“When you tell somebody directions how to get to your place you gotta tell them it’s the third road on the left because there’s no sign to tell them how to get to Mullet Place,” said Richard Fleischfresser.

The city’s new solution: put the Mullet Place signs out of reach. Signs are usually about seven feet off the ground. The Mullet Place signs are about 20 feet off the ground. That’s too high for some residents. [Source]

Only local, folks.

“In view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship,” Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote of marriage for the majority, “the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.”

California already has a strong domestic partnership law that gives gay and lesbian couples nearly all of the benefits and burdens of heterosexual marriage. The majority said that is not enough. [source]

California joins Massachusetts in being the only two states to legally support marriage equality.

Idiots and godbags (as much as there is a difference) in California are not willing to focus on their own families, though:

Conservative groups have proposed a new initiative, this one to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. If it is allowed onto the ballot in November and approved by the voters, [today's] decision would be overridden.

There must be something wrong with me, because I think it’s silly to get all huffy over two women or two men entering the marriage contract together.

In 2003 Canada ran these commercials on television stations across the country:

Here in the US:

Advocacy and awareness go a long way.

The first Saturday of every month the city tests the sirens, so they sound for a few minutes starting at 11AM. When they went off a little while ago, I looked out my window and saw neither cloud nor plane. While the local newspaper is rather sucky and told me nothing, the local news channel updates their site accordingly:

I realized the sirens make me quite paranoid.

Police fired a 50,000-volt Taser into the head of a 45-year-old company director who later proved to be unarmed and innocent. Daniel Sylvester, the owner of an east London security firm employing 65 staff to guard council offices, pubs and nightclubs, was driving home on October 20 when he was stopped by armed police because of “firearms related intelligence”.

According to Sylvester, he got out of his car and was surrounded by officers, at least two of whom were carrying automatic weapons. Without warning, one officer fired a Taser into the back of his head which made him drop to his knees, he said. A second shock caused him to fall on his face, breaking a front tooth. A further six shocks made him wet himself and left him lying in the road in pain while the officers and sniffer dogs searched the car and found nothing.
[...]
Tasers have been used 47 times in London this year, with black people accounting for almost two-thirds of those stunned.

The government extended the right to use Tasers for all firearms officers in England and Wales this summer. [via]

Tasers seem too easy. They may pose an overall lower risk than firearms, but it seems that makes police more likely to use them, even when it isn’t necessary.

And next door:

Illinois gets a coal plant, but this is apparently a Very Special coal plant:

A futuristic power plant aimed at burning coal without emitting global warming gases will be built in Illinois, an industry group said Tuesday.

Instead of excreting carbon dioxide into the air (a leading greenhouse gas), they hope to liquify it and bury it.

I had to look that one up. Burying CO2? That just seems foolish. Japan was trying it out in 2006 and I’m not sure of their success, but it seems science isn’t too sure if it will stay buried.

I’m not totally down with the idea of transforming the gas into a liquid and then placing the liquid into barrels and then burying the barrels into the ground. —Won’t that be a nice gift to future generations?

Online sales are estimated to be $45 billion to $50 billion this holiday season, which runs from two weeks before Thanksgiving until Christmas, said Richard Feinberg, director of the Center for Customer-Driven Quality. The amount is up from $34 billion in 2006.

I would ask if this is truly news-worthy, however, after talking with one of my aunts this evening, who is still accessing the Internet via DIAL-UP on a mind-boggling-old-ass laptop, I cannot. The Partner and I have seen an increase in our own Internet consumption; prices are cheap, items are available, and shipping is fast. I got a blurb regarding the above quote from my hosting company, which is perhaps geared towards small-businesses/Internet businesses, but still. Do I really need to be told Internet purchases are ever-increasing?

Not a Surpsie #2:

I, and several of my friends, witnessed a dude being “ushered” out from a local campus bar this evening shortly after last-call, only to charge towards the door/bouncer and then be violently tackled by more than five bigger-than-him dudes to the concrete road, where he was choked and pinned to the ground until the cops showed up. I watched closely. (I remember.) So I got close. The cops came and told him to turn over onto his back. They cuffed him and started patting him down, getting out his wallet. I told him, “Don’t say anything until you have legal representation. Don’t say anything. Get a lawyer. Legal aid, dude, legal aid.” And what did he do? He started talking to the cops.

Dr. Kevorkian has stated that he will continue to advocate for assisted suicide/euthanasia and I hope to see the issue come back into social discussion. I don’t think we should be afraid of the topic, or of legalizing physician-assisted suicide in the US. As a culture, if we are going to claim to value life we must do so completely — which means valuing an individual’s right to control their own life and, if they so choose, their death.

EDITED 07-24-08: Link to news article expired.

