Republican college students unite!  Demand your right to a campus free of transgender bathrooms!

BSU takes heat for 'transgender bathroom' (The Oregonian):
..."We don't want the university to label this a transgender bathroom," said Jonathan Sawmiller, 22, a BSU student senator and president of the school's College Republicans. He raised the issue in an April radio broadcast on a Boise AM station. "Since the media got hold of it, the university was told to stop referring to it as a 'transgender bathroom,' and to start calling it 'unisex,' " he said.

Sawmiller, who in early 2007 confronted BSU President Bob Kustra with a complaint that the school invites mostly liberal speakers, has enlisted the assistance of the Idaho Values Alliance, a conservative Christian group.

"Our view is, gender is assigned at birth," said Bryan Fischer, the Idaho Values Alliance leader. "There's no third or fourth or fifth option."

Fischer wants to know whether student groups -- BSU's 200 campus organizations include Bisexuals, Gays, Lesbians and Allies for Diversity -- will be allowed to alert transgender individuals to the restroom in their literature...

These guys desperately need something important to worry about.

New Hampshire legalizes civil unions!  I found this particular comment extremely amusing:

...Several senators described civil unions as unnatural and warned that the partnerships would harm heterosexual marriage. "We don't allow our cousins to marry, you can't marry your brother, you can't marry your sister," said Sen. Robert Letourneau, a Derry Republican. "We don't allow blind people to drive or felons to vote, all for good and obvious reasons."...

Thank you for comparing a healthy loving relationship between two people of the same gender to blind people driving, criminals voting, and incest.  What an ass.  What, pray tell, are the "good and obvious" reasons for disallowing gay marriage?  I've yet to hear any, and I've been listening for a long time.  Besides, these are civil unions we are talking about.  Oh yeah, and on that note, Letourneau has more to say...

...Despite the efforts of Democratic senators to distinguish civil unions from same-sex marriage, Republicans cast civil unions as marriage in all but name. "Let's call it what it really is," Letourneau said. "This creates same-sex marriage."...

I'm sorry I was laughing too hard to follow that.  Do you mean to tell me after all the tooth and nail fighting deny gay people marriage and the offering of civil unions as a substitute, now we're going to say that civil unions are the same as gay marriage?  Then what was the point of making the differentiation before we banned gay marriage?  You gays can't have X, why can't you settle for Y?  Okay now we passed a law saying you can't have X.  What you want Y now?  No way!  It's as bad as X!

Good for you New Hampshire.  I'd rather it was same-sex marriage, but at least this is a step in the right direction.

Over the weekend the Governor of Washington State, Chris Gregoire, signed into law a domestic-partners bill that gives gay couples some similar rights to married couples in the state of Washington.  While it doesn't address all the issues it does address a few of the most important ones, such as the right to visit a dying partner in the hospital, or to take part in a partner's funeral arrangements.  It also creates a domestic partnership registry.  Gregoire herself seems to be strongly on board with this bill, as quoted in the Guardian UK Unlimited article:

..."This is a very proud moment for me as governor, to make sure the rights of all of our citizens are equal," Gregoire said.

People in the crowd cried as Gregoire relayed stories of couples who testified before lawmakers this year about how they have been denied hospital access to dying partners, or were not allowed to plan their funerals.

"It is time we put an end to these stories," she said. "This simply allows our seniors and our same sex partners to rely on each other and to care for each other when they are faced with life and death situations. These are the rights of all Washingtonians."...

Needless to say, the knuckledraggers aren't very happy with this turn of events.  Imagine!  Letting someone who has had a loving relationship with their partner for years visit their dying partner in a hospital!  The horror!

..."I think it's an unfortunate step backward, not knowing where it will lead us culturally," said Joseph Fuiten, a Bothell pastor who is the leader of Positive Christian Agenda, a state group of Christian organizations opposed to gay marriage. "Giving marriage-lite benefits without the benefit of marriage strikes me as not a good idea."

Well jeeze, chucklehead, maybe if you would freaking let them get married in the first place, we wouldn't be having to address their rights in this way would we?  Damn that burns me... working to make sure these folks can't get married and then saying that giving someone the benefits of marriage without marriage itself isn't right.  What a jerk.  The "step backward" remark recognizes the knuckledragger sponsored ban on same-sex marriages that was passed in Washington in 1998 (the inappropriately named "Defense of Marriage Act"), and was upheld in the state supreme court last year.

Continuing in the vein of yesterday's post, I have a few more random thoughts to share...

Survivorman
Perhaps you've never seen this show, it's on The Science Channel (not to be confused with Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel).  I really enjoy it.  The premise is simple.  In each episode they take Les Stroud and dump him in the middle of nowhere with meagre supplies and about 50 pounds of camera equipment.  His only mission is to survive for seven days before the crew returns to pick him up.  He's not allowed to break down the camera equipment and use it for survival, and he does all the filming himself.  I can only imagine what an incredible amount of effort is involved in shooting himself walking past the camera or trudging off into the distance, only to have to return and get the camera.  This show strikes me as one James would enjoy.  I've seen this poor guy dumped in the arctic tundra, the swamps of Georgia, some desert out west somewhere, even one episode where he had to survive in a life raft at sea for seven days. You can order season 1 of the show on DVD if you are interested.  I discovered this show during my many days of bedrest over the last month or so.

