Proving they have no souls:

Sponsors of the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage are seeking to nullify thousands of marriages between gay and lesbian couples performed after the state Supreme Court ruled them constitutional.

I actually got into an argument about this with someone at work.  I cited this not as a possibility, but an inevitability, but she seemed to think that it would only ban future marriages.  And the assholes that ran Yes On 8 did nothing to dispel this common thought, leaving it ambiguous as to what would happen to the 16,000 gay couples that had already been married:

Even the chief lawyer for the Yes on 8 campaign declined to predict that the court would overturn existing marriages.

“I don’t think the law is clear on that,” said attorney Andrew Pugno of Sacramento.

I think there would have been quite a few people who would have voted differently had they been told that a Yes vote would effectively divorce 16,000 couples.  At the very least, it would have mobilized people with a little more urgency.

Now, this is not to say that this will actually pass.  it probably won’t, seeing as the same court that approved gay marriages 6 months ago would have to make the ruling nullifying all of the marriages they said were legal.  It’s a longshot, but still.  It’s not like it was off-limits.

The religious community is going to regret Prop 8.  It has effectively radicalized the non-gay progressive community to the point where we will no longer settle for civil unions.  I used to sit back and say, “Well, you know, if they have equivalent civil unions, then I guess that’s ok.”  No.  Not anymore.

Not anymore will I stand idly by, while another seperate but equal institution is rationalized away by the churches of intolerance.  This will not stand.

Thank you, DIRECTV…

I’ve been meaning to write something about the whole Rick Warren fiasco (if you are unfamiliar, look here and here) for a little while now, and of course, whenever you do that, someone else goes ahead and writes the post you were thinking about for you.

Publius:

Since my spectrum post didn’t get many comments, you’ve forced me to talk about Rick Warren. And while I’m not exactly a fan of this guy, I don’t think inviting him to give the invocation is a big deal.

Now, it’s easy for me to not get that pissed about this, because I’m not gay.  It’s a lot easier for someone to argue that a person’s derogatory comments about a minority group are no big deal when you aren’t part of that minority group.  But here’s the thing: Rick Warren really isn’t that bad of a guy.  Don’t get me wrong, though, he has said ridiculous things about gays, and I don’t want him anywhere near the policy portfolio on gay rights, but he’s far from a full-on bigot, like say, John Hagee.  In fact, Warren has done a lot of good work for fighting global HIV/AIDS.  Plus, people are missing some subtle political calculations here:

Balloon Juice:

If you followed the internal politics of evangelical and fundamentalist leaders, you’d see this for what it is—not an elevation of Warren, but a slap in the face of the old guard leaders like Dobson and LaHaye. They’ve been fighting to see who gets to be the spokesman for the movement, and lately it’s been a tie. Obama just broke it.

And let’s be clear, there is a difference between those groups. Warren may not be progressive on gay rights, but he’s been out front on a number of issues of global justice—traveling from Davos to Damascus, and working hard to get rank-and-file evangelicals invested in “creation care” environmentalism and the fight against global HIV/AIDS.

This isn’t about riling up the left to boost Obama’s “centrist” credentials.  It’s about extending a hand to a somewhat reasonable leader of the evangelical community, and in doing so, elevating his status within it.

I’ll let publius finish:

Obama isn’t going to cause evangelicals to start loving abortion rights or gay marriage. But what he could maybe accomplish is to help elevate a leader whose primary mission in life isn’t defeating and vilifying Democrats. That’s all Dobson and Perkins have — they commodify outrages and liberal hatred, and that’s what they sell (at a nice profit). Warren, despite his flaws, devotes more energy to doing good things — things that secular progressives could even coalition with him on.

Personally, I’d rather see a greater chunk of evangelical money going to fight AIDS than to defeat Democratic candidates. Obama’s courtship of Warren could make that happen. Also, if the evangelical leadership shifts, young evangelicals wouldn’t grow up hearing how awful Democrats are. Instead, they would grow up hearing how important it is to do good in the world. And without that incessant demonizing, younger evangelicals might eventually drift over to the progressive camp, which is far more consistent with their views on poverty, the environment, etc.

In short, Obama’s invitation is extremely ambitious — FDR or Nixon-level ambitious. He’s trying to wedge one of the other side’s key coalition groups and assemble a new permanent coalition (or at least one that attracts less incoming fire). With that new coalition in place, the legislative environment for LGBT rights will much more conducive to progress.

This guy wants his life to be the subject of a Hollywood feature. Maybe not on purpose, but I’m positive it’ll happen.

I just found this interesting use of javascript to create a small interactive experience. Fairly impractical, but still pretty sweet.

I just thought I would give you guys a little example of the type of television advertisements I saw while living in Buffalo last year. These things always cracked me up.

Do you guys have any crazy ones from places you’ve lived in? That would be pretty sweet.

Have a good holiday juicers.

Oh hell yes.  I’ve been waiting for this since I heard about the Application Store and simultaneously started using Mint.com.

Mint.com application for iPhone

I was immediately reminded today why television news is so ripe for abuse: it’s fleeting nature.

I just saw a hit piece on the the US Conference of Mayors list of “ready to go” infrastructure projects on Anderson Cooper’s show.  Now, I’m sure that there are some projects listed out of the 11,300 that are a little foolish (I haven’t reviewed them all) but the piece went on in an incredulous tone about the “pork” projects upgrading “museums” and “zoos” and “parks,” as if none of these things could possibly have any merit at all (god forbid that my (future) kid actually be excited to go to the new museum where he can learn).

