Pacific Views

The dangers of casting the first stone.

As the GOP demands that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry apologize for calling Republicans 'the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen,' they might do well to remember their own past.

Back in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich's political action committee came up with a lists of words that Republican candidates could use to describe themselves and their party, and another set to describe the Democrats. The use of this GOPAC vocabulary was a critical element in the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.

Often we search hard for words to help us define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.

decay... failure (fail)... collapse(ing)... deeper... crisis... urgent(cy)... destructive... destroy... sick... pathetic... lie... liberal... they/them... unionized bureaucracy... "compassion" is not enough... betray... consequences... limit(s)... shallow... traitors... sensationalists...

endanger... coercion... hypocrisy... radical... threaten... devour... waste... corruption... incompetent... permissive attitudes... destructive... impose... self-serving... greed... ideological... insecure... anti-(issue): flag, family, child, jobs... pessimistic... excuses... intolerant...

stagnation... welfare... corrupt... selfish... insensitive... status quo... mandate(s)... taxes... spend(ing)... shame... disgrace... punish (poor...)... bizarre... cynicism... cheat... steal... abuse of power... machine... bosses... obsolete... criminal rights... red tape... patronage

Given this history (and we assure you, we've only picked out one illustrative item), it seems just a bit disingenous for the Republicans to be crying foul over Kerry's remarks.

Marriage news roundup (2).

National

The Log Cabin Republicans have launched a US $1 million media campaign against the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. The ad uses footage from the 2000 election campaign of then-VP candidate Dick Cheney saying that same-sex marriage is a matter to be left to the states. The ad will be running in Washington, DC and seven swing states.

The Log Cabin Republicans is the largest group of gay and lesbian Republicans, claiming about 10,000 members. More details on its campaign against the FMS are here, and a link to the television ad is here [RealPlayer required].

(Washington Post)

California

The San Jose city council has voted to recognize the marriages of its gay and lesbian employees. The vote was 8-1.

"We believe it is right and just that employee benefits provided to spouses of city employees should be applied evenhandedly in accordance with our firm and successful commitment to ending bias and discrimination in the workplace," San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales said in a memo to the city council.

(Reuters)

Maryland

The Maryland House of Delegates has voted down a bill that would have barred the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states. State law already defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman, so backers of the change were unable to convince most legislators that the new law was needed.

(Maryland Gazette Newspapers)

Michigan

A bill to amend the Michigan constitution to bar same-sex marriages has failed in the state House. Backers of the amendment fell 8 votes short of the number needed to pass the marriage amendment and send it on to the state Senate. The House may vote again on the measure, but no date has been set. If the amendment fails to get out of the House, the American Family Association of Michigan says it will sponsor a petition drive to get the amendment on the next state ballot.

(Lansing [MI] State Journal)

History lesson.

Columnist James Carroll warns about the dangers of waging culture wars, as the US religious right is wont to do. He suggests that Dubya's recent decision to support the Federal Marriage Amendment aligns the prez with forces that, rather than seeing same-sex marriage as a political question, see it as a matter of values that is not subject to debate, and on which no compromise is possible. In attempting to further his own political agenda and ensure his re-election, says Carroll, Dubya could be sending the country down a path to unintended and unwanted destinations.

When quasi-hysterical fearmongering replaces reasonable debate, dark forces can be set in motion that outrun anyone's intentions, and that is especially true when the question involves a segment of society that has long been subject to irrational bigotry. To define the wish of homosexuals for equal access to marriage rites and rights as a mortal threat to the social order, as Bush does, is to put gay people themselves in an unprecedented position of jeopardy. Bush and a conservative punditry, out of crude self-interest, are working hard to reverse the evolution of attitudes that has blurred the boundary between blue America and red. Bush wants that boundary bright. In an election year, it may work. But it is dangerous.

The phrase "culture war" comes from "Kulturkampf." That word was coined in the 1870s when Germany's George W. Bush, Otto von Bismarck, launched a "values" campaign as a way of shoring up his political power. Distracting from issues of war and economic stress, the "Kulturkampf" ran from 1871 to about 1887. Bismarck's strategy was to unite his base by inciting hatred of those who were not part of it.

His first target was the sizable Catholic minority in the new, mostly Protestant German state, but soon enough, especially after an economic depression in 1873, Jews were defined as the main threat to social order. This was a surprising turn because Jewish emancipation had been a feature of German culture as recently as the 1860s. By 1879, the anti-Jewish campaign was in full swing: It was in that year that the word "anti-Semitism" was coined, defining not a prejudice but a public virtue. The Kulturkampf was explicitly understood as a struggle against decadence, of which the liberal emancipated Jew became a symbol. What that culture war's self-anointed defenders of a moral order could not anticipate was what would happen when the new "virtue" of anti-Semitism was reinforced by the then burgeoning pseudo-science of the eugenics movement. Bismarck's defense of expressly German values was a precondition of Hitler's anti-Jewish genocide.

