I guess...

>> I stir.

I'll probably start tentatively posting again tomorrow, but don't hold your breath.

I went back to my internship today. Within an hour and a half of walking through the door, I'd convinced somebody in the office to go out and buy the Scissor Sisters album. This must be the rush of power an evangelical Christian feels...

>> As of tonight, I won't be posting for a while. This isn't another crisis of blog identity, it's a crisis of my real, living, breathing identity. For the next couple of weeks, my time is going to be spent elsewhere. I hesitate to say "better spent" elsewhere, since this is all a grand experiment, but I'm going to see where it takes me.

To cut off some of the obvious questions: No, actually, I'm not OK. But yes, I will be fine. Maybe. Hopefully.

Oh, and the Scissor Sisters' fantastic album is on sale for $20 at Virgin -- the domestic release won't be until May or June, according to the nice guy who rang me up, so get it now. (It's $21 at Tower if that's more convenient for you.) Also, they're apparently going to be opening for Duran Duran on their forthcoming tour, which is a dream pairing up there with The Darkness and Andrew W.K. I'm quite excited. Moral of the story: If you're in NYC, go buy the album now. It's real good.

>> 
Human ears cannot hear the high-pitched squeal I let out when this occured.

(Actually, it turned out to be a just-OK performance, but c'mon, it's the principle of the thing. Prince! Beyonce! The only way it could've been better would be if the White Stripes had chimed in for "Kiss," but that would've ruined the Purple Rain theme so I'm OK with it.)

In other news, the Grammys have been... weird. More later if I have time and find myself in the mood.

>> God, I've turned into such a grown-up.

I did go to Jim Hanley's Universe today, but I didn't buy any X-Men comics. I know! Instead, I bought the new Optic Nerve (thanks, Matthew), Berlin #10, and Hellblazer: Rake At The Gates Of Hell -- all those names mean nothing to you non-comics types, but suffice it to say that they're mature and complex works intended for literate, intelligent readers. What the hell kind of fun is that?

Of course, I loved them all (especially Hellblazer -- John Constantine might actually be my favorite character in comics, so if they screw up the movie I'm gonna be really pissed. I strongly, strongly recommend this book to my British readers, e-mail me if you're interested), but as it turns out, I'd already bought Berlin #10. A year ago. In London. That's the first time I've ever unwittingly bought a duplicate of something that I already owned. Ever. I hear about people doing it with CDs all the time, which I just can't understand, but I am deeply shamed by what happened to me today. Just goes to show how out of touch I got with comics for a while there... I know I say this every time I buy something new, but I really can feel myself slipping under again. Dangerous.

Anyway, first reader who pipes up in the comments gets Berlin #10 for free -- it's part of a tremendous and ambitious work that chronicles social change in Germany in the years leading up to World War II! You know you want in on that shit! (For the record, I loaned my copy of City Of Stones to someone who I'll probably never see again, which I'm really kicking myself for. Sigh.)

>> Do you know what I spent my night doing?

I made a spreadsheet containing the reprint information about every single issue of Uncanny X-Men -- i.e., whether or not each issue is available in TPB form, and if so, which TPBs it's available in. In this manner I have managed to somewhat systematize my knowledge of (1.) which issues of UXM I have not read and (2.) the best way to go about finding them.

I'm bored, I'm caffeinated, I'm trapped uptown in my sister's apartment dogsitting, and I love the X-Men so much that sometimes I don't think my tiny heart can take it. Don't worry, I did something "worthwhile" tonight too -- I watched Whale Rider, and it was pretty good -- but then I did this. While listening to a lame-yet-great soul compilation I found in my sister's CDs. It was profoundly surreal. Lia laughed in my face over IM, but I'm pretty sure I deserved it. This is some pooped-up squawk.

My pathetic excuse for an evening could not have happened without UncannyXMen.net and this remarkably handy Amazon Listmania! list. I should probably go to sleep and spend all of tomorrow assiduously avoiding even casual thoughts about the X-Men, but it's more likely that I'll go downtown to Jim Hanley's Universe and fill up the small margin of credit that I've carved out on my credit card with X-Men trade paperbacks.

I reiterate: I love the X-Men so much I don't think my tiny heart can take it.

And for those of you who didn't know it, which is probably most people with lives, Joss Whedon of Buffy fame will apparently be writing an X-Men ongoing series sometime in the near future; the official announcement from Marvel should be coming through any day now. Of course, since the best writer in comics is finishing up his run on the X-Men at the moment, it's bound to be an anticlimax and I'll probably stop picking up the books regularly again; but I'll try to keep my hopes high for as long as I can...