I wanted to write a more detailed blog post about it, but I was instantly hampered by the fact that I couldn’t quote what this investigative reporter chick-they-forced-to-read-the-600-page-document had said.  So here I sit, unable to lead an effective takedown of this unknown investigative reporter chick.  This is why it’s so easy to go on TV and say whatever the hell you want.  It’s there in a fleeting moment, and some people might see it, and call you on it, but you can pretty much effectively deny it ever happened.  Luckily, we have Youtube now, which stops the more egregious abuses, but the problem still remains.

It’s not like that in print.  You are way more accountable for what you write, because it’s there for people to stare at, double-check, and read over and over again.  It’s there 3 months later, when the exact opposite of what you said would happen, happens.  It moderates your tone, because you know it can be thrown back in your face.

Blogs are the ultimate media because they combine instant availability with maximum accountability.  They are simultaneously fleeting and durable.  A veritable best of both worlds.

So, moral of the story?  Read.  Mostly blogs.  Not to few.

(Suck on that one, Michael Pollan.)

I just ordered my (and Jackie’s) Wii.  We decided to do a joint Christmas present this year, which is good because I was kind of feeling a little bit weird about this Christmas.  This year was the first year that Jackie and I had our money pooled together in one account, and it makes it a little awkward when buying gifts.  I never really thought about it until Christmas rolled around.  I mean, it’s almost like you’re (partially) buying your own presents, right?

I will say, though, that this momentary weird feeling with gift-giving is well worth it when you consider all of the awkwardness that evaporates when your money is pooled together, such as paying for dinners, groceries, Target trips, etc.

Anyway, I’m open for game suggestions, so holla’ back atcha boy.

MacFUSE is a fantastic resource available to us Mac owners that some of you may or may not know about. Version 2.0 was released recently, and Amit Singh of Google (author of MacFUSE), recently did a State of the Union address for it.

It’s a pretty interesting presentation (long though…hour and nineteen minutes), but is informative none-the-less.

This time we had a great visit by Kevin Marks, virtually, from California, where he works for Google on Open Social. These are some musing I had after the chat bout the business of social media online

I’ve been meaning to make a life update post for awhile now, ever since Nikki and I broke up. If you didn’t know that, I apologize; it’s been a pretty good while…but perhaps that speaks to the necessity of this post (my idea for the title for the original post was ” Operation: E-Rothman Freedom”)

Anyways, that happened. I really liked Nikki, but we had really different lifestyles and it started to wear on things. At any rate, I’m the happiest I’ve been since I can remember. Fil graciously invited me to move in with him, which I, of course, accepted. I was (and still am) elated to be out of shitty shitty bay ridge (chitty chitty bang bang?) and rocking out in one of the coolest neighborhoods I have yet to live in.

Living with Fil is a treat, as one might expect. We also secured two new roommates via craigslist, Morgan and Caroline, who are as cool as one could hope for. Morgan is from New Jersey, born and raised (no haters, please) and works for a non-profit on the Upper West Side snagging internships for foreigners at companies like Google and some others that I can’t remember. Caroline is from Australia and is a web designer. She calls cotton candy “fairy floss”. Some Juicers have had the pleasure of meeting these fine girls and can vouch for their legitimacy.

Work has been pretty damn swell. I have successfully managed, so far at least, to conjure up the meager beginnings of a successful freelancing career. After interning and landing some freelance at Curious, I worked on Falling Up at Charged, a cozy stop-motion studio in Gowanus. I am not sure that I will ever again have a job quite as sweet. The crew was small (4-5 people) and the ping pong was fierce. Hours: 10 or 11 to 7 or 8. Can’t beat that shit.

I worked on some little jobs in the interim and am now back on Falling Up for a short while working out of the ol’ bedroom. Working at home is a little weird, but it has its perks. For example, I can’t forget to bring my lunch. It’s hard to get in the swing of things sometimes. You have to remind yourself that you are “at work” even though you are completely naked. Anyways, that about brings us up to speed.

Oh, I got a tattoo. Here it is:

It’s a little reminder to not get too stuck in my own head when I’m rockin’ out in the day to day grind. Pay attention, get the most out of every task, look around, life is happening all around you, all that nonsense. I hope you all enjoy it. I know I do.

Anyways, that about sums it up. I love all of you. Don’t be strangers.

This one’s for all you Final Fantasy fans out there:

Yglesias:

Americans love and respect the men and women who volunteer for military service under our flag. And those of us who’ve had friends serve in Iraq, and especially those who’ve personally served in Iraq and watched friends be killed or maimed, think only the best of the people who’ve been doing dangerous jobs in difficult circumstances. But I think it’s crucially important not to allow these positive sentiments about soldiers and marines to deteriorate into sentimentality about the mission they were undertaking in Iraq. The Iraqi people didn’t ask to be liberarted conquered and occupied by a foreign power that destroyed their country and then immediately set about meddling in Iraqi politics and until just a month or so ago was struggling mightily for the right to permanently station military forces on Iraqi soil contrary to the will of the Iraqi public. Not only did Iraqis not ask for such services, but nobody anywhere has ever asked for them.

The harsh reality is that this was not a noble undertaking done for good reasons. It was a criminal enterprise launched by madmen cheered on by a chorus of fools and cowards. And it’s seen as such by virtually everyone all around the world — including but by no means limited to the Arab world. But it’s impolitic to point this out in the United States, and it’s clear that even a president-elect who had the wisdom not to be suckered in by the War Fever of 2002 has no intention of really acting to marginalize the bad actors. Which, I think, makes sense for his political objectives. But if Americans want to play a constructive role in world affairs, it’s vitally important for us to get in touch with the reality of what the past eight years of US foreign policy have been and how they’re seen and understood by people who aren’t stirred by the shibboleths of American patriotism.

Ditto.