stuff and stuff

I've been very busy at work and generally disinterested in posting. Sorry. Trying to get back in the habit, though, so here I am.

Gay Marriage is back in the news in a big way. Massachusetts has been debating it for the last couple of days with no real resolution in any direction. The State Legislature is debating a Constitutional Ammendment in response to the Supreme Court (of MA) declaring Gay Marriage a constitutional requirement in the Commonwealth. So far, they've rejected three attempts at wording it correctly. I kinda think they are just at an impasse, but the big wigs are confidant that they'll figure something out. Basically, it sets up where the group unwilling to back off gay marriage and the group unwilling to allow even civil unions makes up a majority, so the people trying to find a compramise (often a Constitutional establishment of Civil Union with full Marriage rights and responsibilities) can't get it to work. Everytime they get a few from one camp to cross over, they lose a few more they had. All very promising, I think. The process is so long in Mass anyway, that the earliest this will be voted on by the public is November of 2006. It also needs to get approved again by the legislature in one of the next two years, which would not be sure at all given how tight this is. The longer it takes the better it looks for the pro-gay marriage side. I really think the day the first gay marriage takes place and the world doesn't end will be a big victory. As it stands, the polls say that an anti-gay marriage ammendment would probably fail in Mass and things are going only in that direction.

Speaking of the world not ending when a gay couple gets married, San Francisco appears to be feeling very left out by all the attention on Massachusetts. San Fran's new mayor decided to engage in some civil disobediance and has ordered the city to start issuing marriage liscences to gay couples, and officials married a lesbian couple today. The women are 79 and 83 and have been together for over 50 years. And that's supposed to be a bad thing? Let George W. make an issue out of this. I dare him to try explaining why a pair of 80 year olds who've been together for half a century are some threat to Western Civilization. I dare him.

Speaking of W., the press have finally noticed that they are allowed to press him and they are going after the AWOL story with a vegence. Mostly fueled by Bush himself, whose attempts to diffuse the story have been so increasingly comical that they've managed to keep it alive. Not really at the expense of the whole lying about the War stuff, too, since he keeps managing to screw that up, too. First he goes on Meet the Press and makes a fool out of himself by dodging questions so obviously and artlessly that fellow conservatives were pissed at him. He also tried to pretend that people were attacking him to "deningrate the Guard", which really seems to have only reminded people that the Vietnam era National Guard was a form of draft dodging, while today they are being used as cannon fodder. And then he promissed he'd release all of his military records. Then he didn't. But he release pay stubs, but those were inconsistant with his previous stories and didn't really prove anything, anyway. And best case scenario, all they showed was Bush set out to do the bare minimum in order to get an Honorable Discharge. And by this time, people were starting to figure out something was fishy with his medical status. Bush refused to take a yearly physical which resulted in his flight status being revoked. His explanation that he needed to see his family physician and they were in Texas while he was in Alabama just wasn't working anymore. It all seems stunningly unsoldierly when you think about it for more than a second. But Bush responded to those by releasing records showing he was ontop of his medical status. Dental records. Cuz, that really addresses the issues. Not only was that bizarely non-responsive, they were also intended to prove he served in Alabama. Only trouble is that the Dental records were for after he left Alabama, which makes no sense whatsoever.

But some GOPers have responded to all this with "Bring it On". Seems they enjoy the idea of comparing Vietnam era service records with John Kerry. You know, the war hero who saved more than a few lives of those he served with AND who had moral courage to return to the US and protest the war. That's who they want to go up against, with a guy who used political connections to get into the National Guard, where he's often bragged about how much fun he had protecting the country from, um, Canadian air assaults, but he didn't even really serve in the guard after taking a spot that meant someone else got shipped off to Vietnam, and he let himself get disqualified from flying anyone so he couldn't protect us from those aerial threats from Mexico anyway, and then got himself out of it early so he could go to business school, all so he wouldn't have to actually fight in a war he supported from a man who would later boast about him being a "War President". Yep, that's a fight they want. And why, you ask? Are Rethugs living in some bizarro world? Nope, see, they got this picture, see, and it shows Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally and like three rows back, there is Kerry. He's out of focus, since its a picture of Jane Fonda and Kerry wasn't close to her to begin with. But that's their big scary weapon. Uh huh.

Failing that, they are prepared to accuse him of having sex with an intern. The sad thing is, I'm not even joking.