One need not predict equivalence between the eventual outcome of Bismarck's culture war and the threat of what Bush's could lead to. For our purposes, the thing to emphasize is that a leader's exploitation of subterranean fears and prejudices for the sake of political advantage is a dangerous ploy, even if done in the name of virtue. No, make that especially if done in the name of virtue.

Make sure to go read rest of the article.

Via Boston Globe.

Is Fargo, North Dakota hip?

That's what the LA Times says. Or, rather, that Fargo is aspiring to hip-ness.

Downtown development director Dave Anderson has focused his early marketing efforts on business travelers who come to Fargo by necessity. He's put menus from local restaurants in all hotel rooms in an effort to get guests out strolling downtown. If that works, he'll turn to persuading folks to come to Fargo by choice.

Musing about television, radio and print ads, Anderson has played around with several possible slogans. "Fargo. You know we're cold. We're also cool," he suggests. Or: "We're cold, but our downtown is hot."

[Fargo mayor Bruce] Furness likes the concepts. He also knows that, thanks to the Coen brothers, Fargo won't be an easy sell.

"People think we're up here on the bleak plains, snowed in eight months of the year. People want to think that way about Fargo," he said. With the sigh of a man resigned to rebuff, the mayor added: "I tell them the movie was not a documentary."

As someone who spent a decade living next door in Minnesota, we have to admit that the notion that anything in North Dakota is hip strikes us as very strange. But then, as a snotty West Coaster, the notion that Minnesota could be hip strikes us weird, too.

Women & political blogging: The continuing story.

Wow, are there some great posts being written on the subject of why women are woefully underrepresented in blogging in general, and in political blogging in particular. The impetus for all this discussion was a post at Campaign Desk that showed up on International Women's Day (March 8). (If you haven't read the post, you'll find it here.)

First, check out Boy Bloggers: Still on Top from Susan at Suburban Guerrilla.

* Let's go back to the start of the feminist movement in the 60s. Women embraced the notion of "the personal is political" and were ridiculed by the men of the leftist movement, who were focused on "important" issues, like the war and racism. Women bloggers still tend to put their politics in the context of the personal, and men react... not a whole lot differently than they did forty years ago.

* Men often prefer women to act a certain way - you know, sweet. Demure. Womanly. Discreet. (They don't expect them to advocate blowjobs in the Democratic Party platform, for instance.) They see women who don't conform to that standard as "ballbusters."

* No matter how far women have come, they're still "supposed" to defer to their "betters." Boy bloggers usually have an area of expertise: Legal, economic, military, etc. They expect to be treated like experts, even when they're speaking out of their subject area.

My area of expertise is journalism - which, as you can guess, covers a multitude of subjects. (Basically, it requires you to be a quick study on almost everything.) And I don't defer often; I acknowledge peers. Men tend to get annoyed by this.

Oregon's legislative counsel says same-sex marriages are legal.

The chief counsel for the state legislature says that Oregon's constitution forbids state and local governments from treating gay and straight citizens differently. Because of this, says legislative counsel Greg Chaimov, offering a civil unions to lesbian and gay couples would not meet the requirements of the constitution: If heterosexual couples have the right to a state-recognized marriage, that right must also be given to same-sex couples.

Chaimov's opinion was requested by the leader of the Democratic caucus in the state senate. It does not have the force of law, but it does contribute to the increasing number of legal opinions supporting the decision of Multnomah County to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. An opinion from the state attorney general is expected soon.

For a more detailed analysis of the legislative counsel's opinion, see this post at the Portland Communique.

Support for same-sex civil unions rising.

The clamor against same-sex marriage coming from the White House, GOP, and religious right apparently isn't working exactly as planned. While a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that opposition to lesbian/gay marriages has risen since last fall, support for same-sex civil unions is up substantially. And what's especially interesting is that the biggest growth in that support has come since San Francisco and Multnomah County (OR) have been allowing lesbian and gay couples to marry.

Maher Arar's wife to run for office in Canada.

CBC News is reporting that Monia Mazigh will be an NDP candidate in the next Canadian federal election. Mazigh is married to Maher Arar, the Canadian who was deported from the US to Syria for alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Mazigh came to public notice for running a year-long campaign to get her husband out of a Syrian prison, and then to get the Canadian government to investigate why he'd wound up in Syria to begin with. Mazigh has a doctorate in financial economics, but has no political experience.

It's been rumored for some time that Mazigh was considering a run for office:

Last month, [NDP leader Jack] Layton cancelled a planned news conference to announce Mazigh's candidacy because she had not decided if she would run.

[Former NDP leader Alexa] McDonough said at the time that Mazigh would be a welcome addition to the party.

"She's shown herself to be of incredible leadership quality, she's been an incredible advocate for human rights and civil liberties and, yes, I absolutely was proud to approach her to ask if she might give this consideration."

More: The Globe & Mail has more details:

Ms. Mazigh said she had been offered an Ottawa riding but would not go beyond that. She, her husband and two children live in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean. Her member of Parliament is Marlene Catterall, a Liberal who worked hard to win Mr. Arar's release.

Even though she has no political experience, Ms. Mazigh would be a marquee candidate for any political party. Her battle for her husband's freedom won her widespread sympathy and admiration.