Increases in pollution from Indiana’s coal-fired power plants sent the state’s overall toxic releases up nearly 5 percent in 2005 despite efforts by manufacturers to reduce their emissions, state and federal environmental officials say.

Northwestern Indiana’s Lake County, with its industrial base, ranked as the seventh most toxic county in the nation, with releases of 50.3 million pounds of chemicals — or 20 percent of the state’s total output — in 2005, according to the Toxic Release Inventory data released last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Overall, Indiana ranked fifth worst among states in the amount of toxic chemicals released into the air, water and land. The annual survey tracks nearly 650 chemicals, including many linked to cancer and other serious health problems, but does not include some sources of pollution such as automotive emissions.

The data showed manufacturers in the state decreased toxic pollution by 1.6 million pounds, but electric generating facilities increased toxic releases by 7.4 million pounds, according to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. [Source (http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070326/NEWS09/70326006" title="Journal and Courier Online)]

That’s awesome!

EDITED 07-24-08: Link to Journal and Courier Online article expired.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Law enforcement officials are asking the public and members of the Purdue community to take part in a broad search effort Thursday (Jan. 18) to help find a missing university student.

Police were alerted to (http://www.wlfi.com/dsp_story.cfm?storyid=73189) Wade S. Steffey’s disappearance on Tuesday (Jan. 16) after family and friends became concerned that he had not been seen since late Friday (Jan. 12). Steffey, a freshman majoring in aviation technology from Bloomington, Ind., was last seen at a party at the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity house, 900 David Ross Road, and was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with light blue stripes and light-colored jeans. At 1:11 a.m. Saturday (Jan. 13), Steffey’s bank account was accessed at an automated teller machine at 1122 W. Stadium Ave., which is located in the lobby of Ford Dining Court.

Steffey is white with short brown hair and brown eyes, is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds.

Anyone with questions about the public search effort or who has any information about the case is asked to call the Purdue Police Department at (765) 494-8221 or the anonymous tip line at (765) 496-3784.

The other day I saw flyers in one of the buildings and thought it was a joke or an announcement by friends for a 21st birthday, both of which are quite common. The flyer didn’t look serious at first, so I just read the large text (“Have you seen Wade?”) below his picture and passed it on. The next day I paid more attention to it and, sure enough, it was a serious notice of a missing student.

Yesterday, as I was waiting for the bus home, some police officers ran through the crowd with a bloodhound. At dinner with friends later, one brought up seeing the cops/bloodhound and, me not thinking at first, we mused that they must have been doing some drug bust/search. Then I thought and said, “Oh, they’re probably looking for that missing student.”

For his family’s and friend’s sake, I hope he is found safe and well.

UPDATE:

Wade Steffey’s body was found on Purdue’s campus Monday, March 19 in a dormitory residence hall. More information about Wade and how to help support his family and friends is available at WadeSteffey.net.

EDITED 07-24-08: Link to WLFI article expired.

The Bush administration pleased farmers and frustrated environmentalists Monday by declaring that pesticides can be sprayed into and over waters without first obtaining special permits.

The reason? Capitalism, of course, that which always wins over life.

“We need to act fast to stop mosquitoes when they are found,” argued Jim Tassano, a pest-control operator in the California foothills town of Sonora. “Any delay results in adults emerging. It is far cheaper and much more effective to kill them as larvae … (and) if a permit is required, the costs would skyrocket.”

The framing of this article makes me twitch. Also, Michael Doyle can hum on my ovaries.

The EPA is now also taking it upon themselves to redefine words:

EPA officials concluded that a pesticide, when it’s deliberately applied, isn’t a “pollutant” under the terms of the 1972 Clean Water Act.

This is the power to define in action. A substance is not a “pollutant” when it is “deliberately applied”. Why?

EPA officials note that lawmakers didn’t specifically include pesticides in the list of items covered under the Clean Water Act.

I smell bullshit. What I won’t be smelling are the “non-pollutants” in my food and water, or those wafting from the dead carcases of the polluted bodies living in sprayed areas.

Apparently no one in the Environmental Protection Agency [sic] has read Rachel Carson‘s Silent Spring. But I bet they passed their economics courses!

The article, a heavily biased story in favor of big business, also states that,

Environmentalists, though, note that mosquito-killing chemicals can also poison shrimp, frogs and other aquatic innocents.

Not the innocents! What that short sentence means is that natural ecosystems and living beings are going to get fucked, yet again, for the love of God Money.

This culture is insane.

EDITED 07-24-08: Link to news article expired.

Doctor, There’s a Lawyer in My Womb: The Supreme Court Tries to Understand Partial-Birth Abortion

From the article:
“Perhaps the biggest problem with the words ‘partial-birth abortion’ is that they have neither a precise legal definition nor an exact medical one.”

Perhaps? Gee, ya think?