>> OK, so apparently I now have a tradition of scrolling important, serious posts down the page with useless shit... but Broken Lizard's new movie, Club Dread, is coming out Feb. 27th! Broken Lizard are the comedy troupe who made Super Troopers, and if you're a reasonable, right-thinking person like myself, you probably saw the trailers for that and thought "Wow, there's a movie that I will, under no circumstances, devote a hundred minutes of my life to." Well, I did, and it turns out it was really goddamn funny. ("Could you step out of the car meow?") So I'll be seeing this, yes I will. Fingers crossed against the sophomore slump.

And since this is a ridiculous post, I can add a footnote saying that ever since I closed off my archives' comments threads, spammers have simply started attacking my most recent posts -- as in, posts less than two days old. This is some fucking sick shit -- does anyone have any suggestions here? MT 3.0 can't get here soon enough... and by the way, what stops spammers from registering for comments automatically? Do we know that yet?

>> And in other judicial news... Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney. Three weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case against Cheney. CONFLICT OF INTERESTS MUCH?!?

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks.

The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.

(...) Two military Black Hawk helicopters were brought in and hovered nearby as Cheney and Scalia were whisked away in a heavily guarded motorcade to a secluded, private hunting camp owned by an oil industry businessman.

Emphasis mine. So, Antonin Scalia enjoyed the hospitality of a defendant in a case he's set to try about energy industry policy, at the home of an energy industry executive? Recuse yourself from the case, Scalia. NOW. There is no other ethical option. Of course, you can discount my comments, since I'm a member of the homosexual agenda your precious Court apparently "signed on" to...

Via MeFi. And scroll down in the thread for a link re: Cheney's fondness for "canned hunting," in which hundreds of captive animals are released onto a pre-prepared hunting ground for the purposes of being easy pickings. That's some classy fucking shit, motherfucker.

>> Oh yeah, and last night I had a dream in which I was on the run from the law with Liz Phair across a bizarre combination of Florida, Ireland, and the American Southwest. We had a really good time, though -- Liz Phair owned a beautiful sheep ranch somewhere in New Mexico, and in the dream I remember standing next to one of her sheds looking out over the mesas and canyons and thinking "Someday, this will be my home."

I know, I know. I can explain the Liz Phair thing -- I was just looking at her playlist on iTunes last night -- but the sheep ranch...

I also had a second dream in which I was supposed to kill somebody for their money, and I was in their house, and I didn't want to do it, and then all these rockstars showed up because I think we were involved in some kind of weird tournament sponsored by the N.M.E. And Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were there. All of this took place in this strange dreamscape-version of Westchester, New York that I've had dreams set in every so often for a few months now.

Y'know, I drank a Tropical Sprite Remix last night instead of a Coke because I didn't want the caffeine fucking with me. I think that was a big mistake.

>> Oh my God!!! Casa Bonita is a real restaurant!!! I'm booking my flight to Denver now!!! Via Boing Boing!!!

>> And in political news which completely discredits the post below... yes, Pizza Party U.S.A. should become a reality as soon as possible. (This could be the magic bullet Dean needs in those last few primary states...) If this takes hold, I predict that the next federal budget will include a $750 million allotment to Book It!

>> There's any number of indications that the future for gay people in this country could be almost apocalyptically bleak (especially, as I've said before, if we allow an extremely socially conservative Republican government to hold power for four more years). But I submit to the public record several quotes from the Massachusetts Supreme Court's opinion brief on same-sex marriage that made my heart leap for joy today. They cut right to the core of this whole debate and render any and all arguments against gay marriage absolutely unpersuasive: the spirit, and the letter, of the Massachusetts Constitution absolutely insist on the equal rights of all people. Take a look at the laws and Constitution of the United States and you're going to find exactly the same thing... a part of me thinks it's only a matter of time. And a part of me knows that it's still dependent on the judges who have the power to turn the right idea into reality. Those judges might not be on the U.S. Supreme Court right now, but they're in Massachusetts, and God bless them.

...............
Segregating same-sex unions from opposite-sex unions cannot possibly be held rationally to advance or "preserve" what we stated in Goodridge were the Commonwealth's legitimate interests in procreation, child rearing, and the conservation of resources... Because the proposed law by its express terms forbids same-sex couples entry into civil marriage, it continues to relegate same-sex couples to a different status. The holding in Goodridge, by which we are bound, is that group classifications based on unsupportable distinctions, such as that embodied in the proposed bill, are invalid under the Massachusetts Constitution. The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.