Her husband's ordeal would influence her work if she were elected, Ms. Mazigh said. But she added her interests range beyond the Middle East or prisoners' rights.

Ms. Mazigh has a doctorate in finance and would be interested in pursuing economic issues, particularly as they pertain to families.

"I am still at the decision stage but I would like to participate in the democratic process and make things happen," she said at the time.

Note: The NDP (New Democratic Party) is the furthest left of Canada's three major national parties.

Open Thread

What's keeping you preoccupied these days? Inquiring minds, and all that.

Thoughts about last week's episode of 'Angel' welcome. Joss Whedon's storylines really grow on me, and the show has definitely improved in just about every dimension. Even though shows that improve are falling out of favor with the Powers That Be. What to do next year if there are no Whedon stories to break up the steady horror of cable news? They'd better not be teasing about the Firefly movie, and that's all I'm saying.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN’ SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn." - Joss Whedon

In Review

Ampersand wishes us to know that, contrary to the views of bestselling authors who shall remain nameless, men and women are from the same planet. So there.

At Back to Iraq, Albritton describes the worsening mood of Iraqis after the bombing in Karbala as part of a steady trend.

Barefoot and Naked has collected the jobs and growth goods.

Body and Soul writes about the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib now that it's in American hands, Arnold's entry into publishing, and the possibility that Bush administration coup plotters are still interested in Venezuela.

Calpundit notes that John Kerry isn't exceptionally liberal, being almost solidly in the middle of the Democratic party. But I was pleased to discover through a link in his post that WA congressman Jim McDermott is in fact the most liberal member of congress, edging past even Kucinich.

Dave Cullen thinks there's no going back on gay marriage, and I hope he's right.

Corrente brings us a second conflict of interest for Scalia, bad human rights news from Uzbekistan, and information about the high price of privatizing military duties.

dKos: From the diaries, an interesting question about Aristide's resignation letter, and more thoughts on the possibility that Venezuela might be next. Kos says that the blog contribution of fact-checking their a**** 24/7 has created quite a pickle for the GOP, linking to Billmon's landmark WMD quote list and a recent dKos diary chronicle of Bush flip-flops.

Free Thoughts on Iran posts from a guest blogger from a western background who learned to live with hijab. Doesn't make me want to run out and buy a scarf, but very interesting.

Gallimaufry points to an anthropological study of marriage that found no good basis for declaring that the current incarnation of the nuclear family has been the norm for time immemorial.

Guardian columnist Gary Younge talks about the ouster of Haitian democracy, and Nick Cohen says that we should be just as keen to protect the young from advertising as we protect them from sex. (I personally think that young people need to be protected from advertising even more than they need to be protected from sex, though considering many of the media images they're exposed to, it practically amounts to the same thing.) Also, George Monbiot takes on the round-the-bend arguments agribusinesses are now using to bully the public into accepting GM foods. He debunks the argument that GM will solve hunger at length, but the argument that GM is a great boon to science with dispatch. Emphasis mine:

...Now forgive me if you've heard this before, but it seems to need repeating. GM crops are not science. They are technological products of science. To claim, as Tony Blair and several senior scientists have done, that those who oppose GM are "anti-science" is like claiming that those who oppose chemical weapons are anti-chemistry. Scientists are under no greater obligation to defend GM food than they are to defend the manufacture of Barbie dolls. ...

At Hullaballoo, the permalinks seem to be broken. I'd wanted to direct readers to a post about the growing popularity of the Prius, but you can scroll through this archive for it, and be rewarded with plenty of other good tidbits. Including a partial transcript of the Howard Stern show the day before he was fired.

Just a Bump in the Beltway has more on Haiti, some on Chalmers Johnson. If you know who Chalmers Johnson is, you'll rush over. If you don't, you should rush over and get acquainted, because the guy definitely knows where his towel is.

Magpie found a link to Candidate Bush vs. President Bush, the debate brought to you by the wizards at the Daily Show video editing department. If the DNC or any other liberal organization were looking for an ad, they should consider lifting it wholesale.

Ms. Magazine posts about global women's issues as well as literature from the axis of evil, as translated by Words Without Borders, a society sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Though, if I'm not mistaken, the Treasury Department may have recently declared their activities illegal. Which is a shame, because it all sounded pretty interesting.

Finally, the funny stuff.

Read the whole diary of Kerry's running mate vetting process, by Notes on the Atrocities. Quick excerpts:

March 2, 2003
War looming; a few nuts in Portland and San Francisco protesting. Must compete with a war president. Contact DLC to find pro-war moderate with foreign policy experience. Lieberman leading polls. This is the year for an insider with experience. ...

August 12, 2003
Dean on cover of Time. Must run from the outside, the Democratic wing of Dems. Liberal is in. DLC still suggesting Zell Miller. What about Joe Trippi? Focus groups don't know what they want. Bush is targeting Hispanics. Bill Richardson? ...

Don't miss Courteous Miner's Howard Dean in Braveheart, in part:

John of Edwards: Invade? That's impossible.