North and West of the City...
I'm sick of this phrase.  I hear it all the time during weather reports, as in "2 to 5 inches of snow are expected in the Boston area, while areas North and West of the city could receive as much as a foot."  It's snowing today.  Unlike those in and south of the city, there's no rain following the storm here... it's just piling up.  Day before St. Patrick's day and the snow is just dumping down.  *sigh*

Cosmos and Carl
I miss Carl Sagan, and I loved Cosmos when I was a kid.  One of my best memories of childhood is sitting in the living room with my Dad watching Carl explain history, other dimensions, outer space, the doppler effect, and various other intriguing things.  Pat and I both talked recently of trying to find the Cosmos series on DVD to watch with Lynnea (though it might be too slow paced for her.)  Amazon has it, if you are interested.  One of my favorite segments of that series was when Carl explained what it would be like for two dimensional creatures to encounter a three dimensional one, as a way of explaining what a fourth dimension might be like, as a mechanism for explaining the concept of a curved universe as it relates to the big bang.  The two dimensional creatures were called "flatlanders" because they lived (appropriately enough) in Flatland.  I finally found that segment on YouTube, but it is included in a larger 10 minute video.  You can watch it here, the part about Flatland starts about 3 minutes in, after a discussion of Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding.  In the next segment, Carl ties in the curved universe and questions about the existence of God.  It's slow paced but wonderfully done.  I really should pick that series up and watch it again as an adult--I've no doubt I'd learn more this time.

Destroying a Career
As you probably know, Valerie Plame testified today before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and finally had a chance to speak out on her cover being blown by an administration with hopelessly misplaced priorities.  One of the saddest things about this, as far as I can see, is that her CIA career as a covert agent is basically over at this point.  That's got to be infuriating for her.  I can't imagine what that must be like.  From her testimony today:

..."My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department. [...] I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained." [...] Under questioning, Plame recounted feeling "like I had been hit in the gut" on the July 2003 morning when she saw a newspaper story by syndicated columnist Robert Novak identifying her...

Pace and the Unbagged Cat
Smooth one General, really smooth.  For those of you who haven't heard, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, stepped in it on Tuesday by saying he supported the Pentagon's ban on gays serving openly in the military because homosexual acts are "immoral".  Way to go, dickhead.  There are thousands upon thousands of gay people serving in our great nation's military right now, many of them putting themselves in harm's way.  Thanks for telling them that they're a bunch of immoral perverts.  General Pace, for his part, has refused to apologize for the remarks, and has only gone as far as to say that he regrets making them.  I'll bet he does, but only because it is inconvenient for him now that the cat is out of the bag.  As far as offending the gay troops who've been valiantly serving over the last four years of this misguided war?  It's clear what Pace thinks of them.  I never understood the ban on gays in the military, and I understood don't-ask-don't-tell even less, except that it allows good soldiers to serve a country that needs them, regardless of their sexual orientation.  And the same people that screeched in 1993 that we couldn't let gays in are screeching today that we can't let gays serve openly, for the same stupid reasons--because it would cause a breakdown in unit cohesion on the battlefield.  What a bunch of bullshit.  I'm sorry but a guy brave enough to crawl across a battlefield under fire while trying to avoid landmines isn't going to be worrying if the guy behind him is checking out his ass.  Give me a goddamned break, PLEASE.  Here's a thought, I won't ask then next time something as stupid as that enters your mind, and you don't tell, okay? (As a sad but not unexpected sidenote, conservatives are leaping to the General's defense.)

Dick Cheney's daughter Mary is pregnant with her first child, which will be raised by her and her lesbian partner.  This is obviously good news for Mary and her partner, and for the Vice President and his wife--most parents love having more grandchildren.  Other conservative screwheads are taking the news somewhat less pleasantly:

From A pregnant pause in right wing (latimes.com):
..."Not only is she doing a disservice to her child, she's voiding all the effort her father put into the Bush administration," said Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank of Concerned Women for America. Asked why the administration downplayed the news, she added, "This is Cheney's daughter; anything they say will make the situation worse."...

...Some groups that oppose same-sex marriage and gay adoptions — such as the Family Research Council and the Eagle Forum — declined to comment. But others were critical, albeit with a delicate touch not always seen in the political wars over gay issues.

"Children deserve the very best we can offer, and gay adoption — by definition — intentionally denies children either a mother or a father," said Carrie Gordon Earll, an analyst for Focus on the Family, the Colorado-based family advocacy ministry. "Adoption laws should put the needs of children first, above the desires of adults."

I agree, adoption laws should be putting the needs of children above the desires of adults.  I'm thinking particularly of the adults who would deny a child a pair of stable, loving adoptive parents simply because those parents happen to be a gay couple.  I've mentioned this before--the science doesn't back these dingwads--gay parents are just as capable of raising happy, healthy, and well-adjusted children as hetero parents.

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...The unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated...   more »

Back in July the Twin Cities Blog (a blog for the local Sentinel & Enterprise newspaper serving Fitchburg, Leominster, and the surrounding communities) posted a simple question...   more »