In Goodridge, the court acknowledged, as we do here, that "[m]any people hold deep-seated religious, moral, and ethical convictions that marriage should be limited to the union of one man and one woman, and that homosexual conduct is immoral. Many hold equally strong religious, moral, and ethical convictions that same-sex couples are entitled to be married, and that homosexual persons should be treated no differently than their heterosexual neighbors." The court stated then, and we reaffirm, that the State may not interfere with these convictions, or with the decision of any religion to refuse to perform religious marriages of same-sex couples. These matters of belief and conviction are properly outside the reach of judicial review or government interference. But neither may the government, under the guise of protecting "traditional" values, even if they be the traditional values of the majority, enshrine in law an invidious discrimination that our Constitution, "as a charter of governance for every person properly within its reach," forbids.

The bill's absolute prohibition of the use of the word "marriage" by "spouses" who are the same sex is more than semantic. The dissimilitude between the terms "civil marriage" and "civil union" is not innocuous; it is a considered choice of language that reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual, couples to second-class status. The denomination of this difference by the separate opinion of Justice Sosman (separate opinion) as merely a "squabble over the name to be used" so clearly misses the point that further discussion appears to be useless. If, as the separate opinion posits, the proponents of the bill believe that no message is conveyed by eschewing the word "marriage" and replacing it with "civil union" for same-sex "spouses," we doubt that the attempt to circumvent the court's decision in Goodridge would be so purposeful. For no rational reason the marriage laws of the Commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain. The bill would have the effect of maintaining and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits. It would deny to same-sex "spouses" only a status that is specially recognized in society and has significant social and other advantages. The Massachusetts Constitution, as was explained in the Goodridge opinion, does not permit such invidious discrimination, no matter how well intentioned.

We are well aware that current Federal law prohibits recognition by the Federal government of the validity of same-sex marriages legally entered into in any State, and that it permits other States to refuse to recognize the validity of such marriages. The argument in the separate opinion that, apart from the legal process, society will still accord a lesser status to those marriages is irrelevant. Courts define what is constitutionally permissible, and the Massachusetts Constitution does not permit this type of labeling. That there may remain personal residual prejudice against same-sex couples is a proposition all too familiar to other disadvantaged groups. That such prejudice exists is not a reason to insist on less than the Constitution requires. We do not abrogate the fullest measure of protection to which residents of the Commonwealth are entitled under the Massachusetts Constitution. Indeed, we would do a grave disservice to every Massachusetts resident, and to our constitutional duty to interpret the law, to conclude that the strong protection of individual rights guaranteed by the Massachusetts Constitution should not be available to their fullest extent in the Commonwealth because those rights may not be acknowledged elsewhere.

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(Emphasis mine; references & notations deleted. Full text available here.)

And because I should probably throw it out there to support my previous statement:

AMENDMENT XIV
Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

>> Truck Driver's Gear Change Hall Of Shame: ostensibly devoted to documenting all thoroughly unnecessary and stupid key-changes in pop songs, it in fact just documents key changes in pop songs. Whyfore the hateration? And how can you not have included any of Kylie Minogue's early hits, which existed solely to do a key-change in the chorus?

Songs with shit-hot key changes include:

• OMD - "If You Leave"
• Bon Jovi - "Livin' On A Prayer" (mentioned on the site)
• Pet Shop Boys - "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)"
• R.E.M. - "Stand" (also mentioned)

Obviously incomplete. Any additions? Comments, please...

>> "We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced halftime show. They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the show." -CBS executive

"The tearing of Janet Jackson's costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance." -MTV executive

"I am sorry if anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl. It was not intentional and is regrettable." -Justin "I'm Hot Even When I Don't Shave For A Week And Wear One Of My Overweight Uncle's T-Shirts While Performing" Timberlake

You know, it's obvious that what they all mean by this is that both sides of the bustier were supposed to pop off. And is "inconsistent with assurances" the new "related program activity"?

In other news, the Super Bowl halftime show sucked. "Rhythm Nation" was hot, though. Too bad I can't buy it on iTunes or Janet Jackson would be $0.25 richer right now.

>> The Bruce Springsteen Type: An excellent post over at my boyfriend's weblog. And before you ask, no, I'm not.