Howard: Why? Why is that impossible? You're so concerned with squabbling for the scraps from Bush's table that you've missed your God given right to something better. ...

And Wonkette found stories about the Gridiron dinner, which I'd been wanting to look for, but ultimately hadn't got around to. So enjoy, because this is funny stuff. Or what passes for it with politicians.

You know how words can come back to haunt you.

Every one of us should make sure that these words haunt Dubya this election year:

Our budget is fiscally responsible. If enacted, it will reduced (sic) the deficit by an unprecedented amount over the next four years.

Dubya said 'em in his first news conference as president in 2001. Thanks to Josh Marshall for pointing them out.

Tom DeLay To Set Own Policy Goals

Republican House Leader, Tom DeLay (R-TX), will offer a separate legislative agenda to a private meeting of Republican lawmakers. Emphasis mine:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, criticized by some conservatives for toeing the White House line too often over the past three years, is about to announce his own legislative agenda.

"I have not discussed this with President Bush or anyone else in the White House, and have no desire to," Mr. DeLay told The Washington Times in an interview in his majority leader's office. "But if you don't set these conservative goals, you don't get conservative governance."

On Wednesday, Mr. DeLay will take the extraordinary step of introducing his own set of legislative and policy goals, for this year and beyond. ...

Sounds like a vote of 'no confidence' in Fearless Leaderman to me. Unless, of course, it's some sneaky Norquistian plan to make Bush look like a centrist. But who knows what goes on in the minds of Texas Republicans [pdf].

Dubya's economic wishful thinking.

Economist/columnist Paul Krugman lays it out short and sweet.

Spaulding Gray Found Dead

I've always found listening to Spaulding Gray a very intense and meditative experience. So I find the news that he is dead, possibly by suicide a painful story. As the NYTimes's article says, he had spent many years fighting depression and then finally after he reached the age of 52 (the age his mother was when she killed herself) he found peace and some happiness in his life. All that was lost a couple of years ago when he survived a very bad car accident which crushed his hip and fractured his skull and sent him back into a deep depression. Unfortunately, it looks like this trial was too much for him and we've lost the fragile soul that shared his insight and human pain with us. May you rest in peace, Spaulding.

Lawsuit Filed Over Black-Box Voting

Florida Congressman Robert Wexler has filed a lawsuit to force the state to provide printers with electronic voting machines:

...Wexler claims that it is unconstitutional for 52 counties in Florida to have a means to conduct a recount, while 15 other Florida counties with touch-screen voting machines have a paperless system not allowing for one.

Florida law unequivocally requires a manual recount in a close election. Despite the clear requirements of Florida law, the Department of State recently issued a proposed rule stating, "when a manual recount is ordered and touchscreen ballots are used no manual recount of undervotes and overvotes cast on a touchscreen system shall be conducted since these machines do not allow a voter to cast an overvote and since a review of undervotes cannot result in a determination of voter intent."

"Essentially, what the Secretary of State is saying is that touch-screen voting machines are infallible -- which would make them the first machines devised by mankind in the history of the world that will never make a mistake. ..."

FL Secretary of State Glenda Hood was on Lou Dobbs this evening saying that the lawsuit does a "disservice" to voters' belief in the integrity of the system. She went on to say that no vendors even offered companion printer technology, implying that the lawsuit was therefore frivolous. She said that such technology might be available in the future, but it was an unknown.

...I believe that Congressman Wexler is doing a great disservice to those voters who have that strong confidence in the system and know that their vote counts and know that our track record has been strong since 2002. ...But the fact of the matter is that today, there's no vendor that's presented any type of manufactured piece of equipment, a companion printer to go with those touch-screen machines for certification in the state of Florida. ...

However, according to VerifiedVoting.org, Brazil's electronic voting machines have been retrofitted with printers. Is Brazil ahead of us in voting technology?

Apparently, they are not. US based touch-screen voting system manufacturer Sequoia Voting Systems has put its optional printer system up for certification as of the first quarter of this year. Nevada has already insisted on retrofitting all their Sequoia machines with printers, and making at least one machine with a printer available at each voting location in areas where older machines can't be updated by September of 2004. From his statement on the decision last December:

..."As we moved through this process, several factors helped make my decision clear," Heller said. "Foremost were the findings of a report I requested from the Nevada Gaming Control Board to review the two systems preferred by the overwhelming majority of state County Clerks/Registrars of Voters: Sequoia and Diebold." The report, compiled by Electronic Services Division Chief Marc McDermott, stated in its summary:

I believe the Diebold electronic voting machine, operating on the software analyzed in a John Hopkins report and the SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) Risk Assessment Report, represents a legitimate threat to the integrity of the election process. Conversely, based on available information with regard to the Sequoia Voting System, I believe the Sequoia electronic voting machine represents a much more secure option because of the increased security of the customer (voter) interface and by the fact that the Sequoia operating software has not been made available on the Internet.

