• Good and Joyful Things

    The Nation: Beyond Gay Marriage

    Ironically, by overreaching with the state marriage amendments, the right wing may have provided the gay movement and progressives with an ideal starting point for just such a campaign. By showing the sheer number of households affected by such broad constitutional amendments, progressives can demonstrate just how narrow and extremist the pro-marriage agenda is. Defense of marriage amendments not only enshrine discrimination against gays and lesbians in state constitutions; they also severely curtail the freedom of intimate association exercised by Americans in nonmarried households–gay and straight alike. Indeed, a recent decision by a federal judge striking down Nebraska’s defense of…

  • Hot Off The Presses

    Hybrid Cars: Safety Issues

    I ran across the following via Neat New Stuff: Are rescue workers in your town trained to deal with car crashes that involve hybrid cars? These new “green” cars could endanger untrained rescue workers if they unknowingly cut through electrical lines that could still be hot. A couple of interesting links: 500-volt hybrid vehicles pose electrocution risk to emergency workers A State Farm article, and eventually a link to a safety video is here. We’re enjoying driving the Ford Escape Hybrid, but it’s true that your typical EMT or rescue personnel won’t know very much about the risks and techniques…

  • Clan: McTiVo

    Duncan MacLeod of the Executive Producer MacLeod

    Adrian Paul to executive produce Highlander 5 The Highlander fan list, HIGHLA-L, has been batting this dead pony around in a desultory way for a couple of weeks now. Actually, discussion has been revitalized in the last month, with actual stuff to discuss, whether on-topic or not. It’s been nice to see some old friends ride up on their trusty steeds (which can be any sort of mammal, not excluding cows, ferrets, and wombats). However, the Dead Pony Regiment has been having the most fun pooh-poohing the thought of another Highlander movie sequel, because they’re sure it’ll be screwed up.…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    United Airlines Slowdown: Deadheads In Uniform

    A co-worker who’s trying to fly United today is stuck at O’Hare because she was told she’d checked in juuuuust a couple of minutes too late to check baggage and was bumped from her flight. Then she was told that the next flight she was standing by for was oversold, but the airline is putting 20 flight attendants and pilots on in full uniform so they can go to Denver (her destination). A UA res person I spoke to just now was extremely tactful and careful about how she worded it, but the flight ops record is tagged that employees…

  • Hot Off The Presses

    Fan. Shit. Hit.

    Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has resigned. I just happened to have an NPR webcast on and heard the Resident’s statement. And Justice Rehnquist is stepping down any time now, too. The climate in this country is going to get remarkably stormy and dangerous for women whose birth control method fails them. Thank God I got the snip, and I’m probably already past it anyway. But thank God. I’ve already stopped by the NARAL Pro-Choice America website. They’re asking for people to contact our senators. If you have a story to tell, there’s a website called I’m Not Sorry. It seems…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    Oh. My. God.

    An entire month of festivities has begun in an annual festival designed to remind the humble employees that we are a valuable part of the company. It’s fairly innocuous, rah-rah stuff, with treats and events most days. And special dress-up fun, too. It’s all in good fun and only coincidentally it runs the entire month before the company-wide employee survey, which is important in our world because some management ratings are based on it. Today we were supposed to show up in company logowear. We’ve been given a variety of freebie shirts over the years, so I dragged the first…