When the Gaming Control Board's Electronic Services Division reports [pdf] to me that one system is superior to another, I'm going to place my confidence in that equipment," Heller said. "They are responsible for verifying the security and integrity of various electronic gaming machines throughout Nevada and, therefore, accountable for millions of dollars on a daily basis. My level of confidence in selecting Sequoia was greatly increased after receiving this report." ...

Now, while Diebold claims that their product makes paper unnecessary, that doesn't mean the option is unavailable in the US. Though it would seem that Florida's Secretary of State may not be listening to anyone else, Nevada's Secretary of State flatly rejected Diebold's bid in large part because it did not include the option to print ballot records. Bringing us back to the age-old question of which country the Republicans think they're living in.

Update: With the transcript released, I've added a link and direct quotes from the Lou Dobbs interview with Glenda Hood.

WA Can Still Pass Equal Rights Bill

BREAKING NEWS 3/7/04, Courtesy of Discrimination Free Washington: The Civil Rights Bill can still pass...Please contact your Senator NOW!

We have just learned that the Civil Rights Bill could still pass this week, as part of a compromise between the House and the Senate.

Here's what we need to do NOW to help pass this critical legislation:

ALL of our senators need to hear that their constituents want them to pass the Civil Rights Bill, EHB 1809, but especially:

Esser (R-Bellevue, 48th district) Senate Floor Leader, who opposed the Bill's passage;
Finkbeiner (R-Eastside, 45th district) Majority Leader, who opposed the Bill's passage; Carlson (R-Vancouver, 49th district), who courageously broke ranks with his party and needs encouragement to continue to support the Bill's passage;
Deccio (R-Yakima, 14th district), who voted first to support, then subsequently voted so as to defeat the Bill's passage;
Hargrove (D-Hoquiam, 24th district), who opposed the Bill's passage; Tim Sheldon (D-Grays Harbor, 35th district) who opposed the Bill's passage, and
Winsley (R-Fircrest, 28th district), who also courageously broke ranks with her party, and voted to pass the Bill (please thank her also!).

Please mobilize your friends, family, coworkers and other allies who live in the districts above to contact their Senators again. Here are two easy ways to help ensure passage of the bill, this week:

Call the Washington State Legislative Hotline, 1-800-562-6000, to leave a message asking your Senator again to please support the passage of HB 1809. You don't have to know your district number or Senator's name to do this.

Email your Senator, asking her/him to again support the passage of HB 1809. Senators’ email addresses are located at: www.leg.wa.gov/email/members/Default.aspx?Chamber=S

This is a historic opportunity for Washingtonians to finally pass the Civil Rights Bill - which would provide protection for all people in our state from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, insurance, financial transactions and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. Please take action NOW!

Marriage news round-up.

Oregon

A Multnomah County judge has refused to issue an injunction stopping the county from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Defense of Marriage Coalition had sued, claiming that the county violated Oregon's public meetings law by not holding public hearings before changing its policy on same-sex marriages. In his ruling, Judge Dale Koch said that he failed to see the 'clear and convincing' evidence that the Coalition would win its court case needed to justify an injunction. (AP)

More: Details of today's proceedings in Multnomah County court can be found in this post at Portland Communique.

Washington

As Natasha posted below, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has announced that the city will recognize same-sex marriages from other states when providing health and insurance benefits. The city council will also be debating an ordinance requiring city contractors to recognize married same-sex couples.

Also in Seattle, Northwest Women's Law Center and Lambda Legal are suing on behalf of six same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses by King County. In the lawsuit, Lambda and the NWLC argue that Washington's law against same-sex marriages violates the state constitution’s guarantees of equality, liberty and privacy for all Washington citizens. (Seattle Times, Lambda Legal)

First Time on SEM!

So today, I got to use the scanning electron microscope (SEM) for the very first time. The sample has to be dry, and metal-plated or embedded in paraffin or epoxy resin. This is because the chamber is open to the filament that generates the electron stream; any moisture will burn it out almost instantly.

As it happened, the last person to use it (and the room is rarely checked, so there's no telling when it was) left a note on the console saying that the filament seemed to have burned out. They were correct. So the first day I got to learn how to change it out, and practiced on a second because the backup aperture assembly had also been left with a burned out filament and carbon residue that needed to be polished off.

What I saw today: Two spore grains on the surface of a dried fern leaf. We discovered that dried fern leaves retain almost no other obviously interesting characteristics, even though they appear well preserved.

We'll try again with lichens, which should keep better considering that their nature is to sit out long dry spells with little ill effect. If I get any good pictures, I'll post them, but it may be a while. If the dried lichens don't work, I'm going to have to learn the paraffin or epoxy embedding techniques to use on fresh specimens.

Restoring Fertility After Cancer

Doctors have restored the fertility of a cancer patient by transplanting her own frozen ovarian tissue. The sample had been frozen six years earlier, and though the initial procedure did not result in pregnancy, it demonstrated that it could work in humans.

Embryos have been successfully created in sheep using the technique.

You Marry 'Em, We'll Recognize 'Em

While Washington state is explicitly forbidden through a DOMA style law from issuing same sex marriage licenses, the City of Seattly will now recognize licenses granted in other states. City officials have come out in support of same sex marriage, and have expressed regret that the law clearly prohibits them from issuing licenses to gay couples.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels on Monday ordered the city government to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, even though Washington state law clearly prohibits same-sex marriage.

"Spouses of city employees in same-sex marriages will enjoy all of the health and insurance benefits that all opposite sex partners enjoy," Nickels said at a news conference.

...Same-sex couples in Seattle have already had equal rights to domestic partnership benefits for the past five years, but an application required extensive paperwork.

A proposed ordinance is also being presented to Seattle's city council to require businesses that contract with the city to extend equal rights to homosexual married couples.

Good for us. I was wondering when Seattle would get into the act.

Why aren't there more women political bloggers?

If you look up at the top of TruthLaidBear's weblog traffic rankings, you won't see many blogs from women. In the top ten, for example, there's only one female blogger: Wonkette. Since we started reading blogs oh so many years ago — and especially since we started doing our own blog last March — we've noticed both the relatively small number of political blogs by women, and how those blogs frequently don't get the attention that their quality would merit.

CJR's Campaign Desk has noticed the same thing. One of their posts today makes some interesting observations about why there aren't more successful political blogs by women.

Blood, who has written a book about blogging, argues that for a weblog to attract a wide audience, it has to have a narrow focus, a formula that works against women bloggers.

"A lot of the women who have weblogs will post about a lot of different things," she says. "They generally won't focus only on politics. I think that writing style tends to strike people as more personal, even when it really isn't."

Calpundit's Kevin Drum, who until recently diverged once a week from his steady focus on politics to blog about his cats, has seen firsthand what happens when you stray too far from the formula.

"Sometimes I get these incredibly angry emails about the Friday cat blogging," he says. "It's a blog, you know? If you don't like something, you can scroll down to the next post. But some people get really upset about it. Blogs aren't like newspapers, where you'll see a lot of different content. People only want to read about what they're interested in, and that's it."

Ana Marie Cox, a.k.a. Wonkette, acknowledges that she would have had a hard time breaking into the upper echelons of the blogosphere without the backing of British publisher Nick Denton (Gawker, Gizmodo, Fleshbot), who Sreenivasan refers to as "the New York Times Company of the blogosphere." "I was running my own personal blog for a while, and I like to think it was pretty good, but it didn't get anywhere near the attention Wonkette! gets," says Cox. She argues that there would be more female political bloggers if more women were led to believe that their opinions matter. "Vestiges of hundreds of years of gender stereotypes are still with us," she says. "Women get a different message from men about how to express their opinions. Women are not as encouraged to shout out their opinion. At times they're actively discouraged."

Ooooooh, shiny!

Over a century's worth of Burpee Seed Company catalog covers.

Via Boing Boing.

What global warming?

The summer of 2003 was the hottest summer in Europe in 500 years.

Via BBC.

Bureaucracy News

NASA will begin holding contests instead of just accepting bids:

...The private X-Prize Foundation brought the tradition into the 21st century by offering a $10 million prize, which it expects to award this year, for the first repeatable, sub-orbital human space flight by an entrepreneur with no governmental ties.

On March 13, teams of autonomous vehicle innovators will compete for a $1 million purse in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Grand Challenge. The winning vehicle must complete the 300-mile course from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in the fastest time less than 10 hours--without external communication or human control.

...Instead of soliciting proposals for a grant or contract award, NASA will state its technical goals without prescriptions for achieving them. In each challenge, multiple teams will integrate, test and fly various approaches to a certain goal. "As multiple teams succeed or fail in going after a challenge, the competitive process will distinguish between those technologies that can be imagined and those that can be practically developed," Sponberg said.

The Senate has passed restrictions on federal offshore outsourcing.

The House passed a bill last week that stops the diversion of patent fees. Article discusses changes in fee structure for patent submission.

What really happened during Dubya's time in the National Guard?

Tom Tomorrow reveals the story that's been hidden for decades.

Via Salon. [Paid sub or ad view required.]

Gonna Find Out Who's Naughty Or Nice

George W. Bush speaking at a campaign fundraiser in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Wed., March 3rd, 2004. As seen on C-SPAN:

"There is no cave, or hole, deep enough to hide from American justice."

Big Brother and the vigilante Borg ride again. Which, to steal shamelessly from Dave Barry, would make an excellent name for a band.

The earth moved.

Earlier this week, Multnomah County, Oregon, became one of the very few places in the United States where lesbian and gay citizens enjoy the right to get married. Since Wednesday morning, hundreds of same-sex couples have made the trek to the county office building in east Portland to get a marriage license. Each day so far, the line of people waiting to get a license has wrapped halfway around the block, with new couples joining as others finish their business with the county.

Friday morning, this magpie was standing in that line, in the rain, with her friends Sunny and Miriam, who had decided that it was about time to make their relationship legal. We were with them when they got their license and when they paid for it, and we drove them downtown to Keller Auditorium to get married. If we've ever been in the company of two happier people, we certainly can't remember when that was. (If you want to see them, we included a picture of the happy couple with this post at our other blog, Magpie.)

Since this magpie is a lesbian, the events this week in Portland have been of more than academic interest to us — even before two of our friends decided to get married. And after standing in line for hours at the county building in the company of hundreds of joyful lesbians and gay men, we are certain that something very powerful is happening here (and, we're sure, in San Francisco, New Paltz, and several Canadian provinces). Our big problem, though, has been in trying to find the words to describe why we've been so moved this week, and why we think recent events in Portland and elsewhere are changing the US permanently.

Redecorating

I'm finally getting around to playing with the default MT template. Nothing too radical just yet, but what do you think?

The font is smaller (is it too small?), the colors a little different, and the link text was darkened up to stand out better. I may attempt something radical in the next week or so, like adding a third column or getting some kind of graphic device to put up top, but I haven't decided. I guess that as long as I don't add a fifth column, I'll be on the right side of the law ;)

Class Warfare 'Victim' Warren Buffett Speaks Out

Republicans would have us believe that the estate tax and progressive taxation are a form of class warfare on the wealthy. Which makes it doubly notable when the world's second richest person, Warren Buffett, takes a strong public stand against corporate backslappers in his yearly letter to Berkshire Hathaway investors. Via Reuters:

..."I am on my soapbox now only because the blatant wrongdoing that has occurred has betrayed the trust of so many millions of shareholders," Buffett said. "Hundreds of industry insiders had to know what was going on, yet none publicly said a word. It took Eliot Spitzer, and the whistleblowers who aided him, to initiate a housecleaning. We urge fund directors to continue the job."

..."Overreaching by CEOs greatly accelerated in the 1990s as compensation packages gained by the most avaricious -- a title for which there was vigorous competition -- were promptly replicated elsewhere," he added.

Buffett has for years taken a $100,000 annual salary to run Berkshire, although with a net worth that Forbes magazine last month put at $42.9 billion, he can afford it.

Interesting that the objective reporter writing this article for us would imply that a $100k yearly salary was something that only an independently wealthy person could afford to take.

According to Forbes, Buffett is also keen to make the beseiged CEO class pay more taxes:

...Buffett said Berkshire's taxes rose more than eleven-fold to $3.3 billion from 1995 to 2003, as profits rose ten-fold to $8.15 billion.

During the same period, federal income taxes paid by all U.S. companies fell by 16 percent, to $132 billion. "We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future -- it will mean we are prospering -- but we also hope that the rest of corporate America antes up along with us," said Buffett...

..."Tax breaks for corporations -- and their investors, particularly large ones -- were a major part of the administration's 2002 and 2003 initiatives," Buffett said. "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning."

...Last May, Buffett wrote a Washington Post opinion article criticizing a key element of Bush's tax package -- a cut in tax rates on corporate dividends. Buffett urged that any tax cuts should go to lower-income people or others "who both need and will spend the money gained." ...

Also, according to the Financial Times, he took a dim view of the state of the dollar:

...Mr Buffett also highlighted a number of risks to the US economy that add to last year's warnings on derivatives and corporate governance. In particular, he singled out the weak dollar as a cause for concern and revealed that Berkshire Hathaway had $12bn invested in foreign currencies to balance its exposure to the greenback.

"Prevailing exchange rates will not lead to a material letup in our trade deficit. So whether foreign investors like it or not they will continue to be flooded with dollars," said Mr Buffett. "The consequences of this are anybody's guess. They could, however, be troublesome - and reach, in fact, well beyond currency markets." ...

Apparently, having money doesn't have to put you out of touch with reality.

Republican In NY

New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg comes out in support of gay marriage. Via Newsday:

..."On the word 'marriage,' the definition, I guess I've kind of gone back and forth in my mind," Bloomberg said. "I think the term marriage is what's polarizing people. In terms of the rights of two people when they get together, I think that should not be a function of their gender." ...

Well. The words of a man not looking to win any popularity contests at the Republican convention this September.

The latest US job figures.

They're even worse than they appeared at first. The fact that only 21,000 jobs were created in February — instead of the 125,000 predicted, or the 300,000-plus needed to meet the administration's 2004 job target — all of the new jobs in February were government jobs. You got it: the private sector didn't create any jobs at all last month.

But there's more: The feds also revised the December and January figures. According to the new numbers, there were 23,000 fewer jobs created than had been reported earlier. Given that the previously reported increase for December was only 1,000 jobs, these new figures are particularly bad news.

If Dubya plans to win the election in November, it certainly looks like he won't be able to base that victory on the performance of the economy.

More: While we were writing that post, we somehow managed to miss the headline on this NY Times story:

Job Data Provides Ammunition for Two Sides in Presidential Race

How any reporter or editor with even half a brain could find any ambiguity in the new job figures totally escapes this magpie. (Thanks to Atrios and Josh Marshall for pointing to the headline.)

John Kerry's Democratic Radio Address

John Kerry delivered this week's Democratic Radio Address, transcript courtesy of Fox News. Kerry faced the national security issue head on, arguing that Bush has done a poor job of providing it. In part:

Teacher Suspended Over 'Passion'

A Washington D.C. school has been suspended for showing excerpts of 'Passion' to sixth graders. Not only is he accused of poor judgement, but there's the question of his possession of an unauthorized copy of a movie that has yet to be released on video.

Bill Maher's "New Rules" on Same Sex Marriage

Transcript from show "Real Time: with Bill Maher." First aired Friday, March 5th. The views in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of this website, and may not be suitable for all readers. But we thought some of you might find them very entertaining ;)

New Rule: Politics is about compromises. Really stupid compromises.

That's how we got such laws as... Blacks are 3/5 of a person. Slaves are property, unless they make it to Ohio. Interning the Japanese, but not the Germans. Slaughtering the Indians, but letting the ones who survive run the Keno parlors. Porn, but not hardcore porn. Booze, and then no booze, and then booze again. But no pot. Except medical marijuana. Which is legal to possess, but illegal to obtain. And my favorite; you can't have stem cells, except the ones we already have.

Now in this spirit, I would like to offer a few compromise suggestions for the knotty issue we face today: same sex marriage.

Digital Happenings

Slashdot posting indicates that a draft trade agreement between the US and Australia could be damaging to public domain, free software, and fair use.

SearchEngineWatch reports on the new Yahoo! search engine, which will replace the Google index in Yahoo! search results.

Yahoo! currently has about 41% search market share through various outlets, and is planning to increase paid listing fees as it consolidates multiple inclusion systems.

This search engine share report explains what this will mean in terms of Google's search market reach. With Google supplying both AOL and Yahoo! with unpaid searches, they served up around 79% of all web searches. That will drop to 51% now that they will only be supplying AOL in addition to their site.

Microsoft is also beta testing its own search engine. The results they currently supply are a mix of paid inclusion listings from LookSmart and Overture, along with both paid inclusion and free Inktomi results.

Wired asks if Microsoft is behind SCO efforts to stamp out Linux, and the Seattle P-I's Microsoft blog has a news roundup on the issue.

Wired also notes that Congress is considering a bill that would allow database companies to own facts:

...Under the terms of the broadly written bill, a public-health website could be deemed in violation of the law for gathering a list of the latest health headlines and providing links to them on its home page.

Google would be in violation for trolling media databases and providing stories on its news page.

An encyclopedia site not only could own the historical facts contained in its online entries, but could do so long after the copyright on authorship of the written entries had expired. Unlike copyright, which expires 70 years after the death of a work's author, the Misappropriation Act doesn't designate an expiration date.

...Opponents of the bill include Yahoo, Google, the American Association of Libraries and a host of technology and financial-services companies such as Verizon, Bloomberg and Charles Schwab.

"All of the companies opposed to the bill produce some of the most massive databases in the world, yet they feel they already have adequate protections for them," [Joe Rubin, executive director of technology and e-commerce for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce] said. "There really is no necessity whatsoever for this legislation."

I note with alarm that such a bill would almost certainly make the majority of my blog posts (and most postings by other poli-bloggers) illegal. At issue, a portion of the bill explicitly stating that there is no difference between a 'subset' (which could be any size) of the database and the full set of information. It sounds like it would be the messy end of blogging as we know it.

Contact your representative to oppose HR 3261, the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" today.

Update: link added on SCO-Linux issue.

Science News

Archeologists say excavations in Iraq will continue to prove informative:

As security improves to allow excavation, evidence may emerge that advanced societies existed in the area much earlier than previously thought, said Dr. John Russell, professor of archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.

"A decade of research in Iraq could rewrite the books of archaeology, no question," Russell, who is currently serving as a senior adviser to Iraq's ministry of culture, told Reuters on Thursday at the opening of new conservation and restoration laboratory at Iraq's National Museum in Baghdad.

...In each year, he said, his team made discoveries that essentially pushed back the timeline for ancient civilization by a millennium. "It was just absolutely incredible, they were unprecedented discoveries. But Iraq is like that," he said.

GOP donor gets to drill in NM wilderness, insisting all the while that there's nothing fishy, whatever.

Former Senator and retired astronaut John Glenn attacks Bush's space proposal.

...The octogenarian space pioneer's most cutting comments were reserved for NASA's plans to gut the International Space Station of a once-ambitious research agenda, limiting science only to studies applicable to the moon and Mars program.

...He said cutting the research component of the space station program would save only about $2.5 million. ...

The other Mars rover also finding signs of water.

UK scientists don't want to let GMO crops in.

Pacific ocean leatherback turtles will be extinct within a decade if conservation measures aren't undertaken immediately, and poaching halted.

A species of African hornbill has been observed responding to the predator alarms of monkeys.

What do those homosexuals want, anyway?

Way too much. If you doubt us, take a look at Laura Conaway's unreasonable set of expectations:

I want to be a full citizen, with this woman [her partner, Sarah], today. I want to do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever is necessary, go wherever I have to, for that to be so.

I want to be taxed equally. I want my Social Security benefits to go somewhere besides down the drain. I want the Fifth Amendment right not to testify against Sarah, and to protect our private correspondence from subpoena, the same